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2021 Running Review

I am quite happy with how my running went in 2021 . As a quick background, I took up running as a pandemic hobby in 2020, albeit from a somewhat athletic starting point. I ran my first marathon (first running race longer than a 5K) in 3:32. I ran over 1,300 mi in total in 2020.

2021: My overall running was down a bit to 960 miles, due to two great life events. First, Kelly & I bought a house which meant a lot of my free time went to projects around the house & yard. Second, Kelly gave birth to our daughter Riley!

Despite this, I still completed my first half marathon race, crushing my goal time with a finish of 1:32:06. I was able to sneak this race in less than a week before Riley was born. Along the way I also PR’d the 10K in my first ever race win.

Overall, I’m most proud of continuing to get back on track to train & race through the two big events that came my way this year. I feel like this was not a quick fad for me and something I will keep up for many years to come. I’m actually starting to enjoy running more and more, whereas in the beginning it was just something I did to stay healthy during the pandemic.

2022: I plan to run 2 marathons and hope to break 3:10 so I can qualify for the 2023 Chicago marathon on time (I hope to break 3 hours in Chicago…). My second marathon of the year will be the Richmond marathon. I am currently targeting the Coastal Delaware Running Festival marathon for the spring but there is still time for my plans to change. I also hope to bump my annual mileage up over 1,500 miles. For my first marathon I will follow the same training plan I did for the 2020 Richmond marathon but for my second I want to follow a longer training plan.

I wanted to break 20 minutes in the 5K, which I did in the RRRC First Day 5K race finishing in 19:55 (previous PR was 20:50), so I am off to a great start!

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Yoga

Everyone has regrets about high school. Maybe they should have studied harder. Maybe they should have spent more (or less) time with their friends. Maybe they passed up an opportunity they never got again. 

I wish I had done yoga.

I played football in high school. I lifted weights. I was in great shape, except I had lower back pain. It was most severe during football season, but hurt pretty much year round. 

I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t severe and I really loved playing football. I thought back pain was just part of being a linebacker. 

People told me to stretch. I stretched with the team before practice, so I thought I was following this advice.

Some people told me to do yoga. I laughed at them. Me, do yoga? Isn’t that for girls? Don’t you have to convert to Buddhism? 

When I graduated high school and hung up my shoulder pads for the last time, the back pain softened. But it never went away. Throughout most of college I was still active, mostly playing basketball. While not as bad as football season, my back pain would flare up the day after a game of basketball. 

Three years ago I found something that really helps. Yoga. 

My wife Kelly was going to yoga classes here and there. While I had ignored previous suggestions to do yoga, the continued back pain five years after my last football game pushed me to consider joining her. And so I did.

The first class was exactly what I expected. I was really bad, inflexible and with poor balance. We had a moment of meditation at the end (which I hated at the time, but like yoga, I now have a more positive attitude). The class was nearly all female.

And yet, after about four classes, my back felt better! 

Personal experience combined with Googling showed me what I would have already known had I paid attention in my high school anatomy class. My back pain wasn’t really the result of trauma to my back and it couldn’t be relieved with lower back stretches. It is largely caused by tight hamstrings. I have really tight hamstrings.

A yoga class does wonders for getting me to stretch my hamstrings and other tight spots, like my hips. I try to go once a week. Doing yoga regularly doesn’t necessarily make me feel better, it just makes my body not feel tight.  That’s a little frustrating. But it’s worth it. And I wish I could go back in time to convince my high school self of it. 

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New Year’s Resolutions: One Month Update

At the start of 2016, I decided on a few New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t normally make a big deal of New Year’s Resolutions and I can’t think of any that I have seriously followed through on. This year, I’m actually doing pretty well on them. For 2016 my resolutions are:

  1. Drink less alcohol, drink alcohol less frequently
  2. Exercise more
  3. Read the Bible
  4. Play more guitar
I have set a goal of getting my weight down to 185 pounds by my wedding (June 18th). To do this, I am eating at a caloric deficit and exercising three times a week. I am using MyFitnessPal to track what I eat and have done so for 28 days straight. The biggest change to my diet has been replacing bacon & eggs with a banana at breakfast, eating more chicken for dinner, and drinking less alcohol (goal #1). Drinking less alcohol has actually been fairly easy so far. Not drinking in a day is easy for me but once I have had a drink, I like to have a lot more. I am limiting my drinking to three days a week and tracking it with my food logging to ensure it does not push me beyond my caloric goals. In just a month, I’ve gone from 206.5 pounds (post-vacation weight) to 193 pounds.
For exercise, I am working out three times a week on the Stronglifts 5×5 weightlifting plan and the Couch to 5k running plan. I gave Stronglifts a try last year. I like the program a lot but didn’t do a great job of sticking to it (often taking a week off every two or three weeks). The Couch to 5k plan has been way better than I expected. I am actually enjoying the workouts and am not feeling the painful cramps I have felt when running over the past few years (even when I was in good shape). A big reason for this has been new running shoes, a Christmas gift from my grandparents. Kelly and I registered for a 5k at the start of March, which will be my first 5k.
This is not the first time I have tried reading the Bible. I’m definitely behind pace on this one but I am still making progress. I am on the 90 day plan (stretching it out any longer will lead to me dropping it). I’m reading it from start to finish and I sort of wish I had found a plan that mixed Old Testament and New Testament. 
Playing more guitar is definitely the most fun goal. I am definitely playing more guitar than last year. Mostly this has been picking up my guitar when in my living room and playing a song or two. For a little while I was brushing up on the modal scales. However, I haven’t tried to institute regular practice or playing. I have so much structure in place with the other goals, I don’t want to overdo it and burn myself out.