One more race to close out the year, this evening. I run the #fairfaxfourmiler any year that I am home for the holidays, so here we go. I don’t have any major race goals for the night but am interested in what kind of a fitness benchmark I get from this. I’ll start a buildup to @cucb in about two weeks. It’s been an up and down 2018 year of running. I ran @njmarathon back in April and had a very tough day, running a PW of 3:51, and that was after good tuneups at both #cherryblossomtenmiler and #parkwayclassic10miler. Still it was my 15th career marathon finish. I bounced back from that bummer to get a 3rd place age group finish in the #fountainheadtrail10k in June. Then I targeted the #crystalcitytwilighter5k in July and got primed for a speedy race, only to have to slog through 5 inches of rain and come nowhere near my goal time. Rain, BTW, sometimes heavy, was a frequent fellow race participant this year, not surprising in this record setting year of DC area rainfall (oh look at what tonight’s forecast is! 🙄). As fall kicked in I got busy with a new job and #xccoaching, which cut into my training time. In early October I scuttled my plan to run the marathon at Richmond, and switched to the #richmondhalfmarathon2018. My fitness was still below par but I managed to have a decent day at 1:39. Then I kept going with the fall races and racked up some solid local AG finishes - 2nd in the #viennaturkeytrot, a win in the #fairfaxturkeytrot4miler, and another AG win in the #treeoflife5k. My last race before tonight was the #jinglealltheway15k which I really didn’t have anything left in the tank for, plus it was a frigid day. So I ran it as a #temporun. According to Strava, I ran 1,564 miles this year, not including whatever I run tonight between warmup, race and cooldown. That's a fairly low total, which I definitely plan to improve on next year; 1800-1900 miles is more my happy place. I'm also paying renewed attention to #crosstraining as I go forward, even it means I don't hit the mileage target. This year challenged me in some new ways but I think I've learned a lot and am eager to take on 2019. But first, let's race tonight! 😎 #runblr #runninggoals (at Fairfax, Virginia) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsDv4nuhC9-/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=58xcb6tkmlja
