Year end wrap up

Finished off the year with a nice easy 6+ mile run on an extreme sort of day when compared with yesterday. Instead of +4C it was -13C with a wind chill of -20C (-2F) and a light dusting of snow on the roads and trails. As usual it was fine when going along 'with' the wind of 10-15mph but as soon as you turned into it, well time to pull down the hat, and pull up the neck/face warmer. Could have used vaseline on the exposed skin as well. It was actually a rather pretty day with the sun out for a change and nice layer of sea-fog on the ocean from the cold air. My total time of 55min seemed slow despite holding back and running easy. Probably should measure this standard recovery run route soon.

So, this last running day of the year brought my total for the year up to 2215 mi which averages out to 43/week or about 6.1/day. You can see my weekly training and races in 2005 in the plot below. The usual ups and downs while training for my spring and fall marathons and now the continual ramping of miles since October as I get into the heavy Boston training. Don't worry, the miles will now plateau out for at or near the 70 level for the next 15 weeks or so.
To put it in perspective, I also plotted the last few years of running and average 'miles of trials' per week. As you can see there has been a slipping of sorts in the past few years after my PB year of 2003. Perhaps the miles do make a difference... We'll see this coming year as I attempt to hold a higher mileage base through and after Boston.
In reviewing my running goals for 2005, which get written on the 1st page of my handwritten log at the beginning of each year, I fared reasonably well.

1. Enjoy running, relax on mileage a bit and # of days per week. Try to reduce to 5/week. Check on the mileage part but went stir crazy with two whole days off per week and only lasted till early Sept before going back to 6d/week.
2. Turning 50, so enter a few races going for age group placing. Couldn't miss on the turning 50 part and placed well in the few races I did do this year.
3. Boston, Cabot Trail and New York were the goal races. Bombed again at Boston due to the warm conditions, did well at CTR, didn't get in to NY and did the KV marathon instead.
4. Stretch and strength exercises on my days off. Nope, failing grade here. Usually do a few stretches before runs but nothing to serious and not very consistent with the core strength stuff either.

So "that's all she wrote". It was a very good year in retrospect, stayed healthy, ran most days that I wanted to, discovered the interesting running blog world and am now all geared up for a great 2006! See you on the roads!!