A year on reflection

So with all this self-criticalness, I actually took some time today in my own little world on the beach at Watson's Bay to think about what I'd achieved in my first 'proper' year of running. Admittedly my training proper for the MDS started in October of 2007, but that was merely base training. I started training for the Canberra Marathon 'proper' in January of this year and it's been a year that in all honesty has surpassed where I thought I'd be.

For starters, I'm fitter than I thought I would be. My goal was really only to do one marathon at around 3hr 45min, and then head down and train for the rest of the year. After Canberra I became a little lost and just 'trained', but focused on getting fitter without really realising it. That culminated in a 3hr 32min marathon at the Hunter Valley, which in all honesty I didn't know where it came from. Onwards and upwards as they say and I got to know a few of the 'regulars' on the running circuit via the cool running website over here and before you know it I'm doing back to back marathons. The the big move up to 100kms at Glasshouse, which whilst I was pleased I completed, I was actually very disappointed with the time. I got it all wrong in some respects and learnt a big lesson that day in how to 'run' an ultra.

I then got talked into doing the 175km GNW, which on reflection was something I was not wholly focused on, and as a result, saw me 'finish' at the 103km mark, with a few extra for getting obscenely lost in the Basin. Having been so bitterly disappointed with that I drove to Canberra and did the Deep Space marathon in bitterly cold weather and was happy to just run on the cut off time, again another good character building run. And so here we are now injured, but I need to be positive.

In just over one year of running I've gone from not having more than 12 miles (just looked at my base training from Oct-Dec 2007) in my life to the following:

- 6 marathons in 8 months (with a PB 17 minutes above what I thought I'd do)
- 2 x 100kms races
- 4 x 45km plus training runs with a 75km night run

Not all that bad for someone that started the year a 'rugby-fit' second row at 105kgs, and not having run more than 12 miles in his life. For now it's swimming and cycling until and I can confidently run on this left leg of mine. Let's wish hard that it recovers by around mid January so I can do some good training into the lead in for the MDS. Having this hot weather at the moment is killing me because all I want to do is get out and train in it!