Sandy Runs

I haven't blogged all year. In fact, I didn't even finish my 2017 race reports. What happened? I still ran. In fact, I ran several races, and did meet some of my annual running goals. But I also focused on other areas of my life that needed attention. I dropped the ball on some things, and I missed some of my other running goals. Right now I'm not going to write new running goals, because I'm not ready. I will, however, state one broad goal, and that is this: I will post a running-related story once per month in 2019. So, here's the 2018 recap: My 2018 Goals I will lead the 11:00 pace group for CWRC. CWRC is the Columbus Westside Running Club , which I joined after moving to Columbus, and this goal was about the winter/spring training program leading up to spring races. I started this, but I didn't finish. Very early on it became clear to me that I was not in the game mentally and not prepared to lead others on a weekly basis. A January training run ...

As reported here , I fell short of meeting my 2017 running goals. I was on track for some good success until two things happened: 1) I became injured, which was not under my control; 2) I started a new job and failed to adjust to my lack of free time - this, I could have done better to mitigate. But I'm feeling great about 2018 already. I'm in a better place than last January, both mentally and physically. Soon, a move to a townhouse in the Merion Village neighborhood of Columbus will put me closer to the Scioto Trail, Schiller Park, and to two of the three local groups that I run with.  Saturday morning training run with CWRC; this one was technically from 2017 (December 30), but it shows I'm getting out there even in bad weather, and I plan to keep that up In addition to working on consistency with my training, I plan to pick up where I left off before last year's injuries. That means working on speed with the intent to earn some new PRs this year. Here we go...

It's time to review the 2017 running year. I made several changes in my life (moved out of state, started a new job), and had a few injuries. This made it difficult to achieve all of my 2017 goals. Still, I'm happy to celebrate a few victories. Here's a rundown of each 2017 goal and its outcome.  Finishing the Medina Half Marathon a couple minutes under goal time, knowing that a half marathon PR would come soon....but it didn't come due to injuries. 2017 Goal: I will focus on consistent running. Starting no later than February, after my move, I'll run on Tuesday nights with the Columbus Westside Running Club (CWRC). I'm also going to run with them on Sunday mornings as part of their half and quarter marathon training program. I'll log extra miles on several Sundays to get into marathon shape. Outcome: While I did become a regular at CWRC Tuesday nights, I rarely showed up for Sunday morning runs. For part of the year I was also a regular at running...

Most of my regular followers will know that I was selected as part of a team of five to represent Columbus, Ohio at the marathon of our sister city Hefei, China. I blogged about the announcement here and here , and about my team's fundraiser here . On November 8, 2017, we set off to the Far East, arriving in Hefei, China late evening on November 9th. We spent five days in Hefei, after which everyone went separate directions. My travels took me to Bangkok, Thailand, and then back to China to spend time in and around Beijing. But this post is about Hefei and the marathon I ran there. Post marathon with Courtney, Bernard, me, Echo and Lily in back The Hefei International Marathon is a large event, with tens of thousands of participants across all race distances (marathon, half marathon, 5K and 10K). The marathon had the smallest race field of all events, but included some very competitive elite runners. The Lead-Up Through the sister city marathon exchange, our team o...