2009: The Year in Running

2009 wasn't the most eventful year in running for me, but it was still enjoyable. I think it was the year when running became a hobby and not so much a focused exercise. In a way I began to take running for granted. My workouts became less frequent and I was easily persuaded to skip runs, which sadly manifested into an expanded waistline. Part of the problem was that I didn't renew my gym membership. When I used to go to the gym I would go right after work. I'd do weights and run. Now I go home straightaway, which makes it so easy to get lazy. There's something about being at home that makes me just want to slink into a chair and not move. It may be home, sweet home, but to me it's also the place you go to get fat.

In 2009 I only ran one marathon: the Inaugural Seattle Rock n' Roll Marathon in June. In terms of training for the race, it was one of my least trained marathons. Still I managed to run my second fastest marathon at 3:53:24, but then again I fainted an hour after the race too. Not so good. To put things in perspective, I ran my fastest marathon, a 3:49 effort at San Diego, in May 2007. It has been over two years. I really ought to be improving every year, but instead I'm at a plateau. I'm glad I haven't gotten too slow and running sub four hour marathons is certainly a good showing, but I should be pushing to improve. Other than the marathon in Seattle I also ran a half marathon in Las Vegas last month, but that wasn't much of an effort. I treated it like a training run and wound up running just over two hours--the slowest half marathon I've ever run at over two hours. I've never run a half marathon more than two hours!

The only other run worth noting was the Ragnar relay. I don't know my splits exactly, but our team rocked and finished third in our division. But more importantly it was a blast. We're planning to do it again this April.

For 2010 the only race on the docket so far is the new (and improved?) Los Angeles Marathon. I'm hoping to finish under 3:45 for this race but so far my training has been haphazard. Fortunately the race isn't until late March, so I have some time to put in some quality running. I have to start now, though. I'll consider doing another race in the fall. Maybe I'll submit my name to NYC or Portland. There's also the Inaugural Los Angeles Rock n' Roll Half Marathon in October. Maybe I can finally post a sub-1:40 half marathon at that race.

So, here's to a good running year in 2010. 2009 wasn't bad, but I was definitely disappointed in my self for not putting in more of an effort. Gotta stop being lazy about running from now on. I'll start on that tomorrow.