My 2011 Running Season in the Rearview

My running season for 2011 ended in October with the Hallow’s Eve Trail race.

It was my second full year of running, and I saw a lot of improvement. Race reports for all my events are available on the post of my 2011 Race schedule.

My highlights were:

Beating my goal of a 3:30 marathon (and knocking ~45 minutes off my previous best time)
Completing my first triathlon (and embarrassing myself by having to backstroke to stay afloat on a sprint swim)
Completing a total of 12 races and setting a PB on each course I had run previously
Coming second for my age group in the 5 Peaks series (enduro)
Running a total of over 1,600km in 146 hours of training

In the end I raced every event I had set out at the beginning of the year with the exception of the Phatom 25k Trail race in November (and the Knee Knacker because I wasn’t selected in the lottery). By the time I completed the Hallows Eve trail race my knees were getting continually sore. The week after the race I was running the 13km trek home from work and I didn’t have any gas in the tank. My body needed a break.

I took 3 full weeks off of zero running and consumed many, many carbs (see: IPA). I’m now doing some base-building as I ramp up for the 2012 Van Marathon which will be my ‘A’ race for the year.

I have some more ambitious goals for next year (including running a BQ) and I’m looking at all the races I want to run. I’ll be posting my schedule soon.

I find myself wondering when I’ll get bored of running. Or at least tired of running so much as is required to continually improve. So far I haven’t found the answer. 2011 was a great year and I’m proud of how far I’ve come a runner. I’m looking forward to getting better still.

This post is one in a series about my personal running; training and racing. For other posts like this, click here.