Well. 2016 has passed and I am not entirely sure if I even achieved any of my goals I had set out for myself. That doesnt necesarily mean it was a bad year, just indicative of how little I follow up with goals. It was a fairly carefree year in terms of giving a shit.
I stopped tracking my running stats sometime between at the end of June. Previously I had been recording my exercise stats on a spreadsheet I maintained since 2009. Distance, elevation gain, time, etc. And now nothing. I still wore my gps watch most of the time and so I would upload my runs to strava but that wasnt consistent. I found a new app to put on my phone that has mapping and gps capability which was helpful to prevent myself from getting lost. Well, except for the time early in the year where I got really lost which wasnt so good.
I hurt my ankle in June, I think maybe at a 50 mile race I ran. I then continued to run in pain until mid December. I had another race just 3 weeks later that I thought I could test it at but that turned out painful and then I was only 3 weeks away from pacing duties so I kept going. And then I was only 4 weeks from my own long race so I kept pushing but then that went like crap because my ankle was hurt. And then I got laid off and the temporary work I found involved running deliveries all day so that didnt help my ankle. Finally in December I stopped running so I could rest my ankle. I had this absurd notion to run for 24 hours on the 30 or 31 of December just to celebrate 7 years of being drug free, I felt it would be some sort of special polar opposite from what I was doing 7 years ago. But instead I continued to appropriately rest my ankle.
I have successfully not signed up for any races next year. I intend on racing less for both running joy reasons and for financial reasons. It has taken a long time, but I think I have finally realised there is no specific joy in participating in a race, I prefer to just be in the mountains on my own. I have goals for next year in terms of places I want to run and fitness goals. Peaks, traverses, crossings, ridgelines and summits are far more exciting than races I think.
I have other rather boring non running related goals as well.
The highlight of the year in terms of racing was pacing for someone else at one of their long races. I hope I was helpful and it left me feeling inspired.
This is probably one of the least thoughtful year in review posts I have ever written. I wonder how long until I let this whole idea of blogging whither away to nothing. I made a feeble attempt at turning running into something that was athleticly driven earlier in the year. perhaps that failed due to injury. Racing used to always be the driving factor to motivate me to better myself as a person. And all that I needed to do to better myself for running also bettered myself as a person. I used training for races as a vehicle to better myself as a person. I no longer need that vehicle because that journey is done, I am a better person. I have quelled the demons (well mostly, nobodies perfect). So if I no longer need to use training for races as a way to better myself, then I seem to have lost my motivation to train for races. So I think I might just stick to running to wonderful places in the mountains.
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