For as long as
I’ve had this blog, I’ve published a list of goals at the beginning of each
year. At the end of the year, I review
how I did. This year, my results were
mixed. I didn’t feel like writing this
post, but part of being goal-oriented is following up on your progress (or lack
thereof).
Heal from Injuries
At the beginning
of the year, I was healing from two injuries.
The first was a knee injury I suffered in the summer 2020. I continued with an ambitious race schedule,
and by the end of 2020 my knee was chronically inflamed. For most of 2021, I couldn’t run, so I
pivoted to race-walking. By the end of
2021, I was able to run marathons again, but the knee still bothered me.
I’m happy to say
that this injury is now completely healed.
It took half the year before I could run a marathon and not have any
soreness in my knee the next day. I’m
continuing to do the exercises that helped me heal from this injury, but it
hasn’t bothered me in the last six months.
The other injury I
had at the start of the year was discomfort on the right side of my lower back
that sometimes extended into my right leg.
At the beginning of the year, I had not seen the doctor yet. I assumed at the time that this was an acute
injury, such as a disk protrusion or possibly a herniation. It turns out that it’s a chronic
condition. My lower back muscles are
sometimes so tight that they pinch my sciatic nerve, which runs down the right
leg.
This injury has
plagued me all year. At first, I was
afraid to do any serious race-walk training.
After about two months of physical therapy, I improved enough that I was
ready to begin training for the National Senior Games, where I was completing
in two race-walk events. That went well
(more on that below).
While my sciatica
got better, it never went away completely.
In September, I had a major flare-up.
At one point, I couldn’t even stand up straight without pain. I had an MRI, which showed a synovial cyst in
my L5/S1 joint. An MRI early in the year
showed a cyst in the same place. Early
in the year, it wasn’t a problem. By
September, it had grown to the point where it was impinging on a nerve root.
I eventually had a
targeted cortisone injection that worked wonders. For the next seven weeks, I was completely
pain-free. More recently, the pain has
returned. I sometimes have mild
discomfort along the outside of my right thigh.
It feels like I have a tight or slightly painful hamstring, but there’s
nothing wrong with the muscle. It’s just
a nerve impingement.
The good news is
that this injury doesn’t prevent me from running and walking. It turns out that it responds best to
movement. The more I run and walk, the
less discomfort I have. Instead of being
an injury that prevents me from training, this one encourages me to keep
training.
I’m still doing
physical therapy to work on the tight muscles in my lower back. It’s possible that the synovial cyst was
grown again. After my injection, the
doctor said this is something that can come and go. It’s something that’s more common with
age. I’m learning how to manage it, but
it may be an ongoing concern.
I wish I could
stop here, but I developed another injury during the year. In May, I did a series of three marathons in
five days. During the first of those
races, my left hamstring felt tight as I started running. I ran cautiously during that race and in the
next two races. My hamstring didn’t get
worse, but it also didn’t get better.
After that, I was
training for the FANS 24-Hour Race, so I was deliberately running at a slow
pace. Running slowly, I felt fine. It was never an issue during FANS, but two
weeks later, I started to pick up the pace of my training runs. When I did, I immediately felt my left
hamstring again, but the discomfort wasn’t in the muscle. It was in the tendon where my hamstring
connects to my pelvis.
I’ve injured this
same tendon before. I knew from
experience that it can take a long time to heal. I’ve since learned that I could run without
aggravating it, but I had to run at a slow pace and avoid any sudden
accelerations. Race-walking was more
problematic. Anything much faster than a
casual walking pace was enough to aggravate it.
During the summer,
I did the races I was already signed up for, but I did very little training in
between. At the Minnesota Senior Games,
I abandoned any goal of being competitive and did the minimum necessary to
qualify for the National Senior Games. I
came in last in my age group in every event, but that was good enough. There were so few people in my age group that
I could qualify for nationals just by finishing my events.
During the 10K run
at the Minnesota Senior Games, I discovered I could run a little faster withing
aggravating my hamstring tendon if I kept my stride as short as possible. After that, I trained myself to run with
short rapid strides. Over the next few
months, I gradually picked up my training.
My race times were slow, but they were improving, despite limited
training.
More than once, I
tripped during a race, and I had to absorb the shock of an awkward landing with
my left leg. Each time, I felt like it
set back my recovery by about a month. Fortunately,
that hasn’t happened again since late September.
It’s not easy to
recover from this injury once it becomes chronic. I wasn’t sure at first if I would be forced
to take a complete break from running, but I finally feel like I’ve turned the
corner. I felt a little soreness in this
tendon during the first two miles of the Hawaii Bird Conservation Marathon,
when I was pushing hard to establish a fast pace. I didn’t know how I would feel after that
race, but I didn’t have any residual soreness the next day, and I haven’t
noticed it in any of my recent training runs.
The best measure
of my improvement is how fast I can walk without starting to feel soreness in
this tendon. At the end of the summer, I
had to limit my walking pace to roughly 16:00 per mile. More recently, I’ve brought my pace down to
about 11:30 without any soreness. For
the time being, I’m only doing race-walking on a treadmill, because it allows
me to control my pace carefully. I’m
picking up the pace in small increments, rather than walking as fast as I can.
For most of 2022,
I was held back by at least one injury, but I’m going into the new year with a
degree of optimism. My sciatica doesn’t
prevent me from training, the knee is fully healed, and the hamstring tendon
has healed sufficiently that it’s no longer preventing me from picking up the
pace of my training. After two straight
years where I didn’t feel like I could train, I may finally get back in shape.
Get Back in Shape
My next goal for
2022 was to get back in shape. I usually
define that by my ability to qualify for the Boston Marathon. I used to be able to do that on any given
weekend. Racing at that level is mostly
a function of training. If you can’t do
the training, you’re not going to be able to race as fast.
In 2021, my
training was held back by injuries, but I still managed to qualify for Boston
twice. In November of 2021, I surprised
myself by qualifying at the Philadelphia Marathon. I consider that an “honest” course. It’s a loop course, so it has no net
elevation loss. Later, I ran a faster
time on a downhill course.
To get into good
enough shape to qualify for Boston, you need to be able to train. In the past, I’ve depended mostly on a high
training volume, but that’s not usually enough.
I’ve also needed to do some form of speed work, whether that’s interval
workouts, tempo runs, or a steady diet of shorter races.
I had hoped to
heal completely from my injuries in time to do the necessary training to get
back into shape. That never
happened. My training volume picked up
in May and June, but dropped off dramatically after the hamstring injury. Since then, I’ve barely made it back to half
of my usual training volume. On top of
that, speed work has been impossible. If
I wanted that tendon to heal, I had to avoid any fast training.
I did manage to
run a Boston qualifying time in my last race of the year, but only because I
was running on a course that descends 3,700 feet. I never came close to qualifying on an
“honest” course. I’m not currently in
good enough shape to break four hours on a flat course, which is something I
used to take for granted. I definitely
fell short on this goal.
Get Back to a Lean
Weight
I have a pretty
good idea what my optimal weight for running is. I can still race well if I’m two or three
pounds over that weight, but any additional weight gain will result in slower
race times.
At the start of
the year, I was about six pounds over my optimal racing weight. I was hoping to lose at least half of that
weight, but to do that, I needed to increase my training volume. I’ve never been able to lose weight through
diet alone. I’ve always depended on both
diet and exercise, and getting enough exercise depended on being healthy enough
to increase my training volume. That
never happened.
By the beginning
of June, my weight was up a pound. Then
something unexpected happened. After the
FANS 24-Hour Race, I started to lose weight.
It wasn’t just weight loss during the race. My weight continued dropping for the next
week. When the dust settled, I was four
pounds lighter than I was before the race.
I’ve experienced the same thing before.
Sometimes, after a long endurance event, your metabolism remains
elevated for several days.
It was tough to
keep the weight off during the summer, because my training dropped off
significantly. Still, by the end of the
summer, I had only gained back two of those pounds.
In the fall, my
training picked up, but it was still only about half of what it was in 2019 and
2020. As I started traveling out of
state for more races, I started eating out more. I’d gain a pound each time I went out of town
for a weekend. Between trips, I
maintained my weight, but I never lost that pound. By the time I returned from my last race of
the year, I was two pounds heavier than I was at the start of the year.
In retrospect, I
probably shouldn’t have made getting healthy and losing weight two of my goals
for the year. Getting and staying
healthy, increasing my training volume, and losing weight are all components of
getting back in shape, but they’re inter-related. Each of these goals was a means to an
end. The end goal is getting back in
shape, and that’s a goal that will continue into 2023.
Strike a Balance
Between Running and Race-walking
In the past, I’ve
pivoted to race-walking whenever an injury prevented me from running. When I was able to resume running, walking
was no longer a priority. I might still
do some walking just to get more exercise, but I wouldn’t train to walk at a
fast pace. This year, I wanted to change
that, and I think I did a reasonable job of it.
When it comes to
marathons, I prefer to run them. The
motion of running feel more fluid, and I can finish a marathon faster that
way. When it comes to shorter races, I
prefer to race-walk. As a runner, I’m
not particularly competitive at short distances. As a race-walker, I can complete in my age
group, even at a national level (more on that below).
Over the course of
the year, I ran more races than I walked, but I struck more of a balance in my
training. I tended to alternate between
running days and walking days. If you
look at my total mileage, it skews pretty hard toward running mileage, but if
you compare the number of days I ran at least a mile to the number of days I
walked at least a mile, they were roughly equal.
I had good results
at both disciplines. As a race-walker, I
was able to place in my age group in the National Senior Games. As a runner, I was able to win an age group
championship in a 24-hour race.
Running is good
cross-training for walking, and walking is good cross-training for
running. In particular, running is the
easier way to build endurance, while walking at a fast pace can be a good speed
workout that also helps me run faster.
I’ve also found that race-walking develops the muscles I use most when
running downhill. Since I took up
race-walking, I’ve had surprisingly good results in downhill races, even when I
wasn’t in shape.
Run Some
International Races
From 2010 through
2019, I finished marathons in at least two new countries every year. That streak ended in 2020, when the pandemic
forced me to cancel trips to eight different countries. I didn’t run any international races in 2021,
but I was hoping to do at least two this year.
At the beginning
of the year, I was already signed up to run the Malta Marathon in March, and I
was tentatively planning to run the Tallinn Marathon in September. The Malta Marathon was cancelled. I considered doing the Rio de Janeiro
Marathon in June, but I decided to hold off on international travel until the
U.S. dropped the requirement for a negative COVID test within one day of
traveling home. Instead, I waited until
September, when I ran the Tallinn Marathon.
At the beginning
of the year, I thought I might fit in one more international race later in the
year, but that never worked out. I chose
to prioritize states over countries. I
only visited one new country this year, but that’s better than none.
Compete at a
National Level in Race-Walking
At the start of
the year, I was already signed up to do two race-walking events at the National
Senior Games in May. Based on my 5,000
meter time at the Minnesota Senior Games in 2021, I has reason to believe I
could place in the top three in the 5,000.
I was also signed up for the 1,500.
I had never raced that distance before, and I had yet to do any serious
training for it. I optimistically set a
goal of placing in the top eight, but I didn’t know if that was realistic.
Last January, I
wrote that of all of my goals for 2022, this one is the most tenuous. That’s mostly because my training fell off
after my lower back problems started, and I didn’t know if I could resume
training in time to get into peak shape.
Ironically, this was the goal I nailed.
I placed second in the 5,000 and fourth in the 1,500.
Make Progress on
My 4th (and 5th) Circuit of 50 States
My final goal of
2022 was to make progress on my fourth (and fifth) circuits of marathons in all
50 states. This was a somewhat soft
goal. I didn’t commit to a specific
number of states. Instead, my goal was
to have at least one third of my marathons be in states I needed for my fourth
or fifth circuit.
I ran a total of
25 marathons or ultras in 2022. Those
races included my fourth marathon in South Carolina, Connecticut, Nebraska,
Maine, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Kansas.
I also ran my fifth marathon in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Nebraska, and
Delaware. That’s 11 out of 25 races that
made progress toward this goal.
The Goals I Never
Listed
No review of 2022
would be complete if I didn’t mention two other accomplishments. Neither of these was among the goals I listed
at the start of the year, but they’re two of my biggest accomplishments of the
year.
I wasn’t
originally planning on running the FANS 24-Hour Race this year. I knew the 24-hour race was going to be a
state championship event this year, but it wasn’t until about a month before
the race that I learned there would be championships for age group winners, as
well as the overall winners. I didn’t
have time to train properly for the race, but I signed up for it just a few
weeks before the race, in hopes that I had enough experience in races like this
to get to 100 miles, even without doing any specific training.
Experience counts
for a lot. With the right balance of
slow running and brisk walking, I managed to run 101.34 miles in 24 hours. That was enough to earn me the 24-hour state
championship for men over 60. Here’s a
link to my race report, if you haven’t already read it.
My other unstated
goal was to qualify for Boston. I wasn’t
in good enough shape to do it on a flat course, but my last race of the year
was the Hawaii Bird Conservation Marathon, which is a downhill race. On this course, I managed to qualify for
Boston with more than 13 minutes to spare.
By contrast, my fastest recent race on a flat course was almost 18
minutes too slow. I knew I could run
faster on this course, but I still didn’t expect be to 31 minutes faster. This race ranks right up there with FANS as
one of the highlights of the year.
Here’s a link to that race report.
That sums up
2022. In a day or two, I’ll post my
goals for 2023.
