2022 Year End Review

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.