2011 kickoff

Ah, blogosphere, if there’s any left.

The end of 2010’s been rough, running-wise for me. I completely failed at Fat Cyclist’s lose 10 pounds by Christmas challenge. The start was good; but the finish left a whole lot to be desired. For a variety of reasons, primarily work-related, I fell off the wagon and finished off on Christmas Eve right where I’d started.

Which I suppose is a large part of the story of 2010.

I didn’t really make any real resolutions for 2010, so there’s no real way to sum up the year. I suppose I could chunk my dailymile.com feed (Love, love, love that site) to figure out how this year compared to last year, but, frankly, I’m afraid it’d depress me.

I ran the Vermont City Marathon in May, and then pretty much sat up in the saddle for the rest of the year. Vermont City was a great race, but, as usual, my training was sub-par, and I faded hard at the end of the run. What was different, though, was that I felt completely compelled to finish the race when I cramped at 16 miles.

Melissa ran New Haven this year instead of me, which was completely fair, and about which I have no regrets other than pure jealousy. But I think that without that as an end of summer goal, I kind of wandered…

My alternate goal was to lose 20 lbs between Memorial day and the end of summer – absolutely no progress there.

Overall, though, I’m cool with it – this was a tough year at work, and I’ve pulled through with general success. My fitness hasn’t lost anything since this time last year; my relationship with Melissa has probably never been better, and my oldest kid isn’t getting notes sent home from his teacher on a regular basis, and actually got a smokin’ good report card this last marking period.

There are prospects at work that look promising both professionally and in terms of work-life balance, and I’ve been selectively de-committing from some of the non-work stressors that I have.

So, I’m upbeat but realistic about 2011.

Enough so that I think I’ll set some goals:

1. Run Vermont City again. Loved the race, and Melissa wants to run Flying Pig. Which means if I want another family weekend in Burlington over Memorial Day, I need to suck it up and run. Oh, the sacrifices I make.
2. Finish FatCyclist’s 10 lbs plan by the end of January. Frankly, it was working while I was able to reschedule priorities. January looks to be somewhat less chaotic than December was, and it’d be nice to roll into training for Vermont City at 175 instead of 185.
3. Tri, tri again. I really regret not doing an olympic tri last summer. I especially regret not doing one with my buddy Dave W, who is no longer working at the same place with the part-time job. So, hopefully, I can do a win-win here and keep in touch with someone who’s been a good friend (something I’ve been notoriously bad at in the past), AND work out my tri demons. I’m also good for the NAVSTA Newport tri in August – it’s a sprint, and I’d love to see what I can do with some good training and 20 lbs less baggage.
4. Not get onto Jon’s list of dead blogs. I really miss posting as much as I had in the past. I also need some inspiration – who’s writing well?

Here’s hoping to get back to you all in 364 days with a great 2011 wrap-up.