2019 was a tough year for me. There’s not really any other way to look at it. I barely raced, and the best race I had all year was completed in the first week of the year. I didn’t meet many of the seasonal goals that I set for myself, and I found running to be a chore at times, or anxiety-inducing. I had some external stressors in my life – nothing major, just career-related stuff – that seeped into my training and drained me of the energy and the drive to train and improve.

1. 2019 mileage > 2018 mileage
   On December 30th, I surpassed my 2018 mileage. It was a weight off my shoulders and a gratifying way to finish a tough year. As late as September 8th, I was 92 miles behind my 2018 pace, and as late as November 12th, I was 78 miles down. I rallied, thanks to a strong push in the last two months of the year (as well some relatively low mileage in December 2018 thanks to illness), and managed to run 1695 miles last year, which was just over 5 miles farther than I ran in 2018. In 2018, thanks to my various illnesses in December, I missed out on my goal of beating 2017 mileage, so it was a relief to avoid a repeat of that disappointment.
   I will admit the stress of trying to run 6 miles a day, 6 days a week, without any extra rest days or short run days, wore on me at times (especially when it was extremely cold out). Once I knew the goal was not only in reach, but could be attained a day early, the stress started to melt away.
2. Do 100 pushups/day
   I gave up on this goal for no reason. I started off okay the first week or so, and then I quit doing it for weeks. In April-July, I did a pretty decent job of trying to get back on track, but the last quarter of the year, I didn’t do any push-ups. It says a lot about my mental state that I couldn’t be bothered to do push-ups for three whole months.
3. Run more new races/courses than old ones.
   I only raced five times! It’s surprising to see that. I had two races canceled (Zumbro, which I wasn’t going to run anyway, and the Cosmic 5K in July at the Bell Museum, which was canceled due to a thunderstorm), I DNF the Twin Cities Marathon, and I DNS 3 races (Hot Dash, 811 Run, and Mustache Run). Of the 6 races I ran, they were all new courses! My only repeat race, FANS, was run on a different course. I forgot I’d even set this goal for myself, but hooray for me!
4. My highest category of training mileage will not be treadmill mileage.
   I track my workouts by category in two different ways: number of workouts, and number of miles. In 2018, 42% of the days I spent working out were spent on the treadmill. (Only 34% of my miles were spent on the treadmill.) I needed to spend more time running outside in 2019.
   This started out poorly, as cold weather, icy conditions, and a lack of motivation meant that I had a lot of treadmill runs in the first 3 months of the year. I dug myself a big hole that took me almost to the end of the year to get out of. The end of the year got a bit stressful because it was cold, and I faced the possibility of two goals conflicting. Should I run on the treadmill, and make it harder to reach one goal? Or should I take a rest day, and make it harder to reach another? It all worked out in the end, thanks to some perseverance on my part (running in 10F weather sometimes) and some warm weather in December. At year end, 31% of my workouts were on paved trails, with treadmill runs coming in second at 28%.
5. Start taking a multivitamin.
   I totally rocked this! I have only forgotten to take my vitamins a couple days. I even take the bottle on vacation! I just take a regular old generic Target gummy vitamin, nothing special or woo-woo. I don’t know if it has helped much or not, but it hasn’t hurt any. I plan to continue.
6. Volunteer at a race that isn’t put on by Rocksteady Running.
   I volunteered at The Willow and In Yan Teopa, both put on by St. Croix Running Company. The races are much more low-key than the Rocksteady Events (and I still volunteered at all the ESTRS runs, Afton, and Superior Fall), which makes volunteering a breeze. In Yan Teopa was cupless and that made post-race clean-up SO easy. I had a great time, met some new fun people, and found some new cool places to run.
7. Go for a run in every county in MN.
   I ran a mile or more in 10 new counties! I found some really cool new parks and trails, and I even checked off Kittson County, one of the most remote counties in the state.

While 2019 was disappointing from a performance perspective, that’s the whole reason that I set goals that aren’t based on time or distance. I achieved 5 of my 6 year-long goals and made significant progress on my multi-year goal. That’s exciting and helps me reframe 2019 as something other than a complete disaster.

Apart from these goals, my race performances, and my seasonal goals, I had an amazing year from a social perspective. I made some new running friendships this year that are incredibly meaningful, I strengthened existing friendships, and my husband came along to volunteer with me for three days at Superior, which allowed him to spend quality time with my running friends and also to experience for the first time the seminal ultrarunning event in my life, the one that five years earlier lit that endurance running fire in my soul. I had the best running year of my life when looked at from a relationship-building experience, and that’s what is sustaining me as I look to 2020.