2016 Running Highlights & 2017 Running Goals

My 2016 Running Highlights, including total miles run, my favorite race, a new PR, some lows of training, and what I’m hoping to do in 2017!

I’d been wanting to do a post about my 2016 running highlights and when I saw Michelle post about her 2016 running highlights, I thought I’d use a similar format. (You can see her post here. I can’t believe how many miles she ran. Wowza!)

2016 Running Highlights

Total miles: 1,199

Highest Monthly Miles: 174 in September

Longest training run: 16 (on the last day of the year!)

Distance run the most often: 5 miles

Most used playlist: My Workout Mix

Double workout days: 1-2 a week during peak half marathon training (I would run in the morning and do CrossFit at night, and then always rested the next morning. I blogged about why that worked well for me here.)

Races: just one – Mistletoe Half Marathon (recap here). It’s still crazy to me I only did one race when I used to do dozens a year.

PR: half marathon 1:33:29

Biggest highs: setting a completely unexpected PR (I blogged here about why I was racing when I knew I wouldn’t PR. Way to have confidence in yourself Teri 😉 )

Biggest lows: Getting a quad strain while training for the Cherry Blossom 10 miler. And, having IT band pain on my last run of the year.

Favorite running memories: early morning runs with friends, especially when it was dark out and it felt like we were running in a secret world

2017 goals

• Run a marathon and qualify for Boston – eek, it feels scary to even put it out there in writing!
  • I’m really hoping to run the Tobacco Road Marathon in Cary in March, but this sudden onset of IT band pain is making me nervous. I’m taking the week off from running and putting in time on the elliptical and stretching a lot this week.
• Run a 5K
  • I haven’t run one in years and I’d like to set a new benchmark. And of course, it’d be fun to PR!
• Run a race just for fun
  • Maybe a vineyard race with some friends?
• Do yoga more
  • I’m so lucky that I get yoga as part of my CrossFit membership and the instructor, Suzie, is so good. I need to take advantage of it more often!
• Run 1000 miles
  • I didn’t plan to run over 1000 miles in 2016 but it was really fun once I started to get close to that number!
• Update my running clothes
  • A lot of is really worn out and not great quality. I’m working to toss the nasty stuff and replace it with higher quality items. I’ll share what I want, what I get and what I think once I try it out! (Lately, I’ve been loving everything from Nike and Lululemon, especially this sweater and this tank.)
• Stay healthy – I know I’ll go back and forth between focusing more heavily on running or CrossFit throughout the year, but my ultimate goal is to stay healthy and have fun doing both. I love them both but I feel more like me when I’m doing a bit more running than CrossFit. 🙂

What was one of your running highlights in 2016? What are you hoping to do in 2017?