I feel the need to post a Year In Memorium for 2021. It's been a truly astonishing year in a lot of ways. But I'll focus on the fitness-related ways.
Running/Walking/Hiking
My Garmin mileage was surging in the spring, dropped sharply in the summer after my Trifecta weekend and sprains, then picked back up along with my motivation in the fall. My averages are decent considering all these issues. These workouts are mostly outdoors, with the (very) occasional treadmill thrown in. It's not the total extent of my cardio.
Other Workouts
As you can see, this increased dramatically and massively starting in August. This coincides with the addition of key pieces of my indoor cardio nook, namely the stepper and the climber. The rower addition in December kicked it up another notch. I have been CRUSHING the indoor workouts this fall/winter. Also included in this number are my gym workouts, when I started teaching my circuit weight class again in July. This might be the first winter ever where I get in BETTER shape.
Weight
I mean, this is just epic. You can see the moments in time where I was like "to hell with THIS" and buckled down to lose weight. At no point was I overweight, but every endurance athlete has a weight at which they get minimal injuries, few aches and pains, better recovery, and generally feel much faster and like the cardio becomes easier. My "ideal race weight" is around 150 so that's the goal I put in. I end 2021 just four pounds north of that. Not shabby.
2022 Goals
1) PR in every distance I attempt. Obviously this will depend on conditions on the day, but I'd love to just get personal bests in all my races, both road and OCRs.
2) Get to and maintain an ideal race weight. Maintenance is tricky (see: above graph), but I feel much more attuned to what I need to do at this point. Getting an ADD diagnosis has helped me immensely in realizing WHAT was compelling me to fall off the wagon all the time.
3) Actually compete in the Notre Dame Stadion race. I'm running age group and I want to kick ass. Ideally I'd be up there with the lead pack, or at least keeping them somewhat in my sights.
4) Keep stress levels down. High volumes of exercise massively help my stress levels. No matter how big my problems, they seem much smaller at the end of a 3-hour hike. I need to do whatever I must to keep my mental health solid.
5) Try something new. I just want to try something that I haven't tried before. Maybe a new kind of race, or at least a new brand. Maybe a new activity. I'll be sure to post about it if I do.
