The end of another year always makes me pause for reflection
and look back on the events of the last 12 months. I know it’s an arbitrary
point in the sand, and there’s no need to wait till the end of the year to
review life and make any changes – but tradition dictates that the beginning of
a new year is the time for resolutions and alterations so I feel inclined to
pause for breath and consider the past year and how I’d like the next 12 months
to go.
At the start of 2013 I had some exciting sporting aims, some
of which I achieved and some I didn’t. And unfortunately some I never even got
to have a go at achieving. With the World Triathlon Champs set for September
2013 in London over the iconic Olympic course in Hyde Park, I made this my main
sporting aim for the year. My main aim was to qualify and I planned my season
around this and entered various qualifying events over various distances. I
never made it to the start line of a single qualification race, let alone the
start line of the World Triathlon Championships themselves. After working
single-mindedly towards a goal like this, it was a massive blow to miss so
badly!
I try to think optimistically about all my races and
sporting experiences – even if I have a bad race there’s usually something I can
learn from it! I had a terrible race at the British Duathlon Champs this year,
but I learnt that I am terrified of under-taking lorries downhill on busy
A-roads and that it is very hard to run when my feet are completely numb. I
bounced back from that to take bronze at the English National Duathlon Champs a
few weeks later with a much better performance on a totally different course in
totally different conditions. From there on I had a good couple of weeks,
setting my first personal bests since 2007 – clocking 37.54 for 10km and 18.16
for 5km at the beginning of May. From there on, there’s not much of note to
report. Illness and injury prevented me from racing and on the weekend of the
World Triathlon Champs I was struggling round 5 miles with my knee still sore
from injury but pleased to be completing my longest run for 4 months!
Sporting wise, which is what this blog is all about after
all, it’s been a fairly disappointing last half of the year. What have I learnt
from this though? Well I think I may have FINALLY learnt to listen to my body.
I can still remember the exact moment at which I knew I was injured, and I
wonder now if I’d backed off then instead of trying to push on for a couple
more days, whether I would have recovered a lot quicker. For 2014 my main aim
is not to get injured – if that means missing a few days training or replacing
run sessions with swimming, then so be it. I’d rather run 300 days in a year
and never set another pb, than miss months with injury each year! Hopefully
listening to my body and being a lot more sensible with conditioning, core work
and building flexibility and strength will actually allow me to run more AND
set pbs – but we’ll have to see!
Aims for 2014? To be fit and healthy! I would like to run
well and I would love to set some pbs, but this year my main aim is to avoid
injury…oh and I’m going to switch things round from the last few years and not
race any triathlons in 2014. I’m going to focus on the Spring Duathlon season
before returning to my athletics roots and racing on the track this summer.
From June onwards my longest race will be no more than twenty minutes, and if I
do a few 800ms then I hope it will be a lot less than that! I can’t wait!
Happy running in 2014 everyone!
