2022 in Review

At the beginning of each year, I set myself new running goals.

I like my goals to be tangible and realistic, but also challenging and beneficial to my long-term running.

I have found that setting goals in this way keeps me motivated throughout the year and allows me to easily track how I’ve done in going after them.

When I set my goals for 2022 (click here for a reminder), I had high hopes for a great year, but that isn’t exactly how everything turned out.

2022 Goals and How They Went

QUALIFY FOR THE BOSTON MARATHON

Admittedly, this one was very ambitious.

After a few years of steady progress, I was only 11 minutes away from a Boston Marathon qualifying time for my age group.

So with that in mind, I made this my main goal for the year in an effort to really motivate myself to go after it.

But you probably already know that this didn’t go the way I was hoping.

Honestly, it never really got off the mark. With the struggles that I had during my training cycle for the Copenhagen Marathon, this goal was unrealistic almost as soon as it started – for this year at least.

I tried to re-ignite it a couple of times during the year but never was able to keep the rhythm going for long enough to make any real progress towards the levels necessary to achieve this.

This goal will definitely stay on my radar, but right now I am just focused on continuing to improve as much as I can.

Quality over Quantity

One of the main reasons for having this goal was to focus solely on the purpose of each individual training run. And when I wasn’t in marathon training, I would be focused mainly on my recovery in order to be ready for my next training cycle.

Even though I didn’t have a specific mileage goal, I still wanted it to be at or around 2,000 miles for the year.

While I do feel like a lot of my miles were of good quality this year, they just never seemed to happen consistently enough to have the intended effect of helping me achieve a new personal best or a Boston Marathon qualifying time.

But I still went over the 2,100 mile mark for the 3rd straight year, which is about 5.8 miles (~9.3km) per day.

And it was also nice to not be looking at my mileage numbers constantly to see where I was in relation to my mileage goal for the year.

Continue Streaking

As I’ve said many times before, this goal remains open-ended and will most likely stay that way until I decide to not run one day.

My running streak ensures that I remain consistent in my running. I think that consistency is one of the things that can help me keep reaching for my goals.

At different points during the streak, I have definitely struggled with some fatigue, but I would say for the most part that I didn’t get too fatigued during the year outside of my training cycles.

Assuming that tomorrow’s run goes as planned, my running streak will be at 1,864 days at year’s end.

Races as Progress Tests

With the plans to run in two marathons during this year, I wanted to try to have races in the buildup to each to see where I was in my training. I think this is quite common among runners – to use shorter-distance races as a measuring stick before a goal race.

As it turned out, the half marathon that I ran in the lead up to each of my marathons came at a difficult time in each training cycle.

In March, I did the Garden Spot half marathon. Just a few days before the race, I was unsure if I would even run in the race because of a hip problem I was dealing with.

Then, in September, I ran the Bird-in-Hand half marathon. And while I felt better during the days before this half marathon, the day itself didn’t go or feel too great to me and I think in the end it actually served as a knock on my confidence in the lead up to the Philadelphia Marathon in November.

I eventually regained my confidence before that marathon, but I still do wonder what impact the Bird-in-Hand race had on my overall belief in myself in the weeks after.

So, while these races didn’t go as planned for me, I still stand behind the purpose of this goal!

Even though I wasn’t successful in achieving everything I set out to during the year, I still feel like this year was a positive year for me and one that I can build off of moving forward!

Highlight of the Year

Running with Friends

I’m typically a solo runner and actually like it that way most of the time.

But if you’ve followed along throughout this year, you will know that I was lucky enough to go on two great trips – to Denmark and England. And on these trips, I finally had the chance to run with some great friends – Rune, Mark and Kristen – that I had been wanting to run with for a while.

I also ran part of the Garden Spot half marathon in March with my friend Jeremy, who I met at a race last year.

Having the chance to run in new places and new races with these friends was great and something I’m hoping to do again soon!

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More From RunPatRun:

• 2023 Goals: I am still thinking about what my goals for next year are, but once I have them, I will share them in a new blog post.