2012 in review

2012 was a good year for me.  I have a thing for Olympic years.  I was born in one (1984), the first year to have the Women's Marathon.  Can you believe it took that long for society to welcome women to running?  Anyway, I'm off topic here.

Here's the summary:

Professional

I decided to stick with my career in education, despite my unique background.  I love teaching, and my resume now has more in education than engineering anyway, plus it affords me the quality of life I want.  This means going back to school is strongly recommended and I finally got that ball rolling on that with a strong semester (a B and an A-), despite feeling very daunted by my classes this fall.  There's a long road ahead of me here, but finishing this first semester well was the validation I needed to know I'm doing the right thing.  My actual job has been expanding as well, and I'm getting the opportunity next semester to teach a couple new courses.       

Personal

I went to a great mini-conference at the beginning of 2012 and I feel it was great way to set things in motion.  This year I've felt more content, at peace and assured of myself.  In high-school I was a very insecure person with very few friends, and as I look back over the last 10 years I realize that I've grown up a lot and made friends along the way.  Also, despite my independent nature, my relationship with Tony has grown too, and while relationships inherently have challenges - I'm very content right now with who Tony and I are together.  

Physical
Ok, so let me just say - I had such a fun year!  I've been blessed to have no major injuries (only minor pain issues) and the time to pursue new challenges! So, without further ado...
I completed my first triathlon and loved it! 

I ran my second marathon 40+ minutes faster than the first.
I now have actual calf muscles instead of jiggly globs, which is pretty cool too.
Also, I completed 1089 miles total, it breaks out this way:

Obviously, I needed the biking (454.4 mi) to make the 1000 mile goal, but I'm glad to see that the running (610.5 mi) still accounted for the most miles.  Swimming doesn't sound real good in terms of miles, but I'll let you know it takes a long time to complete 7.1 miles swimming.

2012 was good to me; I'm curious to see what 2013 will bring.  

The Lull is over

This is the third fall that I've done a "big race" and it always takes a while for me to get back on the running bandwagon afterwards.  This year I had the complications of moving and finals to the usual lull.

I rekindled my energy this year in the way that I always do... RACES!  I also realized that if I sign up earlier I would save on race costs.   As a part of my desire to save on costs, I joined the Minnesota Distance Running Association (www.runmdra.org), which was $25, and allows me to sign up for a lot of very affordable and some free races.

Looking up interesting races and figuring out my 2013 race calendar (Race Plans) was super fun and totally gave me the runner's bug again.

In other news, I'm still chasing that sub 30 5K.  In keeping with that, here's something I found on pinterest...

Source: fantasmo.blogspot.com.au via Erin on Pinterest

Now, I must tell you I hate the title "Killer Kardio", as I don't care for poor spelling or masochistic insinuations about exercise, but it seems like a pretty creative and challenging work out.  I'd love to tell you that I just waltzed right though this, but I couldn't even come close.  I did a very modified (wimpy) version: I did less than half of the sets and about 6 mins of running for each interval.  So my goal is to work up to being able to complete the workout and I think that might well coincide with the sub 30 5K.  We'll see.