Year in review: running

2008 was definitely not one of my greatest years running-wise. I started up very slowly in January and February before hurting my Achilles, which compelled me to take off a couple of months. The pain never really went away, but I started running again in May. Concerned about both my Achilles and my knee, I increased my mileage very slowly. By June it had gotten hot enough that I decided to run in the morning, before work, when it was a bit cooler. Consequently, I was unable to put in any long runs during the week since I had to be home in time to shower, eat, get dressed, and go to work. I supposed I could have just gotten up earlier, but at the time I was also unsure I could handle long runs due to the Achilles pain. So, it was a low mileage summer.

When September rolled around, I was still running in the morning, but on the weekends I'd try to do a long run of about 10 miles. This continued for only about two weeks before my Achilles flared up again and caused me pain just to walk on it. I took off another week, after which I resumed training but only had a couple of weeks before the Baltimore half-marathon. It was pretty much a disaster. I ran close to 8-minute pace for the first 4 miles, but after that I just felt completely dead. It was so bad I had to walk near the end. When it was over, I felt glad that I'd decided not to run the JFK this year.

I took a week off after the race and then started up again, this time with no particular race as a goal. I had wanted to run some of the JFK with my brother, so I tried to step up my mileage. I had a couple of weeks of over 30 miles, but I think I pushed myself too much, resulting in me getting sick. For a period of about a week I felt congested and a little weak, and I'm sure I exacerbated the problem by continuing to run. I ended up not running any of the JFK at all, so I took off a week after that to recoup.

Now it's December, and this is shaping up to be my best month of the year. No health problems, and steady mileage. I hope this is a good omen for 2009. As of today, my total mileage for 2008 is 683.2. Don't know whether that's good or bad, but I had sure hoped to have more.