the last post for 2012

The light-up necklace was the coolest part of the swag!

Can the year really be coming to a close already?  Wow!  Seems like it was January 1 just a couple weeks ago.

Hmmmm, I haven't exactly been covering myself with glory fitness-wise these last few weeks.  Again, life has interfered with my well-intentioned plans.  What's the saying? "You make plans, and God laughs"?? Or something like that.  Another saying: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." You get the idea.  So I'm just going to keep moving forward and see what happens....  I still have to do my all my HBBC update posts.... Yikes.  I'm behind.

Annnnnyyyhooooo.  Let's talk about my last race of 2012. The Jumpin' Jack Frost 5k. It was a good time!

I love 5Ks.  Such an easy distance and I feel like I can just go and run 3.1 miles and not have to train or anything.  Of course, I'm never going for speed. Things might look a little different if I were a serious runner. And by serious, I mean fast. Which I'm not. And I also mean talented.  Which I also am not. But I'm fun!

Pre-race with my running buddy.

So the night before the race, I met up with about 30 of my high school friends, all home for the holidays. It was so fun to see all those folks and catch up on everything that's been going on in the 5 years (give or take) since we graduated from high school. I was super careful about my pre-race fueling, too.  The temple that is my body ingested only the best deep-fried Wisconsin cheese curds and I insisted on 9-grain bread for my BLT.  And my dirty martini vodka of choice?  Grey Goose. I hear it's got more carbs than other vodkas.

Good thing the race didn't start until 4:35 p.m.

I ran with a friend - our first time running together ever - and we had a wonderful time!  We ran pretty slowly (see our splits below) and chatted the entire time.  I always forget how much fun it is to run with someone else! The course is an out and back along the Mississippi River in St. Paul.  We started at dusk; it was completely dark by the time we were finishing up and the city lights shining over the river looked absolutely beautiful.  A nice way to finish the year!

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	31:30.2	3.05	10:21
1	11:00.9	1.00	11:01
2	10:24.0	1.00	10:24
3	9:43.2	1.00	9:43
4	:22.1	0.05	8:03

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And now, let's look at the year in review.

Number of races completed this year: 
23 total - Six 5k (including one Warrior Dash!), an 8k (trail), a 10k, an 8.9 mile (trail), a 10 mile, 8 half marathons, a 25k, a 30k, a 20 miler and two full marathons (Grandma's and Chicago).

Number of PRs set this year:
Six! - 5k, 8k, 10 mile, half-marathon, 30k, and marathon.

Free stuff! 
Remember, I'm cheap frugal, so I LOVE getting anything for free, no matter how it happens.  And can I just say that I love the magic of the internet?
Items won via Facebook:
1. Soleus watch courtesy of Team Ortho, organizer of many of my favorite races!
2. Race entry to a half marathon, courtesy of an Orthopaedic Group that sponsors many races.
3. Sweatshirt courtesy of the Med City Marathon folks, just for "liking" the Facebook page! (The fact that I won a sweatshirt is kind of ironic since the temps in that race rivaled the those in the pits of hell.)

The message informing me that I'm a winner!

5. Race bib belt from Final Stretch running, just for being one of the first 10 folks to sign up for their newest race.  It's called the Chocoholic Frolic.  Guess how long it took me to sign up once I saw the title.... Yeah, about a nanosecond.  That's why I'm a winner, folks!

My cozy sweatshirt....

.....and my cool race belt!

Items won in other ways.....
1. A sweet jacket courtesy of my running club for following their blog.
2. Hotel room at Grandma's Marathon - ok, so I didn't "win" this, but still, free stuff is free stuff!
3. Road ID bracelet for signing up for the Explore Minnesota Challenge.  Sadly, I didn't meet the challenge because most of the races I ran didn't qualify.  Oh well.  Maybe I'll try that one again if they expand the race list....

Progress on goals: 

1. Complete Grandma's again and improve my time. Check!

2. Run a total of 1000 miles.  Nope. 773 was my total mileage for running.

2012 Running Miles

But when you include walking and elliptical, I covered 1123 miles.  Not too shabby!

2012 Total Miles

3. Run at least one mile per day every day of the year.  (the "I heart to Run" running streak challenge)
I abandoned this one. Running one mile every day proved much more difficult than anticipated!  The daily donning of the sports bra proved to be the biggest mental hurdle to reaching this goal. Oh well.

4. Purposely move my body 30 minutes every day for the first 100 days of the year.
99/100 days of success!

Missed it by one day. Doh!

5. Attempt eating clean more often than not.
Epic failure. But I did manage to purge Oreos from my diet.  Speaking of Oreos...

6. Keep on trying new challenges and see where this adventure takes me next.
Well, I guess running a marathon on very little training is one way to challenge myself...... but I do keep on trying!

All in all, it's been a pretty good year.  I may not have met all my goals but I still managed to accomplish a lot and had a pretty good time doing it.  That's success as far as I'm concerned.

Happy New Year, everyone!  Looking forward to continuing the journey in 2013!