Merry Christmas Eve and Happy Holidays!
2013 has been a pretty good year – both professionally and personally. Because of work I was able to travel (and run) A TON and visit several friends along the way. I am very happy with how my running and fitness level has progressed since the beginning of the year. Now for the fun part, my 2013 Year in Running Review:
Running by the Numbers
Having worked in the finance industry and gone to b-school, I am a very quantitative person (yay for stats, econometrics, risk!) I thought it would be a fun yearly exercise to look at my running in numbers. For this post I decided to:
- Keep the analysis and graphs very simple and basic
- Get “fancier” next year – more data, separate variables (ex. distances, temperature, training log, compare front and back halves of the year)
Number of Races
A ten (wow!) year overview of the number of races I participated per year. This year I ran more races than 2008-2012 combined! I am happy to report I ended 2013 injury free.
Number of Races by Distance
In ten years of running, 35% of races I’ve participated in have been half marathons, and 52% have been in distances 10 miles or greater (I did not include the 1 x relay in that percentage).
This is the number of races by distance for 2013. You can probably tell from both graphs I do favor the longer distances! I would like to improve my 5K and 10K times next year.
Average Pace
Average pace for a ten year period. These numbers do mix my average pace across different distances – but I wanted to get a big picture. I can segment the distances in a future post 🙂 You can see where my fitness level dropped off (see: long commute to work, more sitting than walking, less exercising, weight gain). 2008 is a bit of an outlier-I ran (errr walked?) only one race with two blistered feet. My month by month analysis is even more exciting!
I ended 2013 with an average pace of 12:33 minutes per mile-below my 2013 average of 13:38! It is a little more than a minute off than my 2003 average. I really like the downward trend and you can see how training, healthier eating, and cross training has impacted my running times.
I will use this data to help with goal setting for 2014. Post to come! Now on to more fun year in review superlatives:
Furthest Race Traveled
2800 miles + for the lululemon SeaWheeze Half Marathon in Vancouver, BC Canada Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Shortest Race Traveled
1.7 miles for the SOME Trot for Hunger 5K in Washington, DC.
States/Cities Run
CA, MD, VA, FL, DC, and Vancouver!
Most Scenic Race
Tie – Healdsburg Wine Country Half Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 in Healdsburg, CA and SeaWheeze Half Marathon in Vancouver, BC Canada
Best Run
TSC Annapolis Half Marathon – a PR and 20 minute + improvement from April.
Fave Bling
Healdsburg Wine Country Half
Fave New Fitness Gear
Surprisingly not techy, my foam roller!
I can’t wait for 2014!
