COVID-19 global pandemic. Racial injustice, protests, and riots. Wildfires burning out of control in Australia and western US. A presidential election tainted with unsubstantiated claims of fraud, and an incalcitrant narcissist who still refuses to concede. These were just some of the headlines dragging us down in 2020 and leading many of us to look forward to 2021.
Of course, the simple turning the page of the calendar to 2021 eradicates neither COVID nor the political divide in the US, but it does usher in a new era with renewed optimism and opportunities on the horizon. From the macro level down to my own narrow running and outdoors focused lifestyle, improvements will come there as well. In the dwindling days of 2019, I typed the final sentence of my final blog comment of the year (on Chris' blog): "Looking forward to more races and race reports in 2020!" Didn't exactly go down that way, but the races that were completely cancelled in 2020 will slowly make a comeback in 2021. Maybe not all of them, and maybe not in the first few months of 2021, but the handwriting is clearly on the wall for gradual improvement. It is against this backdrop that I choose to write an upbeat yearly review and look ahead to 2021:
2020 goals assessment: (Verbatim restatement of the past year's goals [in black], and responses in red.)
- Mileage: 2,600. Same carried over failed goal from 2018 and 2019. 2020 will be my injury-free year. I can feel it. Success on all fronts! My 2020 mileage was a record 2,642, and no injuries!
- Marathon: Complete at least one marathon. As long as I stay injury free, should be easy. Fail. I was signed up for Boston 2020, but once that was deferred and subsequently cancelled due to COVID-19, I stopped training and the reality is there were very, very few marathons held anywhere for the rest of the year.
- Marathon time: Break 3 hours in a marathon. I've done that the past 8 marathons, but it's getting harder and the margin of error smaller. See above bullet. Kind of hard to break 3 in a marathon if you don't actually run in a marathon. Same reason I will never win the lottery. :(
- Run at least one new trail race. Huge success here! Not one, not two, but four new trail races for me this year! How cool is that?! (OK, well, I thought it was cool.) If there was a silver lining to races returning in the latter part of the year, it was that smaller trail races (my new favorite kind of race) came back much stronger than any road races. And what were the four, you ask? People's Forest Trail Race (Aug - CT), Ridge to the River (Sep - ME), Pachaug Trail Half Marathon (Oct - CT), F.I.T. Turkey Trot Trail Race (Nov - RI).
- Run a fun destination vacation run in a new venue. Success. The Ridge to River Half Marathon in Newry, Maine in mid-September.
- Rejoin the sport of triathlon after a 2-year hiatus. Fail. I'm going to claim a COVID excuse on this one, and defer this goal to 2021.
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| Finally some redemption! After two years with injuries (2018 - Adherent Nerve Syndrome, 2019 - Polymyalgia Rheumatica), 2020 was my highest mileage year ever. |
Breakdown of where I ran the miles, or at least the top ten municipalities:
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| Not surprisingly, especially in a year of COVID and travel restrictions, the ten municipalities I ran the most in are all very local to me. |
Pictorial highlights of 2020:
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| January: Chili 5K in Charlestown. This is a really fun event in Ninigret Park, with ~15 different types of chili served indoors afterwards. Unfortunately it appears this event will not occur in 2021. |
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| February: Family hike at Grills Preserve on Groundhog Day |
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| Brady came to stay with us on Halloween 2019, and has been here with us ever since. He provides us all with so much joy and entertainment. In this pic (same Grills hike), he looks poised to pounce on something. My best guess is that it's a stick about to be thrown. |
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| March: Hare Hop 5K, Mystic, CT, with fellow WTAC member Nick Alge chasing me. Very slow time of 19:09. This would be my last "real" race for a while, with COVID shutting down all races for months starting the following week. |
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| April: Spring has sprung At Napatree. Most races cancelled, including Clamdigger, but Jana and I (and Brady) got out for more walks than usual. |
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| My work-from-home office every working day since mid-March, and for the foreseeable future. Brady is the most frequent office visitor that I receive. My work attire has changed to jeans (or shorts) and running shirts. (Due to the pandemic, I'm not allowed to go into the physical work offices.) |
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| May: My first (of two) virtual races this year: Stand Up For Animals 5K. With pet option. Thanks to my pacer (Matthew), I fared much better than I expected and ran an 18:10. |
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| June: New patio and fire pit |
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| July: Return of the Fun Runs! We had to cancel Fun Runs outright for the month of June, but were allowed to resume them in July when COVID numbers improved. Yes, there were a lot of restrictions and unfortunately no kids' fun runs at all, but it was a welcome relief for us to be able to host at all. |
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| July: Jumps into ponds and lakes became a fun post-run summer tradition this year (By the end of the summer, Brady would run ahead of me on the dock and jump first) |
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| August: Return of real races!!! As races slowly returned beginning in August, only a very small minority of races actually happened, those that did had additional new restrictions, and you had to search and be willing to drive a little further, but I'm good with all that. For the first August in three years, I'm completely healthy and I want to race! A silver lining is that I got to try some races that I never even heard of before, and most were pretty cool! (People's Forest Trail Race, 8 miles, Barkhamsted, CT) --- Seriously, had you ever even heard of Barkhamsted, CT? I hadn't. |
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| September: Ridge to the River Half Marathon, Sunday River Ski Resort, Newry, Maine 3rd overall. This was fun and mostly all runnable, more runnable than the better known Loon Mountain Race. |
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| October: Mount Tom Trail, Arcadia A rare snow treat in RI in October! Let's hope this is a harbinger of things to come this winter! |
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| November: Manchester City Half Marathon, 1:23:49. 1st in age group. Hilly! |
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| November: Comfortable running in my 17th straight Li'l Rhody. 50:58, my fastest time in 5 years! |
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| December: Christmas Light Run and socially distanced post-run gathering with a few friends (and snow!) in our backyard. |
Finally, completion of our 3-year house project:
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| 2018: This started in 2018 as a "small" $1,200 estimated project to remediate a small section of rot near the back deck, but the more the carpenters peeled back ... |
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| ... the more rot and mold they found, purportedly due to so many cut corners on original construction of a mere 16-year old house. For peace of mind, we ended up replacing the wood siding, flashing, Tyvek wrap, and trim boards on the entire house and garage, several doors, and in a number of places, soiled insulation and even interior walls, and then of course had to have the house painted. The original $1,200 became just a fraction of even the downpayment, but it was a necessary evil. |
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| 2019: Due to vastly increased scope, duration, and price, we decided to split the project into three phases over three years: 2018 - house siding and mold/rot remediation 2019 - deck demolition (it had rotted as well) and replacement 2020 - patio and firepit |
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| Completed AZEK deck - attached to house, unattached stairs. We won't be scraping and staining the deck again! |
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| 2020: Patio project sequential photos, beginning in the spring |
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| Kind of scary having our backyard all dug up |
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| After a load of crushed stone added, and the border molds in place. |
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| These guys did nice work. |
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| I love the way the compass came out! The cut water lines sticking out of the ground at 2 o'clock - not so much, but all is starting to come together. |
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| The irrigation company came out the following week, after the concrete had cured, replaced the broken water lines and added a new zone of sprinkler heads. |
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| Up and running by 4th of July |
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| New furniture extended our outdoor living space, and in the COVID era, with a new extended mesh wi-fi system, I found myself out here most weekday work mornings until it got too hot. |
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| The final part of the project was the landscaping, and by fall my newly seeded backyard blended in with the old. |
2020 stats:
- Races run: 16 (2019: 24, 2018: 25, 2017: 22, 2016: 29, 2015: 36)
- Race breakdown by terrain: Road - 7, Trail - 8, Beach - 1, Tri - 0, Indoor Track - 0
- Race breakdown by participation type: In-person - 14, Virtual - 2 (Don't think I heard of virtual races prior to 2020, and don't have interest to run them after 2020)
- Age group wins: 12
- Overall wins: 2 (smaller trail races in CT, but I worked hard for each and I'll take it!)
- Miles run: 2,642 - highest mileage ever!
- Elevation run: 210, 945'
- Most elevation gain in a single run: 5,859' (epic 3-state mountain run on July 5)
- Hours run: 383 (2019: 281, 2018: 246, 2017: 360)
- Days run: 310 (2019: 276, 2018: 240, 2017: 315) Much better than previous two years!
- Number of deerfly kills: 203 (Jun 19 - Aug 22)
- Most deerfly kills in a single run: 64
- Number of horsefly kills: 2
- Lowest mileage week: 24 (1st week of June; just low motivation)
- Highest mileage week: 70 (final full week of December, while off from work)
- Highest mileage day: 21 (training run for Boston Marathon in February)
- Highest mileage run: 21 (ditto)
- Longest running streak: 18 days (last 18 days of the year)
- Longest non-running streak: 2 days (not bad at all)
- Number of states run in: 8: RI, CT, MA, NH, ME, NY, GA, AL (obviously lower due to COVID)
- Number of countries run in: 1 (not many countries accepting Americans due to COVID)
- Run furthest from home: Tuscaloosa, AL
2021 goals:
- Mileage: 2,800. That's an average of 55 miles per week, conservatively allowing for two down weeks. Maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead? Nah. I just set these two goals (annually and weekly) into Strava, and here are three reasons why I believe I can accomplish this:
- I'm told our division will be working full-time from home until at least June 2021 (hopefully longer). That means more flexibility in working hours, zero commute, zero travel to other offices. More time for running.
- Even when I do go back to the physical office, I (along with other colleagues) will likely never work 5 days per week in the office again. The pandemic has been a disruptor, with some positive changes.
- On the final day of 2020, at an optometrist appointment and eye test, after having failed DMV eye tests since I was 21, I learned that I now have 20/20 vision. Really? Now? At age 56?! I found this hard to believe, but the optometrist confirmed it and said a minority of people do see improvement in vision as they age, and suggested when COVID ends I go to the DMV, retest and have the eyeglass restriction removed from my driver's license. From there, it's an easy correlation also to see that my running will only get stronger and longer in my old age. (Stay with me, here.)
- New England: It's been a couple of years, and in 2020 I had to take a COVID pass on running in Vermont (I ran in the other five states), but in 2021 it's time once again to run in all six states. While travel restrictions will remain in place in early 2021, I have faith they'll either go away completely or be sharply diminished as the year progresses.
- Trails: Run at least one new trail race.
- 50K: Time to step up the distance! I find the longer races in some ways easier and more enjoyable than oxygen-debt, panting 5K road races.
- Triathlon: Rejoin the sport of triathlon after a
2-year3-year hiatus.
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| Looking forward to a new year and new adventures! |
Wow, you made the most of 2020. Lots of cool adventures and accomplishments! Your ability to run at a high level for so long is quite respectable. Hope 2021 is good to you. Keep up the good work.
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