2025 Highlights: Mixed year in terms of race performances, but finished on a high note! Most importantly, another fun year of running, and only one injury that didn't really impact my running.
Abbott Age Group World Ranking: Last year I ranked 6th American in the marathon distance in my age group, and 50th in the world. (2:53:26 at age 60 in the Indianapolis Marathon, taking down the age group CR)
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| Abbott changed from a calendar year to a rolling year. 2025 was a shortened year ending September 30; I didn't even qualify for Age Group World Championships as I didn't run 3:10 during the period Jan - Sep 2025. Above is my 2025-26 ranking to date. Still pretty happy with 11th in the country, although that will certainly change before the period closes September 30, 2026. |
Travel:
Two big trips this year:
- Iceland / Denmark: 3-day trip to Iceland revolving around the Laugavegur 55K, with a 2-day Denmark add-on. Travel report here
Rosenborg Castle (1606) 
Nyhavn (colorful townhouses dating to 1681 along Nyhavn Canal)
- Newfoundland: one of my bucket-list trips, a 13-day trip to Newfoundland in September.
Travel report here
Concerts:
Attended two classic rock shows in 2025:
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| AC/DC at Foxboro in May |
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| Def Leppard at Mohegan Sun in July |
While they were both great shows, my favorite concert this year was Def Leppard. AC/DC is still my favorite band, but a few factors at play were 1) we had already seen AC/DC play less than a year ago in Dublin, 2) it was raining during the AC/DC show this past May, 3) I was tired after a challenging race in NY and then driving home and to MA, and 4) in my opinion, Angus' ~20 minute guitar solo went on about 15 minutes too long.
Rhode Island Grand Prix: ran 5 out of 7 races (if you run more than 4, your lowest performance(s) are dropped), led the Men's Masters competition for some of the season, but ultimately was edged out by the awesome masters runner, Adrian Massie.
Carpal tunnel: Started having tingling and numbing in my right hand during Newfoundland trip in September. Long story short is it quickly got worse instead of better, leading to pain and inability to grasp almost anything in my right hand. After having a nerve test done, I was diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome not only in my right hand, but surprisingly also in my left hand, as unteil recently I had no symptoms in my left hand. Wearing a wrist brace and learning to use my left hand in more tasks both helped somewhat, but the conditions got worse and I had surgery two days before Christmas.
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| In October, with my then new wrist brace. Starting wearing this at night only until conditions worsened and the doctor asked that I wear this all the time, except running or showering. |
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| Post surgery, where the doctor cut the ligament that was constricting my medial nerve. Swollen and discolored, but hopefully starting to improve soon. |
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2025 Goals Assessment: (Last year's goals in black; assessment against those goals in red.)
Boston Marathon: At my 7th and perhaps final Boston, break my Boston PR (2:56:16) Big Fail. More on that later.
Mileage: 3,133 (one more than my PR in 2024) Fail
Triathlon: I haven't gotten on the bike since Ironman Maryland (2023), but hoping to get in at least a sprint tri Fail
Set a new age-group course record: I set three of them in 2024. Can I keep the streak going? I'm going to call this a pass, as I technically set AG CRs in at least two races, the inaugural Mt Archer Trail Race and the 2nd annual Bound for the Sound. But unfortunately none of those are tracked anywhere. Some good news is that of the three I set in 2024 (Blessing, Kerri, Indianapolis), all of which are tracked, none were broken.
Abbott Age Group World Rankings: Improve on my 2024 results of 6th fastest nationally and 50th in the world (This may be a tall order, but that's what goals are for!) No. I did well (see above), but no.
So fail overall on the stated goals from last year, but they are somewhat arbitrary, especially the mileage, and I think I set them up too hard. I certainly am happy with my performances in the second half of the year.
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| Not a lot of change from last year. West Greenwich added; Newport dropped off. Charlestown #1 run location again for me, but by a much bigger margin in 2025. |
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Pictorial Highlights of 2025 by Month:
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| January: We did not get much snow at all last winter, which made runs like this in Arcadia Management Area even more special. |
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| February: Colchester Half Marathon Looking a little ragged near the end of the hilly and sometimes icy race, but still managed to snag 1st 60+, 1st 50+ |
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| March: The inaugural Mt Archer Trail Race, temporarily just ahead of Ryan Murdoch. I did enjoy it, but it moves to May to this year and I'm not sure that fits for me. |
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| April: Finishing up Clamdigger 2025. After a number of disappointing races thus far this year, I was pretty happy with a 30:43. Windy and cold for mid-April. Consistent splits between 6:00 and 6:13. |
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| May: Breakneck Point "Half" Marathon in Beacon, NY. Over a mile long due to trail re-routing, this was a tough, tough race with four hard climbs and a lot of crazy technical sections. 3:24:05, 1st in age group, finished 58th of 271. |
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| June: Sunapee Scramble 2025 US Mountain Running Championships. What a fun course and race! Craziest, deepest mud I've ever run in. 3,300' of elevation. 2nd in my age group!! |
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| July: I always enjoy running trails in Iceland! |
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| August: Bobby Doyle Summer Classic, 5 Miles 30:32. This was a turning point for me this year, with this being one of the first races I was finally happy with my performance. |
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| September: Bound for the Sound, USATF-CT 10K Championship 38:19! Psyched! |
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| September: Baker Brook Falls, along a morning run in Gros Morne National Park, one of many stunning views we encountered on our Newfoundland trip |
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| October: my only trip to Block Island this year, and my first time ever hiking or traversing the Block Island Greenway of trails. One of the top views in RI in my book. |
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| November: Pie Run! Newport County YMCA. One of my favorite Thanksgiving Day traditions. 31:00. Two seconds faster than last year. And somebody was happy to see me at the finish line! |
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| December: Eggnog Mile in Newport. Fun carpool, run, and post-run dinner at the Brick Alley Pub with running friends! Closeout to the WTAC 50th anniversary! |
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Top 3 Race Performances:
1. Bound for the Sound, Old Lyme, CT, 36:51, 88.9% age graded!
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| With the finish line in sight! Ecstatic with this race! This was one of those races where everything just clicked. Ran pretty consistent splits and was so stoked to go sub-6! PR, 1st in AG, and AG PR. |
2. Cape Cod Half, Falmouth, MA, 1:21:59, 87.7% age graded!
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| About 4 miles in on this very flat, fast, and scenic course. Again, everything just clicked, and I actually ran a very rare (for me) negative split race. My fastest half marathon in 3.5 years. First 60+, first 50+. $100 for my efforts. Loved this race, and gave me a lot of confidence going into NYC Marathon. |
3. New York City Marathon, New York, NY, 2:57:46, 84.1% age graded
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| While my form looks like I'm starting to break down and slow a bit, this is at Mile 23. This was my 6th best performance on an age graded percentage basis. --- Huge redemption after a disappointing NYC Half and a disastrous Boston, both earlier this year. My primary goal was to run sub-3:10 (Age Group World Championship qualifying standard for my age). But deep down I wondered if I had another sub-3 marathon in me at my age. And I did! |
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Bottom 3 Race Performances:
1. Boston Marathon, Hopkinton, MA, 3:20:45, 73.8% age graded
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| In Mile 25, when I am reduced to a 10-minute shuffle along flat Beacon Street --- Slow, literally painful, and embarrassing day out there. Just fell apart after about Mile 12 and it was a long, long trek getting to the finish line in Boston |
2. Laugavegur Ultramarathon, Landmannalaugar, Iceland, 7:29:54
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| Stunningly beautiful course in remote Iceland, and a very well organized race. Today just wasn't my day, as I ran almost two hours slower (yes, two HOURS) than I did here in 2022. |
3. New York City Half, New York, NY, 1:27:06
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| This race was just disappointing to me overall in many ways. Besides being much slower than my expectations and results in recent years, I just didn't like anything about this race. The logistics getting to the race, two immediate right turns followed by a cone-turnaround resulting in a logjam of runners, and cars coming at you on FDR Drive all served to turn me off. |
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2025 Stats:
- Races run: 28 (2024: 28, 2023: 29, 2022: 30, 2021: 21)
- Race breakdown by terrain: Road - 19, Trail - 8, Beach - 1, Tri - 0, Swim - 0
- Age group wins: 20
- Overall wins: 0
- Miles run: 2,787
- Elevation run: 174,124'
- Most elevation gain in a single run: 5,384' (Laugavegur Ultramarathon, Iceland)
- Hours run: 396 (2024: 430, 2023: 387, 2022: 428, 2021: 357)
- Days run: 337 (2024: 345, 2023: 325, 2022: 352, 2021: 302)
- Lowest mileage week: 20 (July, post-Laugavegur Ultramarathon)
- Highest mileage week: 83 (September, while training for New York City Marathon)
- Highest mileage day: 34 (Laugavegur Ultramarathon on July 12, including warm-up)
- Longest running streak: 53 days (September - October)
- Longest non-running streak: 2 days (once in February, once in July)
- Number of states run in: 7: RI, CT, MA, NH, ME, VT, NY
- Number of countries run in: 4: USA, Canada, Iceland, Denmark
- Run furthest from home: Copenhagen, Denmark
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2025 Goals:
- Abbott World Majors: Earn at least one more "star" by running another World Majors Marathon
- Marathon: don't know how long I can keep this going, but run at least one sub-3 hour marathon
- Mileage: 3,000
- Triathlon: Hoping to get in at least a sprint tri (kind of a soft goal, but I'll leave this in here)
- RI Grand Prix: Place at least second in the Men's' Masters competition
- Trail Fun: run in a new (to me) trail system
- Road Race: run in a new road race
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That's it for 2025. Looking for to another fun and hopefully successful running year in 2026. Happy running, friends!
