Uphills, Downhills, and The Next Few Miles

"There are three choices in life. Give in, give up, or give it all you've got."


If we're being honest here, I don't have much of a year to review. I spent three-fourths of it injured. I was injured at the beginning of last year, and I'm injured now. Those are the downhills. I encountered three major injuries over the course of 2011: IT band syndrome, patellofemoral, and finally a fractured calcaneous. I had only a few really, really solid months of racing and training. Right now, I can't walk...well..couldn't walk (we'll get to that in a few paragraphs). But I'd like to take this post to talk about the victories that I DID have in 2011 and map out the ones I'd like to achieve in this next year. 


2011....I came back from my IT band injury just in time for track season. I didn't have the stellar season that I had hoped for. But still,  came away from it with a lot of good experiences and a few PR's. I had one of the biggest learning experiences of my life as I ran Kansas Relays in April and I experienced what it's like to run on a seriously big stage. Pressure? Sure but it's exciting. Though they weren't as big as I had hoped for I DID set some PR's
3k-10:45
1500-5:01
1 mile: 5:15
10k: 38:00
Oh...and I learned how to swim, and swim A LOT this past year. I never imagined that I would enjoy swimming, but it's become so much a part of who I am, and for much of the year, swimming got me through many of the toughest parts of this year. And..I bought a crazy, beautiful bike and even learned to ride it. My passion for running ultra-marathons someday slowly changed to competing in ironmans someday. 
Finally, cross country season. While it was mostly full of disappointments there are a few things that I can' skim over. I won my conference race for the second year in a row-becoming the first ever female to win the title twice in conference history. I also ran an 8k instead of a 6k for one of my races and set a new PR of 30:14. 
I applied to four different graduate programs, and finished up my undergrad requirements in psychology. And finally, I learned a lot about myself, most importantly that I can make it through everything, even broken feet. 


2012
-Start walking again ...check! I did this today. I can walk without crutches. I still do use  my crutches, usually just using one, but I can do it. And there is no pain. I'm trying not to walk too much but I'm so excited. I decided that I was going to start walking in the new year. I wish it was more exciting to talk about, a better story. But truly all that happened is that when I was going into the kitchen this morning I decided to do it without crutches. 
-Start running again
-Train for and complete a century ride. 
-Graduate from college
-Nutrition-calcium and protein and such
   I'll do a post on this later but this category includes a lot of smaller goals such as making sure I'm getting 1500g of calcium every day and eating protein every day and most importantly of all using nutrition in such a way as to make my foot, and myself better. 
-STOP BITING NAILS
-Give up coffee. (this is part of the nutrition goal but it's so sad that it deserves it's own category)
-Strengthening mind and body


Happy 2012!