I really can’t believe it’s 2016 already. It feels like just yesterday we were ringing in new year for 2015. Granted at the same time though, looking back so much happened this past year that its hard to believe that it all happened in just one year. 2015 was one hell of a tumultuous year to say the least. It seems like for as high as every high was, there was an equally low low to go along with it. But those peaks and valleys are simply a part of life, and they left a very memorable year in their wake. Running wise, 2015 played out in two very distinctive halves.
The first half of the year utterly sucked. I opened the year with a miserable showing in the Fred Lebow Manhattan Half Marathon. This race, along with the terrible winter we had in NYC, pretty much killed any motivation I had and I completely lost interest in training, basically doing the absolute minimum I needed to be able to fulfill my pacing duties for the team. This basically continued until the second half of outdoor track where I finally started to get my act together and get into a discernible training regimen. Things were still shitty and I was racing badly, but they were finally starting to look slightly up. The only major plus of this semester was winning manager of the year. I got a nice big glass trophy for it so that was cool.
Me cheesin’ hard with the SJU President and AD
Then came the second half of the year once summer started, and for the most part things got a lot better. After a couple high mileage weeks at the end of the school year, I was able to keep myself in the rhythm and carried that through my single best training block to date. Throughout the summer I even pulled in some nice hardware as well, earning podium finishes at a couple local races and even taking the win in one local 5k at the end of the summer. XC was a little stale racing-wise, but I was still training well so it wasnt too bad. The only downturn was missing basically the entire month of October with a nasty case of bronchitis, but coming back from that gave me back the fire and passion I needed to start ripping out the mileage again, putting me into my current training block, which is already getting me into the best shape of my life going into the new year.
I’m really excited for 2016. Like I said, I’m feeling great and my training couldn’t be better, and I have a lot to look forward to this year. I have a new periodized training plan, an awesome race schedule with several high profile races, and hopefully my marathon debut! I will also be rocking a certain blue and orange NB singlet soon so that’ll just add to the fun. I kicked off the year today by crushing a great fartlek workout, and will be kicking off the race year with the Cocoa Classic 5mi in Central Park just over a week from now where I hope to secure my first podium finish of 2016. So to conclude this, I say goodbye to 2015, and hellloooooo 2016!
Run John Run! 