Closing out my lucky ’13

I proclaimed last January that 2013 was going to be epic.  Was it?  Maybe.  It was definitely a challenging year with some awesome highs and some scary moments.  In the end, I’d have to say that while the year was not perfect, it was pretty darn good.

So how did I do on my goals?

Running

I have one major goal for running this year: Don’t hurt myself. – Admittedly, I blew this one early on when I hurt my calf in February, but once I healed, I did a good job of staying uninjured.

Everything else is just details.

1. Finish my five half marathons in five days.  Preferably upright and smiling. –  I ROCKED this!  And I loved it so much I’m doing another one.
2. Run 13 half marathons in 2013 (mix of Virtual and IRL). – I actually ran 13 IRL half marathons!
3. Run 13 IRL races (not exactly difficult when 7 will be done by the end of March.) – Yeah, all of them were half marathons.  I did not run a single race all year of a different length.
4. Run races in at least 6 states (again, not that hard when 5 will be done in one week.) – While I did run in more than 6 states this year, only 5 of them were new states.  I’ve now completed 26 of the states.
5. If all goes well, think about using all that mileage to train for a full in May/June and/or run 2013 miles in 2013.  (This one TOTALLY hinges on succeeding with number 1.) – Didn’t even try. And I’m not at all upset about it.  I only ran 740 recorded miles.

Fitness/Physical Health

1. Get the kids moving with me. – Meh.  Sometimes, sometimes not. We have done a good job recently of cleaning up our eating.
2. Cut down on the sugar and the cheese.   Aiming for added sugar only 2x per week and no more than one cheese serving a day. – Umm, not successful here. Our meals are healthy, I just can’t seem to quit the sugary snacks.
3. Get in 2 non-running workouts each week. – I managed this really well for parts of the year.  That’s a start, right?
4. Figure out how to fuel myself for the major mileage I’ve been doing and have healthy food ready to go when the “mileage hungries” hit. – Fail.  Big old fail.  Although at least when I got on the scale today, I weighed the same as last January 1.  At least my poor eating did not cause weight gain.
5. Buy the stupid bike that I’ve been talking about for two years. – Win!  My parents gave me a new to me bike.
   

Work

1. Continue working for my awesome boss at my job that I enjoy. Get better at balancing my priorities. – I’m doing pretty well here.
2. Stop working late at night. – Sometimes I actually get to bed before midnight. 
3. Enjoy the heck out of working the NWM half in DC. – This.was.awesome. If I didn’t have kids and a family, I’d totally want to work for a race management company. Alas…
   

Personal

1. Join BURP (a local homebrew club). Really going to do this this year. – I did it!  Go me!
   
2. Brew a batch of beer at home. Ok, at least finish buying the equipment I need. – Eh, not ever going to happen.
   
3. Go out with Beer Geek without the kids at least once every two weeks. – We’ve been doing ok on this. Now that he works from home, we see each other at lunch most days of the week.
4. Take a trip with Beer Geek. Already got this one booked… – This was a ton of fun!
   
5. Continue to slowly clean out the clutter in our house. This year’s focus is turning the playroom into an office by the time summer arrives (the basement is not air conditioned…) – I did well in some areas, but now that Beer Geek is working in the basement, I’m really behind on filing.  And I made some progress in the playroom, just not enough.
   

Yeah, 2013 was overall successful.  Now I just need to figure out what to keep and what to drop for 2014.