If you want to be righteous, get in line

2013 started off with a great 8 week training block in Kenya where I ran a lot and came back to Guelph ready to put the final touches on my marathon build-up for Rotterdam.  A small injury to my foot and getting sick slowed me down going into Rotterdam.  The sickness came back stronger days before the race.  The writing was on the wall but I gave it a shot anyways, went through halfway in 64:58 and dropped out after 35km.

After a recovery period I started to regain fitness and plotted to run STWM in the fall. A week later I broke my collarbone falling off my mountain bike.  Seven weeks of no running ensued plus another couple weeks ramping back up my training. At that point I knew I wouldn’t be ready for STWM and changed my focus to the Fukuoka marathon.

It was a little unnerving that by September my best race in 2013 was a 64:24.

By late September I felt fit again and posted promising results going into Fukuoka (Canadian 10km win and 63:11 half).  On race day at Fukuoka I felt ready to run sub 2:10.  A fast early pace and running solo from 18km made it too tough for me and I finished in 2:11:24.  Not bad, but short of my goal.  That performance ranked me second in North America (behind Dathan Ritzenhein 2:09:47) which isn’t really that great because a 2:11 shouldn’t be ranked that high in North America.  It’s more of a stat I would tell a non-runner who asks me what I do for a living and use it to justify running around everyday.

Three faces of “what the Fukuoka just happened?”

December wasn’t smooth sailing, I had a cold for a week and last week I barely ran because inflamed fibularis tendons.  I’m not complaining though because the timing could have been much worse.  The last couple days I’ve felt pretty good on the treadmill.

I ran 7446km in 2013.  Short of my goal of 8000 but considering I took an unexpected 7 weeks off, not bad.  Otherwise I would have easily hit 8500km.

In two days I’m off to Kenya with John Mason and Kyle Boorsma.  I will spend over 6 weeks in Iten, Kenya and race a Belgian XC race on the way home.  After that it will be a half marathon in March and a marathon in April (to be confirmed really soon).

Stay tuned for dispatches from Iten…