My Answers to Three Questions to Ask Yourself Before the New Year

This week's Friday Links pointed to the article outlining three questions to ask yourself before the new year.  Here goes!

1.  What were my three favorite athletic moments of 2016?

First, running the PNC Milwaukee Half Marathon.  It was a textbook great race for me and culminated in shaving over 4 minutes off my half-marathon PR AND my first half under 1:30! Hands down my favorite race of 2016.  I was proud of pushing through pain for the last few miles of this and not backing off the pace.

Second, FINALLY breaking 19:00 in the 5K at Run Tosa Run.  I loved the competition of this race. Without the woman who finished second, I don't know that I would have ran this as fast as I did.

Third, my sometimes training partner Bettina and I had the most amazing 22 mile run leading up to the Boston Marathon.   You can read about it at the end of this post.

2.  What were my challenges this year?

Same challenge I always have - staying consistent.  I think I made a lot of progress with this but December was a hot mess.

I also was challenged with a stress reaction in my metatarsal which threw off my 5K training for summer.

My biggest challenge that I started working on is mindset.  The biggest example of this was the Boston Marathon where I physically felt off from the beginning and let my mind get sucked down as well.  In several other races, I gave up or backed off when the onset of pain came.

3. What inspires me now?  Write down three goals for 2017.

First, I want to PR in the marathon.

Second, I want to challenge myself with something new.  To that end, I have signed up for a duathlon in July 2017.  (Run 2 miles, bike 14.7 miles, run 2 miles.)

Third, I want to incorporate more yoga and meditation into my routine.  I read A LOT about meditation in 2016.  This started as a task for work.  I was reading medical literature about health impact of meditation/mindfulness.  That lead to a colleague and I taking a 6 week course in mindfulness, offered by my employer.  That lead to me reading a few books on meditation:

10% Happier
Do Your Om Thing

I took a yoga for runners course earlier this year and played with some yoga out of the Hit Reset book. I took the plunge and subscribed to JasYoga (due to a free month code we were sent via Oiselle).