2013 Goals in Review

From the start, 2013 was never going to be the year I had hoped it would be. Coming off of serious late year injuries in 2012 may have made for rescaling of 2013 but I refused to let those injuries stop me from doing the things that I loved. Here is a summary of the goals I posted from myself in January and how I did in the efforts throughout the year.

1. Complete my third Ironman race on May 18, 2013.

I registered for this race last summer in the first moments that registration was open. In 2012 I set a PR of almost three hours from the year before and I was hoping to aim for cutting another hour or two off of that time. However, getting hit by a car and having surgery to reconstruct my collarbone led to serious doubt that I might even be able to do this race--certainly my surgeon told me it was possible but he didn't seem too confident until April came and my recovery continued to move forward. On May 18, 2013, I started and completed my third Ironman race. It wasn't the smashing PR that I would have originally liked but it was a glorious day to prove that I was still able to be able to complete this wonderful event.

 2.With no real idea how long my recovery will take I will forgo my general desire to PR every race and set a more realistic PR goal for 2013. In this case I will attempt to set a PR for at least one running event and one triathlon event.

For the most part, I never did get my 2013 race times to beat my 2012 race times. However, my PR time at the Olympic Distance triathlon was beaten at the USAT National Championship race in August. In addition, in the run portion of that race I beat my 10K PR time and ran 10K in under an hour for the first time in any race.

 3.Do at least one very unique race event. I'm not going to place too many restrictions on this, just something out of the ordinary.

Given the loose requirements for this, I am going to claim that it was accomplished by participating in a national championship race (I finished way in the back--but I was there!) last August.

 4. This year I hope to be more mindful of not letting my training schedule monopolize my overall schedule.

During this year's Ironman training I was able to keep more time set aside for my wife than in previous years. In addition, I learned to take more time off near holidays for my family.

 5. Find ways to be helpful to others in these sporting activities and follow through with helping them.

During 2013 I was able to continue my work with a group dedicated to helping junior high students run their first 5K race. I was also blessed this year to do may training activities with friends that I hadn't done much or training with in previous years. In some cases I was able to help advise them  as they worked towards their own Ironman races.


2013 managed to have its share of surprises for me, in mostly positive ways. I wasn't just able to return to racing but I even managed to find my way to 3 podium finishes in a few low profile races. I entered the year on little more than faith and hope but I finished the year knowing that I was strong enough for the challenges I faced. I'm not quite sure what goals I will have for 2014 but I will go into the year confident that I can overcome the obstacles life places in my way.