Meeting my goal: 90.3 miles of races in 2014

Welp, I did it. I officially completed my New Year's Determination by running 14 races in 2014. And its only mid October too! When I took time this weekend to think of the total mileage in those races I was absolutely shocked and a little speechless that it totaled 90.3 miles. And that doesn't even count the hundreds of training miles I've logged two to three days a week leading up to each race and the countless hours of cross training between running days. To say I feel proud of myself is an understatement. When I crossed the finish line of that 14th race and saw the total number of race miles added up - well, I truly felt like a badass.

On January 1st, instead of setting a New Years Resolution that was sure to be lost, I took the advice of my trainer and friend Shannon and instead set a goal for the whole year - a New Year Determination. I saw Mitzi, Allison and Shannon's 2013 goal of running 13 races and thought, why not go for it? At the beginning of the year I thought for sure it would likely consist of a lot of 5ks and I doubted I could complete it. But when I broke it down this weekend I realized it came out to this:

2 - half marathons
1 - 10Miler
2 - 15Ks
2 - 10Ks
1 - 4.5 Mi Trail Race
and 6 - 5Ks

One 5K included a 1st place finish in my age group! (I doubt I'll be seeing that again for a few years now that I move into the 35-39 age group and will be running with several of the speedy Badass Babes including Allison and Shannon!) And throughout this year I continued to improve my race time from a few seconds a race in the beginning to a whopping 20 min between my first and second half marathon (2:34:50 to 2:14:06). But I think the best example of race transformation was running the entire Army 10 Miler with only walking the water breaks on my 14th and final race.

For me, 2014 was about a year of putting me first. About treating my body like the temple it is; nourishing it with delicious and nutritious food I made, building lean strong muscles, and being thankful every day that I can wake up, lace up and go for a run. It's discovering that hidden deep within me I really am a runner. And what's more, I really enjoy running. I've made some amazing friendships along this journey and had some incredible race weekends with the Badass Babes. The memories and the pictures, the race bling and bibs tell a story of an incredible year and an incredibly rewarding journey. I'm so excited to complete this goal that I've already set my goal for 2015 to include 15 races. The race bib and medal holder is already up on the wall waiting to be filled. Who's joining me in running a race?