On Goals...

Every turning of the calendar page means that I frantically look for races to fill the subsequent months to follow. Last year I ran over 1000 miles and raced in over 10 events. Those 10 encompassed 1 5k, 1 10k obstacle course, 1 regular 10k, 4 half marathons, 3 Ragnar relay races (2 road, 1 trail), and the mack-daddy 26.2.

How do I top that in 2014?

This is a pretty serious dilemma for me, because this is also the year that I will write my bigscaryholyshit dissertation and defend it to earn my PhD. Obviously that should be taking up the majority of my time. But the paradox for me lies in the fact that emotional and mental stability are more easily reached when I'm running, under a bit of pressure, and in general just more balanced and focused. Hence the following (still incomplete) race schedule:

January- rebuild my base. I took most of the month of December off thanks to some nasty post-marathon flexor tendinitis, and I need to rebuild slowly to start my half marathon training
February- Start training, Blacksburg Classic 5k
March- Keep training, Ukrops 10k (haven't signed up yet, but probably will soon)
April- Here's where the real fun starts. Last year it was my goal to become a half fanatic. This year my 13.1 goal it to level up within the organization. How does one "level up"? You outdo your previous half marathon fanaticism. For me, this means doing a b2b, or back-to-back. I will run the Blue Ridge half marathon in VA and then roughly 21 hours later, run the Nike Women's half in DC.
May- Keep up my half base for 4 weeks, and add in some swimming and biking for crosstraining. You can guess where this is going...
June- I will probably do Ragnar Chicago (depends on how kind the tax refund is this year) at the beginning of the month, and then start marathon training and sprint triathlon training.
July- Keep on truckin' with training. I am such a glutton for punishment for training through summers. Possibly a repeat of the Merrell Down n Dirty 10k from last year, this time without having mono.
August- IronGirl Columbia sprint triathlon. 0.62mi swim, 17mi bike, 3.4mi run. A million miles of awesome.
September- Monster Month of Marathon training. Also Ragnar Napa Valley. Also a weeklong vacation in Calistoga to kick off taper :)
October- Marathon, TBD. Ideally it will be Chicago,  if not it will definitely be Wineglass
November- Annual Turkey Trot in Naples FL
December- At least one smaller race in there, wherever we are. I hope to have a PhD by the time the holidays roll back in, so I have no idea where we'll be yet.

Phew. I'm tired just typing that out.

Overall goals of 2014:
Harder.
Better.
Faster.
Stronger.

Let's do this.