2013 Year in Review

In January of 2013 I laid out some goals for the year, let's see how close I came to hitting them and how the year went overall.

The motto was Lean and Clean in 2013, and I stuck to that pretty well. I really was able to refine my diet and find patterns that I was comfortable with after some experimentation. Gluten Free, vegan, vegetarian, plant based, I finally found a comfort zone and my body responded.  The best response I got was to the Paradigm Challenge, a 2 week vegan program I did. The meals were tasty, I slimmed down nicely, and felt great the whole time. There will be a LOT more Paradigm days in 2014.

Short term goals:
5k under a 7 minute pace: Fail. I did set a 5k PR, but it was still at a 7:03 pace (21:56). I needed to hit 21:50. Missed it by 6 seconds, no shame in that.
See how close I can get to 11 hours at Beach 2 Battleship: Fail. I finished in 13:12, which isn't even a PR for my Iron distance, much less an 11:xx. I'm done with coastal area bike races, the wind slows me down considerably more than the hills do. I'm choosing hills now.

Long Term Goals:
Cast Iron Club: Success! The goal was to hit 30 Iron distances in each sport covering training and racing miles in 2013. In total, I finished with 54.35 Iron Swims, 34.65 Iron Bikes, and 32.37 Iron Runs. That is a solid year by any standards. This is the goal I wanted more than anything else this year, and I'm so glad I did it.

December 2013

Swim: 6050 m, 2 swims
Bike: 15 miles, 1 ride
Run: 72.1 miles, 11 runs
Strength: 9 workouts
Yoga: 10 times

December was a good offseason month. Marathon training is kicking up pretty strong and feels good, but I did get a nasty blister this past sunday that's going to come back to haunt me.  Got on the bike again, and hit the pool a couple of times.

2013 Totals

Swim: 210,220 meters, 119.44 miles
Bike: 3,869.25 miles
Run: 847.8 miles
Strength: 81 times
Yoga: 90 times
Average weight: 178.56 lbs
Average bodyfat %: 20.7%

This was an amazing year. My second Ironman finish didn't come without it's own set of challenges on the day, but anytime you finish an Ironman it's a blessing. I had my highest bike mileage year ever, and maybe my highest swim totals ever. I did have to deal with a tendon injury in my right foot that sidelined me for a couple of weeks in the summer, and the tendon kind of bothered me through November.

On the personal front, this was a banner year as well. The kids got old enough to be easier to handle, their school schedules sync'd up and the routine became established. They aren't toddlers anymore. Kelley and I grew closer than we've ever been and I love her more every day. We got our family finances pulled together, and got on a plan to get our monthly expenses under control and soon we'll have all of our debts paid off. Once this last rental property sells, we'll only have the mortgage on our primary residence as the only debt with a nice savings plan underway.

8 - 10 years from now, the kids will start to need cars, insurance, SAT prep stuff and college applications. In 2013 we really started the earnest preparations for that time. I feel really good about this year, it saw forward progress for us as a family for the first time in a long time. We've been in a debt-controlled negative position for about the last 5 years, and I'm really glad that we started the turnaround. There's still about another 2 years to go before we finish the turnaround. I know where I want our family to be when I turn 40 in 2015, and I finally feel like we can get there. That's a feeling I didn't have before 2013.

Here's to moving onwards and upwards in 2014! Happy new year!