Things and New Year and Goals and Stuff

2013 is over.  Finally.  Generally speaking, I've had better years.

It feels good to have a fresh start.  And like any ambitious amateur athlete, I've set some goals for myself for the new year.  And I'm really excited to go out and reach them.  With these goals,  I'm hoping 2014 will be a break out year for me.  And I'll let Sam tag along and ride my tail wind.   For the last three years, Sam and I have hovered around 1,000 miles per year each, and while it's felt really good to accomplish this 3 years in a row, like some kind of crack addict,  this just ain't cuttin' it any more, and we need some more of the good stuff.  

Goal 1:  2,014 miles in 2014.

One thing Sam really did this last year was to stop being such a social misfit and actually start talking to people.  The facebook group for the Wasatch Mountain Wranglers has led Sam to reach out to a lot of new people and make some new buddies.  I on the other hand prefer to keep a rather low online profile with the philosophy that it is better to remain quiet and let everyone think you're a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.  Especially for the whole world to see on the internet.  But giving Sam his credit, we have got to know a lot of awesome runners.  And one thing we've learned is that the more we hang out with them, the more we realize we need to up our games.  So, with that in mind, we signed up for our longest race to date.

Goal 2:  Complete the Zion 100k race.

This was, of course, a prerequisite required by my wife for me to sign up for my first 100 miler.  We are planning on doing that in the fall, pending the needed home budget appropriations for:

Goal 3:  Complete the Bear 100 mile race.

Of course, when setting goals, you have to set smaller goals to get to the larger goal.  So here's some of my sub-goals:

Subgoal 1:  100 miles in the first 10 days of January

Subgoal 2:  250 miles by January 31

Subgoal 3:  Finish the HOMM Oquirrman challenge.

Subgoal 4:  Quest For Kings Marathon finish time of less than 6 hours.

Subgoal 5:  Summit Mount Olympus in 1 hour 20 min or less.

And speaking of Mount Olympus...

We decided to spend our first run of the year on that guy.  Sam put out the invitation to the Wasatch Mountain Wranglers that on January 1 we were going to start at 7:00, and sure enough, a few people showed up to join us.

Trevor, who had taken home the Quest for Kings marathon cowbell two years ago, took off early, and I didn't catch up to him till the summit.  He reached the summit in an astonishing time of 1 hour 12 min.  26 minutes later I reached the summit with my third best summit time ever.  I'm feeling pretty good about that considering it is still winter and that I haven't done any real "red-line" or steep incline training since my last injury.  Sam and Jeremy came trotting up about 10 minutes later, and then we all went cruising down together.  Loved the run.  Quads are still sore.

Chris going down, and Jeremy going up the final scramble

Jeremy, Sam, and Trevor

Jeremy, Steve, and Trevor