2011 - The Year In Review

Well, what can I say the year 2011 was a great year in many ways for me, I had some pretty substantial accomplishments that I am very proud of achieving like:

• First Barefoot Marathon completed (Manitoba Marathon) - Here
• First Gravel Half Marathon completed (Treherene) - Here
• First Barefoot 50km Ultra Marathon Completed (Vulture Bait) - Here
• Barefoot Runs In Temps Below -20 degrees C: Four including one at -29 degrees.
• Ran Across Lake Winnipeg (Polar Bear Run) - Here
• My First Article Published - Here
• Winning my first race in my age category (Buffalo Runners Half Marathon) - Here
• Setting up the Winnipeg Division of the Canadian Chapter of the Barefoot Runners Society
• Breaking my personal bests in the 5km, 10 km, Half  Marathon and the Marathon distances.
• Putting my face in the water and attempting to learn to swim for the first time in like ever.
• A new position at work complete with a promotion, who says being a little different and not trying to be someone you are not at work hinder your ability to advance your career. I go to work in VFF's  and occasionally dispose of the footwear all together during the day around the office. Everybody is generally interested in my barefootedness, they have accepted me for how I am and judge my performance on my work abilities not my idiosyncrasies.

With this there is always a few areas or goals that fall short, but if life was like a run in the park all the time there would be reason to push ourselves and persevere. This is a list of items and or happenings that were either not achieved or were a low point in my year:

• I had a goal of completing 1,000 barefoot running miles in 2011, well I did come up a little short at 926 miles for the year starting Jan 1, 2011 and running to Dec. 31, 2011. I will be trying this again in 2012 to see if I can achieve and or exceed this lofty goal.
• My first running injury occurred during the WPS Half Marathon, where I pulled my groin bad enough I could not run for 2 weeks and not comfortably for 3 weeks following.
• I encountered a breathing issue during the summer which did not allow me to run as much or as far as I wanted, and forced me to carry a ventilator for 3 months (it subsequently just gone away).
• Our family suffered a great loss, when our favorite girl, Jeannie passed away in October at the age of 13. Jeannie left us to join her brother Jersey who passed on the previous year, to run and play together once again. Rest in peace, for you will both be missed dearly.

RIP Jeannie - Aug 1998 - Oct 2011

But with all the adversity of the missed goals, injuries and loss came a bright star, and that would be the search for new goals for the upcoming year. I have decided to take on some new challenges this year which I will be touching on in a future post.

 

I have also decided to keep track of all my mileage this year and I am challenging my two partners in crime (Nicole and Gail) to do the same in the form of the Mileage Tracker on the side of the blog. I haven't quite decided what I will use the final numbers for, maybe a charity donation calculation. If you have any ideas that you think will be fun and worthwhile put them in the comments, and we will see what we can come up with.

 

I hope everybody has a great year, I know I will be looking forward to see what interesting sights and experiences are in store for me this year.

 

On on

 

Bob