12 Races in 12 Months

Roughly a year ago, I made a goal to run one race every month for the next year. Well this past weekend marked the end of that year with my twelfth, and last race. Over the last year I ran six 5k’s, five 10k’s (one being my first trail race), and a sprint triathlon. I’ve kept all of my bibs, and even ended up with two trophies!

12MonthsofRacing

Six months into my goal, I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to do a race in September or October because of final wedding planning, the actual wedding and going on our mini-honeymoon. So I adjusted the goal a bit from one every month, to 12 races in 12 months. I did two in November and two in January to make up for missing September and October. I really wanted to have a half marathon included in my completed races, but my schedule didn’t allow one.

Over the last 12 months, I spent $406.21 on race registrations—$373 being the actual cost of registration and $33.21 being from online registration fees. I’m not bothered at all by the fact that I spent roughly $400 (add another $180 to that if you count the YMCA summer memberships I got to train for the mini-triathlon) to achieve this goal. Most of the races were to benefit a charity or organization that I actually cared about or was interested in. Because I don’t really donate directly to charities, I thought this was a good way to help supplement that.

TurkeyDayRun(Our friend John and I finishing the 6 mile Turkey Day run on Thanksgiving morning. Our final time was actually 52:30!)

To some, this may not seem like that big of a goal or deal. But to me it was. Sure, I knew I could do this. I never had any doubt that I couldn’t. And I knew going into it that I was not going to win any of them…which I didn’t. This was just a goal that I did for myself. I know that I can easily get lazy, and this was a way to keep active and running. There were several finishing times that I was not proud of, but you can’t count on setting a new personal best with every race. (Though it would be nice!) So even though I didn’t win any of the races, I did receive a couple trophies for placing in my division. I’ll take it!

Trophy

I ended the last race of my goal on a high note. It was a 10K at a local park in 28 degree weather. I didn’t get fully warmed up until after the first mile, and seriously thought my fingers were going to fall off. Note to self: wear thicker gloves. I finished with my best 10K time and got second place in my division (the one pictured above). So now that this is over, I’ll be concentrating on the half marathon in April.

Happy Running 🙂

—m.

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