2007: Running Year in Review
I’m a bit late in putting together this summary but I couldn’t let the opportunity to post more graphs pass me by! Above is a graph of my 2007 running mileage by week. My total running mileage (including races) was 1149.6 miles / 1850.1 km which averages out to 22.1 miles / 35.6 km per week. I had set the goal of exceeding 1000 miles this year and I achieved that on November 10 with lots of time to spare. The biggest week I did was 38.8 miles three weeks prior to the Ottawa marathon. The week of the marathon was a close second coming in at 38.5 miles.
Running my first marathon was definitely my biggest running achievement of 2007. I couldn’t have asked for anything better than getting to go home to Ottawa and having the support of Mom, Dad, Alli and Matt out on the course. The marathon (4:25:13) aside it was also a really good year for racing shorter distances. I set new personal bests in the 5K – 23:19, 12K – 1:00:48 and half marathon – 1:55:33 then 1:51:59. I think the WAVA graph below shows a nice progression in my race times. What’s interesting is that my 5K times appear to out of whack with the rest of my race times. I guess I’m good at pushing hard over short distances.
So there’s not much more to say. Runningwise I rocked 2007 and I’m looking forward to good things in 2008.
“It’s amazing you can ski down a hill that slowly”
On my first day in Whistler I went downhill skiing with my Dad and sister. It was my first time downhill skiing in two years so Dad and Alli took it easy on me. By easy I mean they took me down most of the Dave Murray Downhill which will be used for the Men’s Olympic downhill race in 2010! Actually, they were really great about taking things slowly for me. See I am a super conservative downhill skier. I like to be in control because the last thing I want to do is tear and ACL or something like that! When Mom saw a video clip of me skiing down a steep hill she actually said “It’s amazing you can ski down a hill that slowly!” Yea, a speedster I am not!
We had several large snow dumps while we were in Whistler which made for lots of powder on the hills. You could actually hear people on the hills spontaneously letting out squeals of joy and they skied/boarded through the powder. Overall the conditions were great even though on some days the alpine lifts weren’t open due to high winds/poor visibility/avalanche risk. My favourite was when there was 5-10cm of fresh snow over perfectly groomed trails.
Later on in the trip I had the idea of wearing my Garmin while skiing. Below you can see the routes that we took over three different days of skiing on Whistler and Blackcomb. We definitely tried to cover as much of the mountain as we could!
Cross-country skiing the Callaghan Valley
Over the holidays I spent nine days in Whistler with my family. Days were spent skiing (four day of cross-country and five days of downhill for me), late afternoons were spent napping and reading and evening were spent enjoying good food (homemade in our condo’s kitchen), good wine and the best company of all – family.
One of the highlights for me was Mom, Matt and my New Year’s day trip to the Whistler Olympic Park in the Callaghan Valley about 20km outside of Whistler. This is the site of the 2010 Nordic events: cross-country, biathlon and ski jumping. We were to first people to purchase recreational day ski passes in 2008 and headed out on the trails. We didn’t actually do the Olympic routes (they were black (i.e. difficult) trails). The scenery in the valley was beyond beautiful. In fact, it was almost too beautiful to comprehend! Near the end of our route we skied right up to the base of the ski jumps and watched juniors practice for the National Championships that were starting the next day. Then we skied through what will be the cross-country ski stadium. We ended the trip sipping hot chocolates on the drive back to Whistler.
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Memorable Moments of 2007
Happy (somewhat belated) New Year! In keeping with tradition (2006, 2005, 2004 and 2002), I am pleased to present my list of Memorable Moments of 2007:
| January | February |
| Vacation in St Maarten with my family | The excitement and trepidation felt starting marathon training (more) |
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| March | April |
| Weekend in Vancouver with the family and attending my first NHL game | Placing in my age group at the Tom Wales Memorial 5K (more) |
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| May | June |
| Running my first marathon (more) | Trip to Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains for Jeff and Leah’s wedding (more) |
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| July | August |
| The Thunder 07 reunion/mock statistical conference | Trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake for Mike and Erin’s wedding (more) |
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| September | October |
| Trip to Copenhagen and Paris with Mom (more) | Canadian Thanksgiving weekend: running the Victoria half marathon and then family time in Vancouver (more) |
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| November | December |
| Attending Husky basketball games with Dad | Christmas vacations in London and Whistler |
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