Old Year New Year

From a running perspective, 2014 was a pretty good year - not great, but pretty darned good.
The numbers:

• Total Miles: 2,240 miles
• 6 weeks with less than 40 miles; 1 week with more than 60
  (something I would like to reverse this year)
• Longest run: 26.2 miles (Monument Marathon)

And many very enjoyable running experiences all along the way. For example:

January: being the first runner on the first Saturday of the New Year to run Bobolink:

Bobolink Trail, Boulder

February: running with the sunrise along the Singletree Trail:

1914 Girls of Central High at Basketball mystery

March:  Birthday month! Celebrating with a delightful birthday run with Taz pup and an amazing present from son Devon:







 April: Participating in my first people-pupster race with Taz at the Canine Classic - way cold but way fun

Canine Classic, April 2014, Boulder Reservoir

 May offered lots of variety:

 a snowy Mother's Day run with Taz,

 the Bolder Boulder after many weeks of training with running buddies Connie and Anita,

 

Post-race smiles, Bolder Boulder, Memorial Day, Connie, Paula, Anita

a glorious long run along the
Flint Hills Trail in Kansas,

Roses in KC's Loose Park - a lovely running venue

KC with Devon and the Stanleys (Kerry, Corinne, Joanne)

and an introduction to Kansas City running where we visited Devon, Corinne and Corinne's family.








 June: began with many-a-run in one of my most favorite places on earth, Petoskey and Little Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan. We camped right along the lake shore where we were treated to Petoskey's Million Dollar Sunsets every night we were there.











July's most powerful experience Boulder's Relay for Life, 12 hours of reflective celebratory running

Sunrise at Relay for Life, Potts Field, Boulder

August: quad deep in marathon training - so lots of trail exploration including a new-to-me trail in Louisville and one of many visits to the Community Ditch-Singletree-Meadowlark trail route.




September: the Monument Marathon near Scottsbluff Nebraska.
A great event near, through and around Scottsbluff National Monument on a particularly hot day this year - but what a fantastic run!

Near mile 13 of the Monument Marathon

Scottsbluff

October:  a visit to Petoskey to help mom celebrate her 94th birthday. There's nothing quite like north woods running in the height of autumn colors!

Running the Bear River Trail, Petoskey, Michigan

Of course, autumn in Boulder ain't to shabby either!

Anita and Connie on our run up Skunk Creek Trail, Boulder

Meadowlark with Anita, Connie, pjv, Randall & Taz

Two weeks later; Kohler Mesa Trail

November: Marathon training is done! It's running-purely-for-fun time!  November in Boulder being what it is, we had some warm runs and some chilly runs.  All good!





December: Training has started up again what with Cross-Country Nationals coming up in February.  Boulder's winter weather doesn't much care about how much training needs to happen between now and then.  One day I try tempo training on the snowpack - and realize it's a lot more fun to just go for a run in the snow with Taz.

Scene of the tempo run

Scene of the Taz run - way more fun

And now we have 2015.  

A lot of single-digit-snow-filled runs so far.  But really quite beautiful.  And that's why I love to run.