Friday 30 December 2011

2011 in Review

At the beginning of this year I wrote this post on my plans for the year ahead. It was really good to go back and read it this week. (Not very good of me to write the post and almost forget about it. The goals were in my head tho'. I plan on printing my 2012 goals and keeping them on the board above my laptop.) 

Here is my list of (some of my) Goals for 2011:

Run for A Cause: After I have qualified for The Comrades Marathon,I will sign up to raise money for Amabeadibeadi.  This I did! I raised a little over R5000 for the charity. I have already signed up again to raise money for The Pink Drive. You are welcome to contribute to my fund-raising by visiting my fundraising page

Volunteer for a Race: I'm not sure which one this will be this year. last year I volunteered at the City to City 10km Walk.  I got to be a Marshall at my daughters school fun run in March. I stood at around the 3km mark and directed the little bit of traffic that there was. My daughter didn't participate, she was also a volunteer and assisted at the finish, mostly handing out Goody Bags.

Introduce Someone to Running: It looks asif I have already done this - over the holidays, the mother of my daughter's friend came to collect her and over a cup of tea we were talking about my running and she said she would join my running group (RWFL) once school goes back in the middle of January.This didn't happen as planned. I have however indirectly inspired 3 of my friends to run - one did recently join a local branch of RWFL and 2 others get together as often as they can to run together. I also got one lady at my club running in sandals as well as my husband. I also just ordered another pair for one of the gals that I run with.

Make it Social: I am the president of the South African Chapter of the Barefoot Runners Society, and I plan to hook up with other barefoot runners in South Africa. This is a big goal!!  This didn't happen well at all. I was very focused on my personal goals. I did make an attempt to organise a barefoot race-within-a-race on International Barefoot Running Day in May. I sent out the required press releases  (maybe a little too late) and posted on a few running forums, but I didn't get a good response and sort-of lost motivation.

Set a PR: This wont be too hard to do in races because 2010 was my first year of running so (almost) all the races that I did can only be bettered.It'll be a little more difficult to get a PB (we call it a Personal Best rather than Personal Record) in our monthly 4km TT. My best to date was set in October 2010 and was 20:19. My goal will be to do it under 20 minutes. My big race of 2010 was the RAC Tough One 32kmthat I did in 4:03:27. This year I would like to do it in 3:45:00. This was achieved many times over in the 10km,  21km, 42km and ultra marathon. I did the RAC Tough One in a time of 3:45:30, not too shabby in this context.

Injury Proof Your Body: I will continue with my Pilates class twice a week which definitely helps with my core strength. I will carry on running in my sandals but introducing more and more barefoot running because I find that it really helps in maintaining 'proper' running form. I did maintain my regular Pilates classes, except for the 3 months that I had a temporary job which interfered with the gym timetable. I ran mostly in my sandals this year. I had to be comfortable in them for Comrades and then it was winter and too cold and ... I just love my huaraches from Invisible Shoes

Switch It Up: I plan on doing more trail runs this year. I completed 4 Trail Runs in 2010 and really enjoyed them. This year I would like to participate in the Trail Series Winter Series which starts in June, as well as the Summer Series which starts in October. I didn't get to do the full winter series. The dates conflicted with road races or cycling events that i did take part in. I did few trail runs and a great adventure race and 3 cycling races which constitute switch it up.

Enter a Race in a Dream Location: I entered and was accepted into the Skukuza Castle Lager half marathon on August 6, 2011 in the Kruger National Park. This is one of the races on my bucket list and I'm very excited that my entry was "pulled outta the hat" (my dad also entered but he didn't get in). Now all I need is to find accommodation for that weekend. I loved Skukuza half marathon, my dad did get an entry and we got a weeks accomodation in the bush. I also ran at Sudwala Caves and did my first adventur race. Mission accomplished!

The final two Goals are Take up Yoga and Better Nutrition, both of which I currently do in an acceptable (to me anyway) manner. I didn't get to do much yoga as the timetables just didn't fit in with my times. The nutrition went (is going) well. I am taking supplements when necessary, eating fruit and veg regularly. 

All in all, I am happy with what I did achieve this year and am looking forward to going "FURTHER" next year.



3 comments:

Karien P. said...

A very successful year! Well done on reaching so many of your goals.

I'd also love to do an adventure race one day, but it's still a bit of a mental block at this stage ;) ...

Norman said...

I got a great deal of pleasure from re-reading your 2011 goals and your commentary on how each of them panned out. Considering the way January went it was all the more commendable that you persevered and from 5 March onwards almost all your targets were achieved. The major events, in particularly Comrades, went as well as you could possibly wish for and even on a bad day, like the 2011 Tough One, you still managed a good outcome. Lots of very valuable lessons learned in 2011. Hope the 2012 targets demand
some improvement over 2011, but are still realistic. 2012 can be looked on as a consolidation year!!

Char said...

You've gotta give 2011 a big tick. A very successful year for you.