Don't Look Back In Anger

Normally my signature sign off on Dec 31st is a top ten list of my years races........underlining my mediocre season I could only find 5 races worthy of that honour of the 21 races I ran in 2015.....
By some standards my season wasn't too shabby: 3rd at Hartshorne,2 silvers at Indoor Nationals, a pair of bronze medals at Outdoor Nationals,3rd at the GPTC Track Pentathlon and 4th at 5th Avenue Mile......but frankly I expected more and got far less

Obviously going into 2015 Worlds in Lyon was front and center on my agenda......the fact I didn't even get there should sum up my season..... but I also feel Lyon was a catalyst for all that went wrong in 2015.
Cast your mind back to 2010 at Nationals I ran a pr in the 5,000m 15.39,I knew to get on the podium for a bronze at Worlds a year later I needed to shave 10 seconds off that......unfortunately my anemia took care of that.
So in 2014 I ran a 4.21 to win the 1,500m at Nationals a year b4 Worlds and yet again I believed IF I could shave 10 seconds off that I "could" win Worlds......let's face it 10 seconds is a huge chunk of change but I felt if I could lower my 4.21 to a 4.16/4.17 maybe Silver was there for the taking......and thus the Cardinal Sin was born..................

In running,as in life we are told "don't change what got you to the big dance" but frankly what had gotten me to the "big dance"{2014 Nationals}  wasn't going to be  enough for the "bigger dance" {2015 Worlds} and that THUD you heard was yours truly falling between two stools.
Foolishly I  switched my training  to shorter speed orientated repeats believing that "Speed Kills" however "you can't hit what you don't catch" and in doing so sacrificed some strength,don't think that was an issue???? explain the four indoor races I lead at the bell only to finish second {including both races in Winston Salem at Indoor Nationals"!!!!}

What's done is done,"better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all" they say, ask the guys who finished 3rd at Indoor Nationals or the guys who finished 4th at Outdoor Nationals if they would've switched places w/ me........they'd probably rip my arm off shaking my hand.

Here's my top five races in reverse order
5  Outdoor Nationals 1,500m
4 Outdoor Nationals 800m
3 Indoor Nationals 800m
2 Indoor Nationals Mile
1 5K XC C'ships

The reason Saratoga gets top billing even though I only finished 8th was it was such an unexpected result I'm a 800/1,500m/miler who somehow finished 8th over 5k xc thanks in no small part to my off season regime of 50 mpw training it was  flashback to the 2010 season where granted 5 years younger I put in 50/55/60 mpw on a regular basis.....need I remind you what I achieved in 2010? a slew of pr's/club records over 2 miles,3,000m indoors 5,000m/10,000m outdoors and a 5k pr on the road all be it while still running decent 800m/1,500m/mile times and the reason why I've remained at 45/50/55 mpw since off season ended in the hopes of recapturing that form in 2016 as I enter my 40th season of competitive running.

I finished 2015 w/1,431 miles logged,21 races and 8 more medals to the collection 5 of which were from Nationals,here's to bigger and better,stronger and faster in 2016.......