2012: The Year in Workouts

Since it’s the end of the year and I love random stats and bullet-ed lists, and it seems like the thing to do, here is my year in workouts (through today):

In 2012, I…

Ran: 1,197 miles
Biked: 1,440 miles
Swam: 75,400 yards (none of which have been since Sept. 30)

I raced:

• two marathons (also my only two marathons ever)
• a 5K
• a random 4-mile race
• a handicapped 7-mile trail race that I won
• a handicapped 7.5-mile trail race that I definitely did not win
• a 12K
• a road mile
• an 800m on the track
• two cross-country races
• a 4.5-mile relay
• an Olympic-distance triathlon
• a sprint triathlon
• an XTERRA triathlon
• Trans-Tahoe swim relay
• and I did the Marin Century – but let’s not pretend Century rides are races
• oh, and a Tough Mudder

Things I ruled out as ‘my sport:’

• XTERRA
• open water swimming

For a total training volume of: 318 hours. That’s more than 100 hours less than I’ve put in any year since 2007 or so, but actually more races than any of those years probably, since I wasn’t focused and peaking performance and shit. It’s interesting that lots of my results were about the same and some were better (and some would have been worse, if I had raced a half-Ironman this year).

The most I trained was in August, when I actually cracked 40 hours for the month — though that included the shitshow of me trying to finish the Marin Century in time to make it to a wedding. The least I trained (not counting October, when I think racing the Chicago Marathon was actually most of my total monthly volume) was last January, when I counted Tough Mudder as a long run. Hah.

You know it’s not a triathlon year when running mileage nearly equals biking mileage.

And, to show I’m multi-layered and stuff, this is also the list of books I’ve read this year, though it’s not a complete list because I only started keeping track in June and I couldn’t remember everything from earlier. And yes, I read a lot of teen dystopian future novels.

Books I read in 2012:

• Life of Pi — Yann Martel
• *A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again — David Foster Wallace (best thing I’ve read. ever.)
• Wild: from Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail — Cheryl Strayed
• Next — Michael Crichton
• This is How You Lose Her — Junot Diaz
• *The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France — Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle
• While Mortals Sleep — Kurt Vonnegut
• *Behind the Beautiful Forevers — Katherine Boo
• The Oracle of Stamboul — Michael David Lukas
• Shadow of Night — Deborah Harkness
• *The Art of Fielding — Chad Harbach
• Off Balance: A Memoir — Dominique Moceanu
• A Game of Thrones — George R.R. Martin
• The Maze Runner — James Dashner
• Insurgent — Veronica Roth
• Divergent — Veronica Roth
• Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother — Amy Chua
• Pirate Latitudes — Michael Crichton
• Is Everyone Hanging Out without Me? — Mindy Kaling
• Bond Girl — Erin Duffy
• The Girl Who Played Go — Shan Sa
• A Question of Attraction — David Nicholls
• *The Tiger’s Wife — Tea Obrecht
• Swamplandia! — Karen Russell

*means you should definitely read this