2014 Recap

It was always going to be hard to follow up on my success from 2013 (where I ran personal bests in all distances from 5K to Marathon). And to add to that challenge, I became a father in February when my son was born.

But overall 2014 was a pretty decent year as far as racing goes.

I was very happy to unofficially break the 17 minute barrier in the 5K - 16:59.99 - at Bazan Bay, but I still hope to officially break it next year at Bazan Bay.

The TC10K was a bit of a surprise where I ran 35:28 in a new course best.

After the unexpected win at the BMO 8K in May of 28:20, I ran a few of the Victoria Track Races. I (just) set a new PB in the 800m of 2:11.38 seconds, and a larger PB in the 400m of 0:55.3 seconds.

The goal race in the fall was the Victoria 8K at Thanksgiving time. I didn't have great expectations for the race, but my training had be alright. I hoped to be close to the 28:20 that I had set in May at the BM0 8K. Overall it was a very strong race as I finished in 19th place overall in a time of 28:24. It was a negative split again (14:20, 14:04) too. I ended up having a great sprint off against the local sprint champ Byron Trajan, but ended up losing the battle. His 8K PB is probably at least a minute faster than mine, and he just had a little more spring left at the end of the race. Always a little disappointing to lose a sprint AND to miss my PB by just 4 seconds!

After that it was cross country season, and I ran all 3 races at Thetis Lake. For the first time I ran the Thetis Lake Relay solo (4 laps of ~4.2km), winning that category in a time of 1:15:17 despite taking a hard fall on the final lap when I tripped over a log. Tired legs... Next up was Gunner Shaw which I didn't take took seriously and ended up in 16th place overall. Last up was the Stewart Mountain short course (~5.5 miles/9 km) which I had won in 2012. I didn't feel good in that race, but at the turn around was in 2nd place, and slowly, very slowly, closed the gap to the leader (Matthew Thompson) and ended up having another great sprint-off to the finish line across the main beach. Once again I was denied as Matt held me off to win in a photo finish. Good for him as he had been edged out by 1 second the previous year!

I finished off my year in the usual way by running in the Run Thru Time 5K at UVic. Every year I use this race as a benchmark for where my training is at leading into the next year's Island Race Series. I had run the course faster each of the last 5 years: 18:48, 18:13, 18:03, 17:55, 17:45.
This year I couldn't quite continue that streak, but did put in a respectable 17:50 and 2nd overall.

I don't know what 2015 will hold, but my fall training and racing was decent so I'm hoping to be about the same speed over the shorter distances. I plan on running the Pioneer 8K in January, Bazan Bay 5K in May, TC10K in April, and try to defend my BMO 8K in May.

Stats for 2014: 18 races and 2040 km run (over 7 days worth).