Tag: stats

Photo of the Day

My Photo of the Day project was a success for 2009. I took a photo every single day of the year and posted them all to Flickr. I created this nifty poster-sized image below, which is being printed as I type and will soon be hanging on my wall. It contains all 365 daily photos.

This project really took a lot more time and effort than I initially thought it would. On the bright side, I think I’ve improved tremendously as a photographer over the past year, and I have some really great photos that will last a lifetime.

I am tentatively planning to continue the project. My motivation has been to do so has not been great lately (and I’ve completely run out of ideas on a number of occasions), but I’ve recently found a few good sources for inspiration. So I do plan to continue for the foreseeable future.

Races

Running

My running in 2009 was really one of extremes, both high and low. I started the year with some really strong races and a spectacular build-up to the Illinois Marathon, which ended in spectacular failure on my part. I bounced back quickly with a great run at the Rockford Marathon, only to notice a gradually worsening pain in my right knee (my good knee) less than a month later. This knee injury kept me from running for over 10 weeks, and severely cut back my cycling. Around Will’s birth I finally started running again and slowly built up both my speed and my endurance. I had a couple of good (though not great) races this fall before the horrible experience for me that was the Tecumseh Trail Marathon.

Despite the significant time off, I still ended up running about 17 miles farther than in 2008. I guess training for three marathons and an ultra-marathon will do that. I took it easy running for a few weeks after Tecumseh to make sure I wouldn’t injure myself again. I’m relatively healthy at the moment, but I’m far from peak condition. I really wanted to run the Siberian Express tomorrow morning, but a cold this week put a damper on that. Running is the one sport I have going for me at the moment, which isn’t saying a whole lot.

Cycling

Cycling was one of my disappointments for 2009. I started the year decent enough, but I was really concentrating a lot more on running for the Spring marathons. Once I injured my knee in June I cut way back on my cycling and never made up for it. I ended 2009 with less than half the miles on the bike as 2008. I only competed in one cycling race and one triathlon, despite my intention of focusing completely on these events after mid-May. Fortunately, both were fairly successful for me, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Sadly, I don’t think 2010 is looking that great for me. I’m horribly out of shape on the bike. I’ve struggled to keep up with my friends on the last few easy training rides I’ve done recently. I really need to get my act together here before it’s too late. 2010 starts now.

December 2009

January – December 2009

Swimming

I had a good start to the year swimming. My swims mysteriously stopped around August 12 for some reason. Anyway, I swam a personal best of 06:48 for 500 yards in May. I did swim 25% farther than I did in 2008. I really need to get back into this. Again, 2010 starts now.

Walking

I didn’t plan to keep track of walking stats, but now I’m kind of glad I did (at least after my June knee injury).

Skiing

I’m certainly not good at skiing, but I enjoy it. There was just very little snow in 2009.

Scooter

It sure seemed like more than that. Well, it was a transitional mode of transportation anyway.

Blog

I ended the year with roughly half as many blog posts as last year, with the rate of entries really dropping off in August. William has tried to pick up some of my slack with his blog.

Additionally, I assume you have noticed how all the titles of all my blog entries begin “The …”. It has been a lot more difficult to maintain this naming scheme than I originally thought it would be two years ago. In fact, there are a number of times when I thought about writing a short entry but never got around to it because I couldn’t think of the right name. I think it has been holding me back a little. So it is with mixed emotions that I declare this will likely be the last entry to strictly follow that convention.