Day 2,923: A banner year

Oh, be something you love and understand.
 -"Simple Man" by Lynyrd Skynyrd

I'm making my way through the Pentagon parking lot, slowly and painfully back to the hotel. A woman walks by me, sees the marathon medal around my neck and notes my painful gait.

"Was it worth it?" she smiles and asks.

Now that the year is over, I look on it and almost feel sad as I don't think the circumstances will align again to have this kind of year.

My 2014 was marked with:

1). The birth of hopefully a future runner!
2). My first sub-4 hour marathon in the Oct. 26 Marine Corps Marathon
3). Crossing 10,000 miles for my running streak on Aug. 9.
4). Finishing this year with 2,104.33 miles, the most I've ever done in a calendar year
5). Continuing my daily running streak past eight years.

And it all started with a $55 marathon entry fee.

All the training and putting in the miles was fun, but I couldn't have done it without the help of the wife, who even altered some of her work schedule so I could put in morning tempo and speed/strength workouts. Even on the weekends, having to put in 2 hour + long runs really put a cap on activities for the day.

2015 will definitely have less mileage and no long races of any note. I don't even think that mentally I could do a half-marathon right now. The only race I've signed up for is the Dec. 13 Galloway 13.1, but only because I'm a cheapskate and could not pass off a race of that length for only $45.

I guess I shouldn't count anything out, since after 2010 I never thought I'd run a marathon again.

Back to that woman's question, she totally caught me off guard. I was just trying to amble back to the hotel the best I could. I remember still being in shock that I managed to do something that I couldn't do in three previous marathons.

But I looked at her and laughed. "Yeah, it was worth it."