2021 Year In Review

A Good Start - A Slow Finish

To sum up 2021, it was a mixed bag, some solid races, some disappointments, but dominated in the last half by medical issues. Nonetheless I still finished the year with the top two performances for 12-Hours for the M70 age group for the USA on DUV, tenth internationally.

With races still questionable and travel discouraged, I had a late start to my racing season. My first goal race was 3 Days at the Fair 50K in May. Fortuitously the RD also put on a 6-Hour race a month before that served well as a prep race. That was on a trail loop which included a very technical section that I had to walk to avoid a nasty fall. After 12 laps I had all the input I needed for planning my 3DATF race, so I stopped then though I could have run another lap before the time expired. Despite all that planning, when race day came for the 50K I started much too aggressively and began slowing significantly after 17 miles. By 21 miles I was walking and didn't return to running until the last 3 laps.

Hopefully I learned my lesson and my next two races, both 12-Hours, were more controlled. The results, while not as spectacular as Delano Park was last year, were solid at 44.61 and 42 miles. However it was the aftermath of the first of those races, the Hainesport 12-Hour, that began what seemed like a downward spiral. I experienced a fainting spell and vertigo the next day which prompted a trip to the ER. That led to several visits to an ENT doctor and 6 weeks of PT which curtailed my training. It also lead to having a loop recorder implanted to monitor my heart rhythm. Not surprisingly 3 months later it was removed and replaced with a pacemaker. All this had a significant impact on my training, so the 42 miles at One Day at the Fair was a solid performance given the circumstances. I had decided before all that transpired to close out the year at Crooked Road 24, since I hadn't run a 24-hour race in two years. With the drop in training mileage I didn't have great expectations, but once again it was the weather that was the primary factor in a less than stellar race. Once I shifted to walking after a solid first 50K, I couldn't generate enough heat to keep warm, and I simply didn't have the heart or motivation to push through that. I partially redeemed myself by returning to the course for 7+ miles in the last 2 hours. Interestingly my total miles for the almost 12 hours I actually spent on the course was in line with my 12-hour race results.

Once all the racing was out of the way, I had the pacemaker implanted, only to experience complications with blood clots. That brought my running to a halt, so December was a very slow and low mileage month. Despite that I managed to get in just enough training to run 100+ miles for the 43rd consecutive month and 2000+ miles for the third consecutive year.

Looking ahead to 2022, my race schedule is on hiatus. I had registered for the Pistol 50K in March before all the complications in December occurred, so that's on the schedule, but I'm delaying any further registrations. Pistol 50K will probably be a long, slow training run as I doubt I will be ready for a race effort by then. If all goes well as a training run, then the rest of my race schedule will fall into place with my goal races moving to late summer and fall.