2025 Year in Review!!!

"Don't live the same year 75 times and call it a life." - Robin Sharma

"For last year's words belong to last year's language, and next year's words awaits another voice."     -TS Eliot in "Little Gidding"

Really love these quotes.  Guess it is time to put together some sort of year in review just for my record to look back on in the years to come.  So here we go yet again.

Great running year this year.  I basically hit all of my "A" goals in races except for Western States where I hit my "B" goal.   Did get a couple of wins this year so that is always positive as well, actually hit more wins and podiums this year than any other year so far.  I know those will get harder and harder to come by every year as I get older and the field gets younger and faster so I am actually shocked on what I pulled off this year on my 50th year.

Training: Less overall hours spent but lots more mileage running this year.  Did not even come close to the 800 plus hours I wanted this year but that happens when you are running flatter and faster stuff verses slogging through the mountains all the time.  I also barely touched my bikes this year, that needs to change for sure.

How does that compare to the past years?  Well this is an interesting view of the last 18 years.  Lowest hourly year in a while even though it was one of my highest running mileage years ever.  The colors below match up to the colors in the chart above.  Just a note, I ran my first ultra in 2007 before I started using this log to track training so that means I am going into my 20th year of running ultras, that blows my mind.

Here is the total ski days for this year.  Bad year on the sticks for the 2nd year in a row.  Doubt I will be better next year, just not in the plan to doing any ski racing.

Races:

Big year running races but not so much of anything else.  Not quite the 30 plus events that I normally partake but not bad at 19 events which were all running.  

Here is an interesting view of my race mileage this year from my spreadsheet.  All running this year which is not surprising with three 100 milers this year.   Nights in the van goal was 40 on the year which I did not get and super disappointed in myself on that front.  Returning to the office in May really put a damper on that.  Need to make it more of a priority in 2026 for more weekend trips to get closer to that number.  One positive thing about the van is I drove it basically coast to coast this year.  Went to Outerbanks and back on the east coast and to Tahoe and back for Western States camp.  Not quite coast to coast but damn close.  Also the stupid goal of doing 1000 laps around the open space by the house, gave up on that in May.  That is was a dumb idea and boring.

2025 Races/Events

Resolute 5K 1/1/25 (17:58 - 3rd overall)

3W Winter Series#2 5K 1/11/25 (18:34 - 2nd overall)

Prairie Dog Half Marathon 1/26/25 (Race was cancelled due to weather)

Old Man Winter Combo 2/1/25 (Good times as always!)

Running of the Leprechauns 10K (36:22 - 2nd overall)

Blackbeard's Revenge 100 3/22/25 (16:55:19 - 1st overall)

Quadrock 25 5/10/25 (4:35:51)

Samson's Revenge 27K 5/17/25 (2:16 - 2nd overall)

Colfax Marathon Relay 5/18/25 (16 miles in 1:48- Good Times!)

Western State Camp 5/24/25 - 5/26/25 (Good times!!)

Western States 100 6/28/25 (22:42:46- 58th)

Dirt Circus Boulder 8/9/25 (good times!)

Westminster Night Trail 50K 8/23/25 (4:05:19 -1st)

Crew Dan at Run Rabbit Run 100 9/12 (Good times!)

Cowboy 100 9/26/25 (16:31:36 -1st overall and course record)

Pace Neal at Javalina 100 (Good times!)

Turkey Trek Half 11/22/2025 (1:19:25 - 1st overall)

Broomfield T-Day 10K 11/27/2025 (35:39 - 3rd overall)

CIM Marathon 12/7/2025 (2:37:05 - 1st in 50-55 age group)

Books:  

24 books this year which was the goal.    All over the place on my books with no real theme which is normal for me. I just read whatever catches my eye.  Kept the same goal this year with a goal of 24 or 2 per month.  Best book of the year???  I really enjoyed American Kings* about the quarterback position from high school all the way up to the NFL.

2025 Books Read 

1. White Horse*

2. Quiet the Noise

3. Yellowstone Standoff*

4. Yosemite Fall*

5. Arches Enemy*

6. Mesa Verde Victim*

7. Canyonlands Carnage*

8. Saguaro Sanction*

9. Death Valley Duel*

10. Endangered*

11. Dead Mountain*

12. Damaged*

13. Can't Hurt Me* - Reread

14. Arisen: Operators, Volume 2- Pipe Hitters

15. Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich*

16. Second Sunrise*

17. The Pledge

18. One Second After*

19. One Year After*

20. The Final Day*

21. The Endurance Artist*

22. American Kings*

23. The Running Ground*

24. Cry Havoc: A Tom Reese Thriller*

Review of Goals for 2025:  

Another hit or miss year on my loose top 10 goals that I laid out last year....  

1. Go all in on Western States 100 - gave it my best shot and got engaged
2. Read 24 Books - barely got it done finishing #24 mid-Dec.
3. 40 nights in the van - fell 14 nights short.
4. Weekly Blog post again, might change the formatting - done, should I change the format?
5. Sky Dive-- someday. - done in Moab for my 50th birthday
6. 2 or more races over 100 miles - completed 3 of them this year, winning 2 of them.
7. Average one summit a week - fell 13 summits short... damn it.
8. Backpacking on the Colorado Trail for 3-7 days - forgot about this goal.
9. Run the 0.6 mile loop by the house 1000 times in 2025 - stupid thought last year will not repeat this.
10. At least 1-2 Gravel Races - to much running this year, barely touched the bikes 

Goals for 2025: 

Of course there is some rollover from last year but they can be repeated year over year, especially the travel ones.  This of course does not include any work, family, or relationship goals... this is just strictly goals as they relate to this blog.

1. Run over 3000 miles again this year but also bike over 1000 too.
2. Read 24 Books
3. 40 nights in the van
4. Weekly Blog post again, might change the formatting depending on feedback
5. Race over 25 times.
6. 2 or more races over 100 miles
7. Average one summit a week
8. Backpacking on the Colorado Trail for 3-7 days 
9. Work on getting my Ultrasignup results over 100 results- currently at 90
10. At least 1-2 Gravel. MTB, or Cyclocross Races

2025  in Pictures  (Chose at least 1 photo per month which was super challenging and did not happen.  Most of the months have 2 or more photos below.  Just to hard to decide. And yes, I tried to have that at least one other person is in the photo with me.  You can go through the weekly posts to see a lot of photos from the year)

Have a Happy and Safe 2026!!!!!