I've seen this survey floating around lots of running blogs lately, and I loved the way it nicely captured people's year through running. My year has had a lot of ups and downs, but it was fun to look back and remember some of the great races I had this past spring when I was injury free!

Thanks to Miss Zippy for putting this together!

Best race experience? Hands down the Dorchester Crab Run half marathon back in April. I finally, finally broke two hours in a half thanks in large part to some awesome pacing by my friend Zach. It was a happy, happy day!



Best run? Either the impromptu 17-miler I did one random Monday in June to blow off steam or the 18 mile training run I did during MCM training where everything just clicked perfectly and my pace felt easy the whole way.



Best new piece of gear? Probably my Terps Under Armour running top. I had been on the hunt for one of these for a while, so I was super excited when I found it in my school's bookstore.



Best piece of running advice you received? To stop putting so much pressure on myself and just run for fun -- that's when I do the best in races anyway.

Most inspirational runner? I mean there are my favorites like Kara Goucher and Ryan Hall. Watching them perform at such high levels is definitely inspiring.

Then there are my every day blogger friends who inspire me to get out the door: Ericka, Theodora, Meghann, Ashley, Ali. There's tons more and obviously impossible to list them all, but my Google Reader is constantly overflowing with running wisdom and motivation from my "Internet friends."

If you could sum up your year in a couple of words, what would they be? Bi-polar. The first half of 2012 was awesome on the training and racing front. I set PRs in almost every distance I raced and did a pretty solid job at my first tri in May. I was loving every minute of training and racing and just having fun with everything.



But the second half of the year was full of disappointment. I felt like I was training well, but not racing well. I ran MCM, which I was so excited about, but I didn't finish well, in hindsight, probably because I ran the race with a stress fracture in my foot.



I also had a horrible race at the Woodrow Wilson half. Really the back half of 2012 couldn't have been more sucky on the running front.

And it all got capped off with this super sucky stress fracture, which has sidelined me for weeks and is just in general driving me crazy.

I'm more than ready to say goodbye to 2012 and welcome in 2013, when I will hopefully get the all-clear to resume working out again. I have lots of big things planned for 2013 and I can't wait until I can get back to it! I miss running and my CrossFit people like crazy and I'm so, so excited to have a healthy and kick ass 2013!