Review of 2008

Well it absolutely flew by. Overall, I'd say a successful year, despite missing most of my goals (that I can remember). That said, I still done things I could only dream off the previous year and I'm certainly getting closer to where I want to be (don't really know where that is, but I know I'm going in the right direction).

The following is a brief summary what I think are the important aspects of my quest for fitness in 2008. I'll post over the next few days about goals for 2009 and longer term.

Weight
I entered 2008 weighing 116.01kg and after some ups and downs, left it at 102.39kg. So, that's a 13.6kg loss over the year, which is a little over a kilo a month, which I'm happy with. I'm pretty sure that the goal at the beginning of the year was to break the 100kg mark, but cest la vie.

Looking at the graph below, the main results seemed to happen around July, when I would have been in full training for Gael Force and also gaelic football. As I've mentioned before, I'm a bit dubious about my scales, but these scales have been used for all the readings and so the error should be at least constant.

Running
Another goal for 2008 was to break the 1 hour mark for a 10km run. Truth be told, I think I only actually done two 10km races in 2008, neither of which I achieved my goal. I did however achieve a PB at one of them, coming in at 63 mins in May. That same race I also ran the distance non-stop which was goal at the start of the year. The other race was a complete disaster, which I'm not going to mention any further.

In my defence of the above, I've ran more than I've ever run before in the last year. Distances I'd never imagined I'd be able to do. Some of my training runs have approached the required pace to break the 1 hour mark and I'd like to have a crack at this in the near future. If I'm to do a 2hr half marathon in the next 2 months, it's a milestone that needs reaching.

Gael Force
Another acheivement of 2008 was the completion of Gael Force, just outside my target time of 6 hrs. I'm hoping to be back in 2009 and to ideally knock 1 hour of that time.

Training Totals
Overall in 2008, I covered the following distances which I hope to better in 2009.

Cycling: 940km
Running: 820km
Swimming: At least 33 sessions, 14+hrs, 8.85+km
Other Sessions: No end of gaelic football training sessions over the course of the summer + some gym work earlier in the year.