Skip to main content

Resolutions, commitment, achievement

Last year, a couple of weeks after my 30th birthday, I wrote down my running resolutions and for the first time ever I published it here. Now it's time to set new goals but before that, I have to review my last year's resolutions to see where I am standing now.

Theses are what I was expecting myself to do until 22nd November 2013:

Running my first Ultra. 
I did finish Swissalpine K78. Running my first ultra was indeed a great experience. For sure I am going to run more ultras.

Running at least three marathons.
Dubai Marathon (Dec 2012), Paris Marathon (March 2013) and Istanbul Marathon (Due on 17th November). So if everything goes all right in Istanbul, this one is also done.

Losing more weight. 
Done! I am 5-6 kg lighter than last year.

Strength workout, plyometrics, stretching and swimming more often. 
Pretty much done. Although I still skip stretching most of the time and leave swimming for when I am recovering from an injury!

Adding Speedwork and hills sessions into my training. 
Almost done. I spent quite a lot of time hiking and training for my first ultra. Long runs were more important than intervals and speed sessions. I could have add more fartleks, tempos and intervals into my training plan.

Hiking to the top of two major summits in Iran. 
I wanted to get to these summits for many years. Thanks to the fitness level I gain by running, I mounted Damavand and Sabalan in comfort. I also had several fast ascents (running and fast hiking) to Tochal, my favourite summit in Northern Tehran.

Encouraging people to run. 
Since I got serious about running I have always been encouraging people around me to run. I am quite pleased to see a few runners around me now. I - with the help of a couple of friends - organised a weekly run in one of the busiest sport and leisure centres in Tehran. Since it started in early June, quite few people joined us. There were weeks when there were only two or three of us. But some weeks we were up to fifteen people. Some didn't like it and left after a couple of weeks (well, at least they gave running a try. For sure running is not for everyone). And some got into it and showed up every week. Next week I'm off to Istanbul to run the marathon. And three friends of mine -who were all part of the club - are running the 15k race.

So, overall it hasn't been a bad year. New running resolutions coming in a few days.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Eiger Ultra Trail 2014; 101km of mud, rocks and sweat

"Run if you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must. Just never give up" Dean Karnazas Last Saturday and Sunday I ran the Eiger Ultra Trail, a 101 km ultramarathon with more than 6700 metres of elevation gain. I arrived in Grindelwald on Thursday and went to collect my bib number on Friday morning. The race organisation was quite good for a race in this size. There was a strict equipment check at the bib number distribution which I appreciated during the race. They asked every runner to bring all the mandatory gear listed on the website in order to collect the bibs. Apart from the bib numbers we were handed out a plastic cup in order not to use many disposable cups along the way. There was also a reflective band which we had to wear after 9:30 pm. The mandatory gear that should be carried along the way Weighs around 4kg (including 1.5L of water) Pasta was served from 12 to 7 pm and there was a briefing session on Friday evening at congress centre which ev

Cappadocia ultra trail, the first DNF

Just a quick note on Cappadocia ultra trail. For the first time ever I had to drop out of a race. That happened at 77th km due to severe pain in shin area and dropping the body tempreature and shivering. DNF ( stands for Did Not Finish) really hurts. There are lessons to be learned and I'm going to write a detailed post on this one. 

On over-reaching your goal: The Eiger Ultra Trail E101, 18-19 July 2015

It is 47 km into the race and I'm  walking downhill through a forest towards Burglauenen. It's been a great race so far.  I passed the last check point (Faulhorn, the highest point of the race) 15 minutes before my expected time and enjoyed running downhill to Schynige platte.  A few minutes ago, when I approached a corner on this muddy terrain,  a sharp pain hit my left knee so badly that forced me to stop. I cannot run anymore, I am using my walking sticks to take some weigth off my knee and slowly walking down. I could have run this part of the race quite fast and effortless if my knee didn't hurt. Through my training, I put so much effort to master my downhill running technique and I was quite confident in it that I'd consider it as one of my strength points. It hurts a lot when you have trained a lot and on race day you just cannot perform well. In fact that is hurting much more than my sore knee. As I am limping cautiously, there are many runners passing by, mos