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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.



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