2013 in numbers.

I love numbers. I love stats. I love keeping track of things.

I could tell you all the books I've read (since 2007), courtesy of LibraryThing and Shelfari (that's a total of 348 books, roughly 1 per week). I could tell you all the movies I've seen in many, many years, courtesy of IMDB. Since 1999 I weigh myself almost daily and keep track of that too. And no, it's not because I have weight problems and I need to. It's just because I love numbers.

But there is nothing cooler for collecting stats than sports. I started running in 2003 and I can tell you, in much more detail than you care about, about every single workout I did since then. I know. It's awesome.

I won't bore you with too much detail, but today is time (what with the new year and all) to look at the running grand totals for 2013. Let's start with, likely, the most important stat for every runner. Yes, annual mileage, I'm looking at you.

The story this graph tells is pretty clear: the last 3 years I started taking running somewhat more seriously. Both in 2011 and 2012 I clocked almost exactly 3,100 km. Last year was slightly worse with a total of 2,750 km. That's easily explained with my two breaks, each lasting more than a month: first my injury after the San Francisco marathon and then the December gloom (that still looms over me).

Ok, how about the total time spent running?

Blue bars are running and red bars on top of them are all other sports combined. Here the story is slightly different. In the last 3 years I clocked, respectively, 310, 326 and 309 hours on running alone. All pretty close and close to an average of one hour per day: not bad at all. However, if we also take into account other sports (which mostly includes different forms of weight training) then actually 2013 was better than 2 previous years. In fact it was the best year ever with the single exception of 2003 (when I did a dance workshops where I'd have classes from dusk till dawn for whole 2 weeks and other stuff that I'm not completely sure is worth all the logged hours). A total of 467 hours in 2013. That's a daily average of 1:17. Awesome.

Finally the last interesting metric: elevation.

And this is where the true difference of 2013 lies. I only have elevation stats since 2011 but previous years were very similar to that one: very little hill running. In 2012 I ran the hilly Lakeland 50 and then the least 3 months I spent in California where I started running on local, hilly trails. Which I continued to do all year long in 2013, almost averaging Mount Everest every two months ;).

So, especially considering that last metric and the "heavier" kilometers I think the numbers for 2013 look just as good as in two previous years.

How about racing? Here the story is slightly less satisfying. I did five 50km runs on trails:

• Steep Ravine, 6:18:55 (17th out of 40),
• Montara Mountain, 5:20:21 (5th out of 38),
• Horseshoe Lake, 5:18:51 (9th out of 29),
• Big Basin, 4:49:52 (16th out of 145) and
• Coyote Ridge, 5:45:43 (7th out of 25).

Also two very unsuccessful marathons:

• Los Angeles marathon, 3:27:20 (serious logistical problems made me run in full sweats on a hot day),
• San Francisco marathon, 5:42:26 (I walked most of it due to calf injury).

Finally my first attempt at 100 miles:

• Chimera 100 miler, DNF (had to quit on mile 70 due to knee injury).

Long story short: lots of starts to little effect :). I guess the lesson is clear, one can either race often for fun or concentrate on few starts with good results. Will I apply this lesson in 2014? I don't know, for now I still don't feel like running at all and I'm not :).