I’ve written before about ‘practicing my running’ and I’ve long subscribed to the idea that increased mileage leads to better efficiency and speed. But after reading Peak, my thinking is changing a bit. The book focuses on ‘deliberate practice’. It’s being more deliberate what you’re trying to learn, improve, train for – not mindlessly doing the same thing over and over.

The book is written by the scientists who did the study that led to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers. This is the original source study though. In that book Gladwell focused on the 10,000 hour rule: meaning that it takes someone about 10k hours to become expert in something (musical instrument, athletics, whatever). It’s really about 7400 hours, but 10 sounds better. 

So back to running. This year I’ll close out just under 1200 miles, with about 150,000 of vertical. The mileage is a little bit less than last year, vertical is about the same. There were only a few week out of 52 that I ran under 20 miles per week, between 20 and 30 was the most common with a few weeks above 30. I don’t think I had any weeks above 40.

I’ve been happy and thinking that 2018 has been all about consistency and balance. I never got sick in 2018 and I never felt like I couldn’t recover from that mileage. I also had a few streaks of lifting over the year. Climbing objectives were chosen wisely. I skied the pow days, got up a couple of volcanoes and climbed Rainier in July in an ‘almost’ single push (we stopped at Camp Muir and ate and napped for a couple of hours).

Always the optimist, I’m looking forward to 2019. As the holiday season arrives I’m starting to think about ** oh I forgot I rode my bike from my house to Mt Hood, climbed (*didn’t summit), then skied out and rode my bike home. The most memorable moment of that trip was passing time at Illumination Rock waiting for the snow to soften so we could ski out with a woman who climbed up to spread her husband’s ashes. She cried. I cried. When you say to someone, “what a beautiful day it is…”, remember that everyone is in a different place, but it doesn’t make the moment any less beautiful.

So yah so I’m starting the goal planning for 2019. My crampons are sharp, ice tools too… Took the year like a bandit. I’m a motherfu**in’ Starboy.