This past weekend I ran a 10K. It was supposed to be a 10-miler, but it was just a day that 10 miles wasn’t going to happen. It was also a chance for me to look back over the year of running and see exactly what I have accomplished.

After my hometown beotch “disaster,” I could look at the year as such a huge disappointment. However if I am realistic about it, it was a fantastic year of running for me. I ran pretty much every distance there is to do in some form or fashion. Maybe not necessarily as a race, but definitely putting in those miles in some capacity.

I started the year off with a 5K on New Year’s Day. Then a few months later I did a 10K. Then an 8K. A 5-miler. A half marathon. A 20-mile training run. An attempt at 26.2. Then another 5K and most recently a 10K.

Each race I managed to do something fun, in that I shaved time off of previous bests at these various distances. November 5th, I ran a 5K race. It was my first race since the Chicago Marathon. And I destroyed my prior best 5k time. When I say destroyed it, I mean that my previous mile splits were along the lines of 13 minutes per mile. In that 5K, I was averaging 10:55 per mile with at least one sub nine minute mile. All in all, I ran that 5K in just under 31 minutes.

I wasn’t really looking to improve times. I was just running the race to see how I felt after my misery of extremely irritated and annoyed IT Bands cut my marathon run short. The good news was that my IT Bands felt good after that race. Now that I know I can get close to a 30 minute 5K, I now feel hell-bent on making that my goal from now on — sub 30-minute 5Ks.

For my 10K this past weekend, I was thinking maybe I would do the same thing. Especially since it was going to be a cool weekend. However, things didn’t work out for that. My mile splits were slower, but I am ok with this. There was a lot of wind along the lakefront path, despite the sun eventually beating down on me. But, I DID take 10 minutes off of my previous best 10K time.

Every time I have run a race this year, I have shaved time. This despite some crappy training over the year. Of course, this gives me massive amounts of hope. If I can improve times with crap training, imagine what I could do with proper training.

I’m already planning my race calendar for 2012 and first up is the New Year’s Day 5K. It is not until 11 am, so I can still go party on New Year’s Eve if I feel the need to do so. I do have some goals and many races in mind. Here’s hoping my 2012 racing and running are even more amazing than 2011 has been so far.