Year End Report 2024

Strange.  I logged 1,357 miles running in 2024, my fourth highest annual total ever - behind 2021 (1,538), 2012 (1,406), 2023 (1,376), and somehow beating 2020 (1,320).  I am not sure how I managed to do so in a year where I not only took a break from running full marathons and entering races, but also didn't once ramp up my distance as if I were training for a full marathon.

I mean, in 2023 I ran at least one 26.2+ miler, but twice trained as if I was going to run the full distance (the latter to ensure I was fit for hiking in Peru).  These past two years both included a two-week long travel imposed break from running.  Heck, this year I only ran two runs that were a half marathon distance or more (a full training schedule includes at least 9...10 if you count the marathon) and yet somehow I finished within 20 miles of last year's total.  I finished 2024 with more miles than the last two years I ran full marathon races (2019, 2020).

That said, I actually should be able to run as many as 1,482 miles if I merely run my four week between-marathon training schedule.  I only ran more than this total once in all of the years I have run marathons.  In other words, I usually fall short of distance targets or missed training days for various reasons (injuries, illness, air quality, work, travel).  I know I had an injury in 2019.  Can't remember if I had any issues in 2023 (a quick review of 2023's year end report mentions injury and illness), but I did have two big falls this year neither of which caused me to skip any running days.  That said, I did think the first of the two might have bruised or even cracked a rib (not a totally different one than the one injured in 2022 and 2023).  My wife is starting to wonder how frequently I injure myself.  She didn't realize running is a full contact sport!

I am a little disappointed that I did NOT improve my pace in 2024. I actually lost a couple of seconds per mile over 2023, but that is the downside of not including any races or race-like efforts.  The big differentiator was March of 2023, when I finished a marathon training cycle ahead of running my personal "Sea to the Sea" marathon.  Though I did not run it like a race, I still completed the distance faster than 10 minutes per mile.  I also find that ramping up the distance for an endurance event and then tapering tends to naturally gives me a boost. That said, I didn't see the same boost when I tapered ahead of Peru...likely because I wasn't worried about taking an excessively long time to do a single 26.2 mile run!

There is hope though...I finished the year completing a mile challenge in 6:33, besting the times I set in 2022 and 2023 by half a minute!  I've also shed quite a bit of weight, but for reasons outside of running.

Legend of the Falls

After hearing that I tripped during this morning's run, Valerie commented that I seem to fall a lot.  She didn't buy my explanation that running is a full contact sport.  That said, I did get curious...how often do I trip without being able to stop myself from hitting the ground?  I certainly have had a lot of close calls (that I don't record) and also have been known to roll my ankle from time to time.  But how frequently do I actually hit the ground?  How often does it lead to bleeding?  Have I ever missed running because of gravity induced injuries?

I vividly recall my first crash landing. I had just recovered from my first full marathon, resuming lunch break training runs with an ultra running coworker (what we used to call "Dog Runs" because we both worked for Naughty Dog).  He was quite a bit faster than me and I was trying to chase him down as we started the final relatively flat stretch back to the office.  I caught my toe on something protruding from the sidewalk and didn't just fall on the concrete, but off the curb and on to Santa Monica Blvd.  It was quite a blow, but apparently I just picked up a few minor scrapes and was able to finish the run.

That was back in 2009.

I didn't always write about my falls in my running blog, make note of it withing my running data, or even mention such incidents in the captions of my running photos.  In September of 2013, I vividly remember falling while crossing a cobblestone intersection near the end of one of my longer runs in Paris, but there's no mention of it in my photos from that trip (pun intended).  And at some point I fell and nearly ruined my favorite running shirt (a technical shirt I picked up at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca)...but I cannot find any photo evidence of when that happened.

Here's what I could retrieve by reviewing Strava activities and looking through my photos:

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

I was not entirely surprised the sometimes uneven dirt trail between the Hollywood Riviera and Palos Verdes tripped me up.  I was not injured as it was a soft landing, but I needed to rinse off my shirt and water bottle in one of the beach restrooms.  What's interesting is that I don't often do long runs on Tuesdays and this fall happened only 3 miles into a 14 miler.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Another dirt landing, this time on the hard packed median trail of Palos Verdes Drive North only 2 miles into my usual 6 miler.  I don't recall any injury from this fall either.  

Friday, March 29, 2019

Got "punched by a tree".  This time I got knocked me down by a branch from a bush or tree that was protruding into the sidewalk towards the end of my short four miler.  Scraped my knee and the branch scratched my shoulder.

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Toe caught a bit of raised sidewalk next to Peninsula Center and I fell hard...scraping the ends of four fingers and the palm of my left hand.  My Nathan water bottle took the brunt of the damage.  During the fall, I landed on my chin, I dirtied another running shirt AND my brand new running shoes, my glasses went flying and got scratched upon landing (I started using a strap to keep my glasses on shortly thereafter).  I was only a mile into an 8 miler and not happy about having 7 miles to go.

Saturday, April 3, 2021

I successfully sprinted down the rocky Burma Road trail only to trip on what appeared to be a smoothly paved section of sidewalk during my cooldown jog home (toe must have caught the smallest crack).  Got road rash on palm, elbow, and hip, but somehow didn't scrape my knee.  Happened roughly seven and a half miles in a 9+ miler just when I let my guard down.  And here I thought the side-effects of my first Moderna vaccination were going to be the worst thing I'd experience that morning (I did get hit pretty hard after I got home, but only for a couple of hours)

Sunday, June 26, 2022

Two miles into a 10 miler, the tip of my shoe snagged a root hidden in a patch of softer dirt on the boundary trail between the Hollywood Riviera and Palos Verdes...and I thankfully landed in the softer dirt.  Though I was not injured, I did soil another white running shirt and cap.  My water bottle was so dirty I didn't want to risk drinking from it even after I rinsed it at the beach.  Dirt made it into the package of Shot BLOKS (that I had only just opened minutes before I fell) inside of my pocket.

Saturday, December 17, 2022

What started as a 21 miler ended as a half marathon.  I somehow tripped in the middle of a intersection along Palos Verdes Drive South not far east of Terranea Resort...and I fell so hard on to the pavement that the top of my water bottle completely sheared off, spilling most of its contents on to the pavement before I could use it to rinse my wounds.  The fall tore one of my running gloves, scraped the skin on my palm underneath.  I was bleeding from my hand, my elbow, and my knee.  I continued running until I reached the restroom at Pelican Cove, where I could finally rinse my wounds while waiting for a ride from Valerie.  I couldn't really continue since I no longer had the means to hydrate.

Sunday, August 13, 2023

This fall seemed to happen in slow motion: my toe caught a root under the wood chips on Veterans Parkway roughly five miles into a 14 miler.  I seriously thought I was going to be able to stay on my feet...I took as many as four strong strides fighting to stay vertical, but gravity ultimately won.  I thought I avoided any injury as I rolled when I landed, deflecting the energy of the impact, but I picked up a few scrapes.  Surprisingly none of my wounds bled.  My left arm was sore around the elbow (point of impact) as was my chest (where I landed on my arm). My right foot apparently took most of the stress simply from my effort to stay upright ...the whole top of my foot was now tender to the touch. That said, I could stand and run on it without feeling much pain, so I was able to finish my run. My shoes, socks, shirt, and water bottle had collected some of the wood chips in the fall. I'm so glad I fell on the trail and not the pavement.

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

As I ran out on to the mobi-mat on the beach to take a photo of the #SirensOfSilence lifeguard tower, my toe caught one of the grooves and I couldn't stop myself from falling. While the mat itself is soft under foot, the texture of the mat's surface is very rough (to prevent slipping) and of course I slid on it. The cuts on my knuckle and knee and the rash on my thigh weren't the worst injury... I landed hard on my chest and probably bruised a rib.  My chest bothered me for awhile, but I did not miss a single day of my usual running routine.

Sunday, December 22, 2024

My left toe caught uneven pavement at the end of someone's driveway on Palos Verdes Drive North, roughly 12 miles into a 14 miler.  This is the kind of thing I would have guessed happens more often than not...as it happened late in what was relatively a long run, when I might get sloppy and not lift my feet as much.  The surprising thing? This was the first time people actually came up to me to ask if I was ok...two people on bike, a hiker, someone driving a truck.  They must have all seen it happen.  The driver offered a ride.  The hiker was a former marathoner who had been in my shoes on many long runs.

I thought I fell as much as once per year, but looking at this I can definitely see the frequency of falls has increased in recent years.  I also assumed my falls happened towards the end of longer runs, but, if that were the case, I would expect to see more Sundays in this list...and some of my falls happened early into runs too.  I thought there might be a correlation between falling and new shoes, but I am not seeing that in my data either.  And trail running doesn't seem to increase the risk.

One Bud Flatlines

Just over a week ago, on runs leading up to a rare business trip, one of my Galaxy Buds+ earbuds starts refusing a charge, the left earbud.  I did all sorts of things to try and get it working again, from cleaning it, to resetting it...jiggling it in its case trying to trigger the green charging light...but nothing works.

I decide to pack both my failing Buds+ and my new Buds Pro.

The funny thing is that I have not been willing to run with my newer buds...partly due to how much more expensive they are (though mine was included in the price of my S24 Ultra), but mostly because of how much I have liked my Buds+.  Yes, I am the same guy who bitched and moaned when Samsung dropped the headphone jack from the Galaxy series of phones, but my Buds+ have outlasted any of the wired headsets that shipped with my phones over the years, likely reduced the wear and tear on my SPIbelts (since nothing needs to protrude from the0 zipper pouch), and I no longer worry about tugging on a wire pinched to my chest shirt (lost many clips).  

I really appreciate the Bud Pro's active noise cancelling...works well to filter out the portable AC in my home office when I need to join an online meeting during a hot day, to listen to alternate content when my wife is watching a show I'm not interested in...and I loved using them during my recent five hour flights.  I do not plan to use the noise cancelling while running (too dangerous...I don't even hear my foot falls), but I fully expect they will last longer (a Bud+ dying during a run had been a pretty rare thing until now).

For this morning's run, though, I somehow tricked one of my dying Bud+ to give me one more run.  It came back to life with what appeared to be a 100% charge, but I decided to run with it while it was actively connected with my phone.  Much to my surprise, it lasted the entire 8 mile run...but it didn't look like it would.  15 minutes into my run, it had already dropped to 32%.  30 minutes later, it was down to 28%.  An hour into my run, a really strange thing happened...the charge went up to 33%!  But that was a short-lived gain as the watch dropped back to 27% over the next half hour.  When I finally got home, the bud's charge was -1% (yes, below zero), but it was still playing audio. I returned it to its case at 10:40am on August 18, 2024.

That would be the last time I ever heard audio from the left earbud.  It would never accept another charge.  Even worse, the bud would rapidly drain the case's battery (it was so bad, that I thought the case was failing).  But the right bud continues to hold a charge and, with only the right bud in the case, the case still provides a week worth of charging before it needs to be plugged in.

I continue to run with a single bud and will continue to do so until it dies.  And then I will consider running with my Buds Pro.