The Year In Review 2009

Not a bad year.  I started off still hobbling around a bit from the two knee surgeries I had in 2008.  Oh well.  Still had my good attitude, I suppose.  Still, I started the year wondering how long I want to continue doing marathons so frequently.  I decided to keep my at-least-one-per-month streak alive at least until I got to 100 months.  At the beginning of the year, the streak was at 70.

I started the year with a trip to Vegas, running a marathon out in Boulder, seeing the Hoover Dam, discovered that there's a Lappert's Ice Cream shop in Las Vegas--one of my favorites!  Finished the marathon with Yolanda, the woman who set the world record in 2008 for the most marathons in a year.  She let me cross the finish line a step ahead of her, but I edged her out on chip time to finish DFL in the marathon.

Lots more marathons ensued - 17 in all.  Highlights--Bataan Death March in White Sands, NM--maybe one of the most inspirational I've ever done.  A double weekend in June, including Iowa and South Dakota on the same weekend, with a trip to the Iowa state high point thrown in.  Marathons, mountains and microbrews with one of my best friends, Paul, on a weekend that we didn't go to Brazil as a result of a visa issue.  (i.e. neither one of us bothered to see if we needed one in advance.)  Another trip to Vegas and a middle-of-the-night marathon at Area 51.

Paul and I did a "make-up" trip to Costa Rica, since we had to use our airline tickets for something, after all. We ended up running into a few old friends there, and managed to meet a bunch of other fun people, as well as a couple of raccoons.  Zip lines through the jungle canopy were pretty nice.

MY FIRST MAGAZINE COVER!!  I made the cover of Michigan Runner for the September-October issue!!!  My mom and dad are so proud.  Autographed copies are available.  :-)

Francine's daughter Rachel got married in October in Niagara Falls, Canada.  Fun weekend, with a nice Sunday morning run along the river, fireworks over the falls, and an icy plunge into Lake Ontario to complete my diving into all five Great Lakes.

And then, the 2009 Metro Health Grand Rapids Marathon.  We grew to over 3800 participants this year.  Approaching critical mass, I think.  The staff was better than ever, giving me a lot of time to really enjoy the weekend.

I'm trying to finish my second time around the states doing marathons, so I'm concentrating on getting to the states I haven't done twice already.  This year I managed to run marathons in 12 different states, collect beer glasses from breweries in six states I didn't have already, and visit the highest points in Texas, Delaware, New Jersey, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, and Virginia.  37 done, only 13 to go.  38 states and DC done on my second time around the states for marathons.  Lots of more fun to be had in 2010.

and the adventure continues....

Well, that's the short version.  Check some of my earlier blog entries for some more stuff