A year has past, and what a year has it been. I love these end of the year posts (last year’s post is here) because it gives me a time to reflect on things that went well in my life, things that didn’t go to well, things I want to change going into the new year, and that which is all good.

Entering last year, I wasn’t in the best place. I was in a struggling marriage, and this life struggle was disrupting the equilibrium with the other things in life. I was having trouble focusing on work, I had trouble focusing on my goals, and I had no idea what I wanted. I had trouble sleeping, and everything was cloudy. Was this what life was supposed to be like, I often questioned. I would often sit in front of my computer for hours, chatting, tweeting, stumbling (literally) endlessly with that awesome firefox plug in stumbleupon! I was distracting myself, constantly. If you want to see some of the dark places I reached and things I questioned, check out my posts on life (you can read here) for the first 3-4 months last year. Some of my most reflective/sad/interesting (heartbr8king, emotions – good or bad, alone, living with loss).

Once we decided to divorce, I started running. I ran a lot. It was my escape. I had run in my first marathon the previous year (2008), and I really enjoyed it despite the hellish pain of getting across the finish line. And yes, I never did a 5k, 10k, half marathon or any race for that matter…I jumped right into the marathon, and not just to finish, but to finish in under 4 hours (I finished SF, one of the harder marathons, in 3:52:42). It was a big accomplishment for me, and the feeling I got from overcoming those “impossible” barriers made me feel…made me feel, great!

So when I went through this struggle, I decided to run, and when I ran, I was at peace. I had a clear head. My buddy Matt suggested cycling, so I started riding too, but just for fun. When I was on that road though, I felt free. I could feel my body, my heart beat, my head sweat, my legs hurt. That feeling though was amazing, and for the first time in a while, I really felt alive.

So…I trained. I ran a lot. I started cycling a lot. I did a half marathon (OC)…I did a full marathon (SF). I picked up swimming and did my first triathlon…an Olympic distance event in San Diego where I crushed my goal time by over 23 minutes (2:22 vs. a goal of 2:45). I started believing in myself. I started reading about running, about training, about pedaling, about cycling. I found a community on twitter that I learned so much from. I found something to be passionate about…again! It had been a while!

I also finished my MBA in June, and although I didn’t have the greatest experience in the classroom, I met some awesome friends along the way, and more importantly, I met a special someone the day before graduation. It was a random introduction from someone I just met, and that 5 minute intro turned into a facebook message, then a facebook conversation, then some text messages, then a few phone calls, text flirting for a week, a first date, a second date, and well…a great pick up to the second half of my year. It’s been an awesome six months now, and that is one of the things giving some positive momentum to this new year that I’m very excited about!

In June, I also got a new Abby kitten I named RED, which funny enough came from him being a pREDator, but also because he is a red abyssinian. I love animals (if you haven’t gathered), and if I had a bigger place, I’d probably have a full farm. J/K. Kind of. Red is awesome. I always believed in having two cats since I work full time, they can keep each other company during the day. I had Toby and Riley from the same litter nearly five years ago, and when I decided to give Riley to my ex-wife since he truly was always her cat, I wanted to find Toby a partner. Red was the perfect companion, being even more dog like than Toby. He follows me everywhere, fetches, growls at the door, and wants to go for walks (which I will avoid . Sadly enough, as I wrote about in this post, Riley passed on in October, which was also a down moment this year. This was hard for me to deal with even though Riley was now Jenn’s cat because of my attachment to animals. I keep telling myself he’s in a good place and it was his time, but I still get torn up when I think about him.

In December, I went on a sweet Hawaii vacation, my first week off since my honeymoon 3 years ago. Upon my return, the day of in fact, I got Kaila. Kaila is the first dog I’ve ever owned, and although she proved to be a handful at first, I’m really starting to love her. She is so damn cute, and although I’m still trying to find my groove with her between playing, training (training her, not triathlon training , and pure dominance training (yes I pin her and growl at her showing my teeth – must be the pack leader), I’m finally starting to see why dogs are so freakin awesome!  Next August or so, she’ll be my new running partner. I can’t wait. I hope I can keep up with her!!!

So that is my year for you. I’ve been employed by the same company from start to finish, hired my first employee at this company, and made some big strides there developing the business analytics program. To be honest, 2010 will be the year that defines business analytics at my company. I’m excited to see what happens. But let’s get back to my hobby before departing. Below are two images that summarize my year:

This is a summary by sport of what I did in 2010. I started keeping track of the type of run, swim, and cycling ride in October, so that’s why you see somewhat of a sporadic summary. The totals are:

• Running: 1175 miles … this is funny, but in my post last year when I ran 666.4 miles, I said I don’t know if I’ll ever run this mileage again because I’m now swimming and cycling. And I nearly doubled that running mileage In 2010, I hope to get up to 1500 miles, which may be tough since I’ll do less run training than 2010
• Swimming: 22 hours … Difficult to get mileage here, but this isn’t very much. I’ll blow this away in 2010
• Cycling: 2017 miles … although this seems like a lot, it’s really not. I’m guessing I’ll at least double this amount this year.

This image is the the most interesting to me. This is a summary by month of all sports. The thing I find fascinating here is check out my total time and my heart rate. The number of hours has really gone up the last few months as I’ve taken training seriously. But what’s most fascinating is that my average heart rate has gone down over this period of time. There could be several factors at play here, but I think it represents two things 1) I’m getting in better shape and 2) I’m cycling more, which typically results in a lower heart rate. Either way, I’m really proud of the progression. The down month in October was the result of a taper for a peak marathon (MCM) as well as a slight taper for the triathlon I was in.

That’s my 2009. Here’s to a great 2010! Happy New Year everyone!