The end of THIS year

I ended 2012 sick. Well, today not as much as the last three or four days. So I haven't been on my bike since December 9th and haven't been running since December 24th. Here are my totals for 2012:

Run mileage: 291.3 miles
Bike mileage: 3962.6 miles

In both cases I was just a few miles from ticking over a big number. Only 7.7 miles from getting 300 miles for the year and 37.4 miles from achieving 4,000 on the bike. It was just a strange year in that way. The phlebitis I had in June pretty much just messed up the rest of the year as far as my head was concerned. I couldn't get motivated plus I was gaining weight (that really surprised me) which depressed me even further. Still a great year overall but I was hoping to get back into some competitive events. Only did one bike race in 2012, a criterium in August that actually went pretty good for me but it wasn't enough to make me want to keep up the training the rest of the year.

My cycling/triathlon club at Centenary is smaller this year. Virtually no triathletes in the club this year although I do have my first mountain biker! In the spring we'll be concentrating on road racing more than multi-sport although there is still some interest.

2012 saw a couple of old friends pass on. Jimmy Starkey died of surgery complications in Baton Rouge and he was one of my Class of 1973 classmates from Minden High School He was both a running back and quarterback on the football team, later owned his own ambulance company and also was a city councilman in Minden. The last time I probably saw Jimmy was at the 1993 class reunion but I don't remember if we spoke. We probably did but no doubt it was brief. Too bad.

Debbie Holtzclaw passed on December 26th from colon cancer. She is the second person to die that I used to date and that's kinda weird for me. I knew her in college and she was a great person. We stayed friends but lost contact over the years. Facebook enabled us to get back in touch although the last exchange between us was over a year ago. Apparently the last ten years of her life was kinda tough although the last six years she was happily married and happy is what I'd want most for her. A mutual friend told me that she talked about me a couple of months ago about things we did in college and that made me happy to know that I was still a bright spot in her life. I'm going to miss her.