Year in Review: 2016

Stats!  I only competed 7 times this year (if you count Trials qualifying, which I am), compared to fifteen times last year.  My last meet was my best one on the year, which has never happened before.  Also, my first meet was my furthest season opener ever, although it was later than ever.  I did a lot of forcing speed rather than focusing on positions this year, which I don't intend to repeat in 2017.

Meets:

Portland: 61.72m

Eugene qualifying: 61.42m

Eugene final: 57.90m

Rio qualifying: 61.02m

Berlin: 58.76m

Rovereto: 58.44m

Brussels: 61.86m

Worst: 57.90m

Best: 61.86m

Overall Average: 60.16m

Top 5 Average: 60.96m

This year went by SO fast, but at times it felt like it would never start.  Training and competing with a torn left labrum and rotator cuff for the second half of the 2015 season, and all of the complications that caused with my mid- and low back showed me that I needed to solve the problem before the Olympic year if I didn't want to be miserable.  After left shoulder surgery in October 2015, I couldn’t run until the middle of December, and didn’t pick up a javelin until January.  Shoulder rehab took attention away from keeping my left knee healthy, and I pinched a fat pad (so painful, persistent and annoying) in that knee after two awesome weeks of training in Austin in March/April.  I wasn’t nearly as strong in my right shoulder as I normally am, despite impressive creativity from Jamie and Ty in my training to get around my healing left shoulder.  I did absolutely everything I could with what I had this year, and as much as 13^th in Rio hurt, I’m proud of my performance at my third Olympic Games.  Given the choice again, I would get surgery again.  It was the right thing for me and my overall quality of life.  If one other thing had gone a tiny bit better, my results could have been much more impressive on the year.  Again, though, I'm proud of my efforts through everything that happened physically this season.

2016 wasn't what I wanted professionally, but some really great things happened for me outside of Track and Field!  Russ and I adopted a little yellow dog (she's a lab) named Maddie in May.  We are her third home, but we knew her for about ten months before she became ours!  When we brought her home, we thought it was a trial run and that we'd officially adopt her in the fall (after this important summer), but within three days she made it very clear that she was happy to stay.  I definitely couldn't have parted with her anyway, and she kept me smiling while my season was delayed!  

In June, I finished my last class toward my graduate degree: An MBA with an Accounting concentration through DeVry's Keller Graduate School of Management, and the scholarship program via partnership between DeVry and the USOC.  This most recent course of education began right after we moved to Colorado (just after my ACL surgery), and was really therapeutic for me in a time when my athleticism was halted for a while.  I'm thrilled to have seen it through and imagine what I can do with it in the future!  

So many things to improve on in 2017, and even if it wasn't what I'd imagined, so many things to be thankful for this year.  Happy New Year!