Monday, October 6, 2008

Rest Day today and numbers geekiness

I'm a little beat up and tired, but not really sore from yesterday. Nonetheless, today will be a rest day.

My 46 miles last week was the most miles I've done in a week since my peak week of 74 miles while training for Western States at the end of May. My run yesterday put me over 1500 miles for the year as well.

I've only run under 1500 miles three times since 1990. In one of those years, 1996, I started the year in pretty poor shape and I had to build my base from scratch. I finally got into decent shape, and then burned myself out by racing too many ultras in the summer. I then moved to AK and my mileage dropped off for the rest of the year. I ended up with 1427 miles that year.

In 1998, I had my worst running year in the last 23 years. I was really struggling with my job, our second child was born, and that gave me an excuse to avoid running for a while, and I managed to let myself balloon to a lifetime high weight of 227 pounds. Late that year, I finally got my act back together somewhat and I finished two marathons, one in Fairbanks, AK and the Chicago marathon. Both races are memorable for how poorly I performed. I ran 967 miles in 1998, with almost half of those miles in November and December. I ran the two marathons on practically no training at all.

In March of 2002, I tore my ACL and lost most of a season. There were 6 or 7 weeks between my injury and my surgery, and I ran just a couple short runs in that time frame. Then, after my knee surgery, I couldn't run for 11 weeks. But, I worked hard the second half of the season and finished a 50K and a 50 miler. I finished with 1365 miles, with 2/3 of those miles in the last 5 months of the year.

I'm guessing I'll run 1800-1850 total miles this year, with most of the remaining 300-350 miles done in the next 5 weeks, followed by 6-8 low mileage weeks. If I reach 1850 miles, this will be my 8th highest total in 24 years of running.

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