How Many Miles?

I wish that I could go back in time and log my running miles from the beginning. I guess since when I first started I had no major goals in mind, except fitness / weight loss. I didnt see the need to worry about how many miles I was running or anything cool like that. I just got out there and ran a few days a week.

The first time I ran the Labor Day Road Race (2004) I made a little excel spreadsheet to track my training to be sure I could get up to 6 miles. Then I ran my first 15K in 2006 and made a spreadsheet for that as well. So for a few races I have a few months worth of "logged miles" but that was it. I think I may have had calendars with some workouts written on it, but I don’t even know if I still have them. I’ve moved twice since Oct. 2007. In ‘07 and ‘08 I did keep up with a log all year, yeah me! But at this point I don’t know if I want to go back and add all that up… since I can’t get an accurate total anyway.

At least I’ve started now. I’m using an online training log as well as my handwritten log. Have I mentioned how much I love that thing. I’m such a dork, looking forward to logging my workouts… At the end of the book there is a graph where you plot your weekly mileage, plus another graph to plot your cumulative miles. It gives me some thrill to be able to look at stuff like that at the end of a year. My friends know I’m all about a spreadsheet of any kind.

I’m serious about my running now, I really have been since the beginning of ’07 (except for going through a divorce last spring) which temporarily threw things off in terms of my focus on eating healthy and working out. Better late with logging miles than never right?

So, I ran my 4 mile tempo run on the treadmill last night. Did it as follows... 1 mile at 6.0, .5 mile at 6.5, 1 mile at 6.8, .5 mile at 6.5 and the last mile at 6.0. Felt really good for the whole mile at 6.8. Didn't feel like I was gonna die but I could feel the extra effort. Enjoyed the workout since I hadn't run since Sunday, oh my. Not by my choice though!