1000 Miles

In keeping with my recent numbers based posts, here are two of my latest important numbers:

Total running miles for March: 400

Total running miles for the year as of today April 3: 1000

This was certainly my biggest March mileage and only my 2nd 400 mile month ever. My previous 400 mile month was last July when I spent 8 days running 200 miles on the Colorado Trail and then a couple weeks later ran the first 65 miles of the Grand Mesa 100 and I was on summer vacation, so I could go out and run as much as I wanted whenever I wanted. I am encouraged to know that I can train at this level and still work and spend time with my family and sleep (and not much else) - although I did still manage to host a few running events. I guess that is part of the secret. Any social life must be held in conjunction with running. But that's the type of social life I prefer anyway. Runners are the best people to hang out with.

I'm not sure when I hit 1000 miles last year or in the past several years, but I am sure that April 3 is the earliest I have ever reached this annual mileage milestone. All the running volume has definitely done good things for my running strength and fitness. I have not however done the necessary speed or pace training to realistically expect to run a marathon 4 weeks from today in under 3 hours. I still have hopes of coming close -- a sub 3:10 could still be possible, but 26.2 miles at 6:50 pace probably is not going to happen on May 1st this year. I'm really not all that upset about this realization because my bigger goals for the year are to run strong mountain trail races in Bighorn and Leadville. And there will be another opportunity to run a fast road marathon (look for another post soon on the Medtronic Twin Cities Global Heroes program that I will be applying for again this year).

In other exciting running news, today was the 7th and final race in the FCRC Tortoise and Hare Series. Final points were added up and 1st and 2nd place went to Maddie and Ean respectively. They won $100 and $75 to be spent at the Runner's Roost, so we went there directly from the post race bagels and the chapmion running women enjoyed a shopping spree for clothes, bags, socks and Gu.

The middle school track season starts tomorrow and I am excited to again be coaching the distance runners and long and triple jumpers. I am also coaching a BolderBoulder Racers Club with students at my school to prepare them to run in this year's BB 10K.

Springtime is here full of crazy Colorado weather and lots of good running.