2007 Mileage Totals - 3,807 miles

Here's the breakdown for 2007...

3,807 miles total (73 miles/week average)

This is pretty good considering I had a six-week stint where I ran just 59 miles total because of my first (and I hope only) stress fracture. On that note, I never want to have to get in the pool to "run" ever again. Between October 4 and November 27, I spent more than 46 hours in the pool. For four of those weeks, I was in the pool exclusively, while I gradually phased it out until right after Thanksgiving.

This isn't quite at my all-time high. I didn't do the calculations for 2006, but in 2005, I hit just over 4,000 miles, a nice benchmark. 4,000 miles gives an average of 80 miles/week, plus two weeks of total rest. This is probably what I'll shoot for in 2008. If I would have just run 70-mile weeks during the weeks I was out in October with a stress fracture, I would have been over the 4,000-mile mark. Maybe some day down the road I'll get a little crazy and try for the 5,000-mile mark (100 miles/week average with 2 weeks of total rest), but that probably won't happen in 2008.

Here are the weeks in order. The first and last numbers are partial weeks since New Years Day didn't conveniently fall on a Sunday...

(72), 104, 95, 107, 110, 93, 93, 86, 75, 50, 61 (including marathon), 69, 75, 89, 75, 84, 91, 84, 91, 85, 90, 93, 75, 75 (sick), 90, 84, 84, 89, 93, 91, 85, 88, 94, 84, 83 (suspect when stress fracture occurred during a half-marathon), 67, 45 (stress fracture diagnosed), 0, 0, 0, 9, 20, 30, 45, 56, 67, 76, 84, 83, (26).

Jan. 6 (76 miles/week)

18 miles progression (1:53:30)

I went out to Riley's Lock with a half-dozen guys from the GRC. We started off fairly easy but picked up the pace: our last miles went 6:15, 6:00, 5:30, 5:30, 5:15. The last two miles were a cooldown. The latter parts of the run felt comfortably hard without overextending. Very encouraging. 

Jan. 5

AM: 11 miles moderate

Ran with a bunch of GRC folks in Rock Creek Park. Not hard the entire time, but with some surges every now and again. 

This was a good recovery week--74 miles in singles while still feeling fresh. The mileage is going to go back up next week. 

Jan. 4

AM: 8 miles easy

PM: weights, core, stretching

Was planning to do strides in the morning, but it was only 20 degrees outside. No, thanks.

Jan. 3

AM: 12 miles w/ 20 x 1:00 on/1:00 off

PM: core, stretching

First day back from the holidays. Rolling out of bed to run when it was less than 20 degrees outside was easily the most difficult part of my day.

Jan. 2

AM: 6 miles easy/moderate, treadmill

I grabbed a quick run before driving 9 hours from Savannah back to Silver Spring today. I'm officially burned out on driving...probably because I have spent more than 35 hours in the car over the last week and a half.  It makes the half-hour commute to work seem a little more bearable. 

Jan. 1

AM: 45:00 tempo, 11 miles

Ran a tempo run along Bayshore Blvd during my last day in Tampa. It felt good to sweat out a little bit of New Years Eve. There was a pretty decent wind on a curvy out-and-back, so my splits were all over the place, between a 5:45 in the middle and 5:12 pace at the end (assuming the mile markers were accurate).

Because I hadn't noticed the mile markers before, I wore a heart rate monitor for the first time for a workout, which turned out to be very helpful guaging the effort in the wind. Not to get too analytical, but my heart rate was pretty steady between 170 and 175 bpm. Tempo runs are "supposed" to be about 85%-90% of maximum heart rate, so assuming my heart rate max is around 200 bpm (a rough guess, I admit), then I pretty much nailed it. I ran really evenly, too, even splitting the out and back despite the wind.

After New Years Day dinner (in the South, that means it's at the time a little after when most people call "lunch"), Valerie and I are driving to Savannah for the night. After spending tomorrow morning there, we'll finish the drive to Silver Spring in the afternoon and evening.