Yes, you read that correctly. After almost 11 months of pushing myself and not giving up, I finally completed my running goal of 500 miles in 2015. It was a lot of hard work and dedication for a lazy runner like myself, but it the end, it was completely worth it!
What about my next goal? I’m still thinking about it. I can tell you this, though, it isn’t going to be to run that many miles again.
Happy Running (or resting!)
~ Lucas
We’re now we’ll into July and I’ve been pushing myself quite a bit. Today was the first full day of my vacation and I started out strong with a 6.3 mile run along the beach. That puts me at 282 miles (56% of my 500 mile goal) and has finally put me back on track.
My simple math was 500 miles / 52 weeks = ~10 miles per week. Pretty simple, right? So I figured, hey, 10 miles a week isn’t so bad. Except that I live in the Northeast, and I don’t want to run on the treadmill. I started off strong, but hit a few roadblocks in February and March when the roads were covered in ice and snow (a lot of snow). So unfortunately I started to fall behind, quickly. RunKeeper does a great job of keeping track of your progress and helping you visualize your goals. As you can see from chart below, I had a serious dip in March and into April. There is nothing more demoralizing than falling way behind on a big goal.
Well, it’s been 26 weeks, 182 days, 6 months, and I’m almost half way through my goal. My goal to run 500 miles in 2015 has been a challenge, certainly filled with ups and downs, but I’m proud to say I’m just about on track.
I was really busy this week. That was my excuse. This week in particular I had to head down to NYC for a day, it was my daughter’s birthday, plus I had a night out with friends planned. In fact, I had to attend an event for my niece and chaperone a Saturday birthday party with a gaggle of screaming 7-year-olds. So, like I mentioned, I was really busy.
Now, with all that being said, sure, it may have thrown me off for a few days. But, it was also cold in the mornings, and I’ve been working late into the night on some projects. So it became very easy for me to blow off my runs. Well now here we are on Sunday and I hadn’t done any running all week. I took a few walks during lunch (one at a brisk 14:45/mi pace), but that pales in comparison to a good solid half hour run. I couldn’t possible let the entire week go by and not at least get a few miles in.
Running is an excellent way to exercise. It helps with cardiovascular fitness as well as endurance training. For the lazy runner, however, running can easily lead to injury if you do too much, too fast. This is where a proper weight training regime can really help, not just to prevent injuries, but also to increase your endurance and make you a better runner.