Yahoo!!!!!

So those of you that have followed my blog (albeit somewhat spotty of late) know that I am a serious runner. Okay not a serious runner as in "I have to qualify for Boston this year" but more like someone who is seriously committed to getting out and trying to run one longer and two shorter runs every week. I do cross training on the alternate days, but that's not what today's posting is about.

I am happy to announce that today, with one day to spare, I met a goal for myself that has been a work in progress for all of 2011. Namely that I have run 1,200 miles this year or an average of 100 miles per month! I am so proud of myself!

This started out the year as a goal to run 1,000 miles for the year. For the first part of the year this seemed like a reasonable goal for myself. But as the months rolled along, I realized that my monthly averages started bumping up closer and closer to the 100 mile mark. They never actually hit that point, but they were certainly getting closer to it. So, about September I started readjusting my goal for the year upward... barring injury, and pushing myself just a bit, 100 miles/month was within my reach. Keep in mind, I'm only tracking my running miles... not my cross training day elliptical or walking miles. I figured although those miles ultimately help my running, they aren't actually running, so I didn't want to co-mingle the two.

December has been a little nerve wracking, mileage-wise. Even at the end of November, I was only at 98+ miles for an average, so that meant that December had to be better than 100. Yikes! Since October and November had vacations, a little back tweak and a little illness, those months did nothing to help my overall miles, plus the fact that most of my long runs have gone from 12+ miles to 13+ miles in the last few weeks all combined to make me cautiously optimistic heading into this month.

It's all come down to the last couple of weeks. At the beginning of last week, I still had 43 miles to knock out. By the beginning of this week I had whittled it down to 26+. For those of you keeping track, for me, that's one 13 mile run and two 6.5 mile runs or some similar combo. Well, today, I did 8 miles and popped myself up over my mark. I officially am at 1,202.0 miles! I am so happy, I feel like I need to do something to celebrate this long-term goal, but I'm not sure what. I'll have to think on it and let you know what I come up with...

Of course, now that 2011 is nearly over it's time to move on and start looking to 2012. After all, as the saying goes, there is no rest for the weary! Okay, not really weary, just a little stiff and sore from time to time!

Today's Run
8.0 Miles
1:28:57
5.40 mph
11:07 pace