Confessions of a Mileage Junkie
I updated my running log earlier today. Its a simple Excel Spreadsheet that lets me keep tabs on my daily, weekly, monthly and annual mileage. For the first time in the five years I've been keeping this, I got over a month behind in filling it out. I did this knowing that I could catch up merely by referring back to the blog, but it is telling.
It wasn't fun doing it. I really didn't feel good about my training. I think the turning point was when Adrenaline 5k got snowed out. I was primed to race, and afterwards never felt in a training rhythm since. There are several reasons for it, and I can't help but think that my not having reached my goal of breaking 16 minutes for a 5k has retroactively cast a pall on my Spring training. Whatever it was, in filling in the log I saw that it was a very on-again, off-again time. And even in the on streaks, the most weekly miles I logged was in the mid-50s. And although I knew that going into this training my mileage would drop, putting in the miles, I've learned, is the central homeostatic measure of my running.
Whatever, its back to miles and marathons. I'm back to "coaching" myself and, for the near future, looking to put miles in my logbook. I set off in that spirit this weekend. Yesterday I visited an old friend, the Lansdowne Sycamore, who is now bedecked with green again in a ten mile loop run in 80:49. Today was a longer Tinicum loop that took me through Essington and Cargo City (the bowels of Phila Int'l Airport) before taking me to the far end of Tinicum and through the refuge. That was 12.5 miles in 1:44 flat. Interestingly, I had set some points in Tinicum that I thought were mile intervals. They went by very regularly today and when I gmapped them they came with a few hundreths of being exactly a mile. All four of them!
So not insane crazy mileage, but starting to build. If I get into the sixties this week I'll be satisfied.
It wasn't fun doing it. I really didn't feel good about my training. I think the turning point was when Adrenaline 5k got snowed out. I was primed to race, and afterwards never felt in a training rhythm since. There are several reasons for it, and I can't help but think that my not having reached my goal of breaking 16 minutes for a 5k has retroactively cast a pall on my Spring training. Whatever it was, in filling in the log I saw that it was a very on-again, off-again time. And even in the on streaks, the most weekly miles I logged was in the mid-50s. And although I knew that going into this training my mileage would drop, putting in the miles, I've learned, is the central homeostatic measure of my running.
Whatever, its back to miles and marathons. I'm back to "coaching" myself and, for the near future, looking to put miles in my logbook. I set off in that spirit this weekend. Yesterday I visited an old friend, the Lansdowne Sycamore, who is now bedecked with green again in a ten mile loop run in 80:49. Today was a longer Tinicum loop that took me through Essington and Cargo City (the bowels of Phila Int'l Airport) before taking me to the far end of Tinicum and through the refuge. That was 12.5 miles in 1:44 flat. Interestingly, I had set some points in Tinicum that I thought were mile intervals. They went by very regularly today and when I gmapped them they came with a few hundreths of being exactly a mile. All four of them!
So not insane crazy mileage, but starting to build. If I get into the sixties this week I'll be satisfied.
posted by seebo | 8:05 PM
2 Comments:
Be careful Seebo, you come dangerously close to whining in the early portion of this post. I hope the increase in mileage will stave off that nasally tone.
Here's to your weekly milage totals again being a number I strive for.
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