7,000 miles...and counting

I have only been keeping track of my running miles since 2006. As detailed oriented I am to these miles (I get made fun of constantly for my spreadsheet) I don't mind the fact that I don't have my miles previous to that. I know I have a paper log somewhere that has the miles I ran in 2004 and 2005 but I know those weren't all that much. Maybe 1500 miles each year or so. And someday I will find them.

That said, on Friday, I decided to total up my miles for 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. For some odd reasons I had a feeling I was nearing a milestone. I was right. On my last mile of my 2nd run on Thursday, I ran my 7,000th mile since the beginning of 2006. Wow.

I started to think about that. I know people who have been keeping track for 30 years. I know people who have run 5,000 miles in one year. But all that doesn't matter. We compare ourselves against our own personal bests fare more often than we do others (or we should, at least). And 7,000 miles is a lot of damn miles. That is akin to running from my current home in Salt Lake City to my hometown of Titusville, PA and then turning around and running back...and then doing it again (If I could walk on water across Lake Eire, that is). And then having 312 miles to spare.


I sit back and think about that and I say Wow again. My legs have done that. I have been lucky enough to be able to run that distance. In fact, of those miles, 2544.69 have been during a race. That means 36% of every mile I have run in the past 3 plus years has been in competition. Holy cow.

Yet in spite of all of this, I am planning to run across the country soon. And the plan is to do so in 60 days. That equals roughly 50 miles a day. So, I plan to run 1/2 the miles I have EVER run in 1/20th of the time. And I have no doubt I can do it.

This is the kind of spirit I try to give to people when I speak. When I first planned to run 52 Marathons in a year I had run 6 lifetime marathons. I had no idea whether it was even possible to run 52 in a year. But at the same time I had a feeling *I* could do it.

So if you are wondering if there is something out there that may or may not be possible, don't worry about. That is wasted energy. Begin thinking about how you are GOING to do it and start using that energy to figure out how you are going to do it and how you will celebrate it when you are done.