Check point

I thought it might be good to take a look at where my training stands to-date, seeing as how The Run will be starting just 7 weeks and 3 days from now.

First, the totals from this past week: 121 miles including one 31-mile day broken into 4 runs, and one 30-mile day in one run. (30 is a key number since The Run will consist of six 30-mile days per week.)

As for this entire training cycle, I've run 2956.5 miles since I retired on July 28, 2006 (which is when I was able to start training full-time for this).

Prior to beginning this endeavor, I'd never run more than 60-65 miles per week (and that was rare). Since July 28th, my running has included:

• 70-79 mile weeks: 9 times
• 80-89 mile weeks: 7 times
• 90-99 mile weeks: 4 times
• Over 100 miles/week: 7 times with a high of 157 miles
• seven 30-mile days (including 4 consecutive 30-mile days the week I ran 157 miles total) and two 26.2 mile days (marathons)
  
• six zero-mile days - two of which were last August (one garage sale day, three due to all-day travel via train or plane, one planned day off the 157-mile week, and one the day my dad died)
• non rest weeks (weeks of over 60 miles per week) include two runs per day, with typically over 3 hours of running per day
• 13 pairs of Brooks Adrenaline (I've worn out 8 pair and have 5 pair currently in rotation).

My challenges continue to be:

• eating properly between the first and second runs of the day but I've made good progress on finding nutritious and palatable foods for those between-run-meals (soup, rice, eggs, sweet potato, fig bars, banana)
• managing my time so I fit in stretching and icing after both runs (but the incentive seems to be increasing as my legs really scream when I don't ice or stretch - I do have a pretty good stretching routine worked out now that seems to be quite effective when I make the time for it)
• sleeping: I've yet to get into the rhythm of napping during the day, and still need to work on getting enough sleep at night (7 hours seems to be what I most commonly achieve and that's just not enough)

The running training regimen is getting close to winding down. All I have left now is:

• upcoming weekly mileage of: 100, 60 (rest week), 120, 100, taper starts: 80, 60, 30
• each week other than the 60- and 30-mile weeks will include a 30-mile day; the 120-mile week will have two 30-mile days.

I am astounded by how close The Run is - and by how different a runner I am today than I was just 8 months ago.