Wednesday, January 2, 2008

How do you measure a year in the life?

5,250,600....miles? Well, not quite, but it sure felt close! This year I logged 2,400 running miles exactly, which is 100 miles more than I logged last year. Not only that, my biking mileage (due to increased bike commuting and a couple long bike trips) doubled to over 2,500 miles.

Wow, that's a lot of miles. That works out to about 46 miles per week. Doesn't sound like a lot to many of you fellow runners? Well, I took 3 weeks off for biking trips, and about 3 weeks off due to a hand surgery which made running difficult. That's 52 miles/week on the weeks I ran. Still not sound like a lot? Well, fine, it's not elite, but I'm not winning any races and I'm just trying to have fun. And I can say all of those 2,400 miles were a great time! So here are the stats on the year:

2,513 - miles biked
2,400 - miles ran
250 - estimated number of beers consumed over year (shouldn't that be closer to my miles logged)
80 - commutes to and from work by bike or running, instead of by car
6 pairs of shoes
3 new PRs - 17:49 5K (TC5K), 63:15 Trail 10-Miler (Backyard Burn - Wakefield, VA), 1:22:45 Half (New Prague)
1 Boston Marathon finish! (2:59)

And what about goals for this year? If I had to toss numbers out there, I'd say that I'd like to run:
  • sub 17:30 5K
  • sub 1:21 Half
  • sub 2:58 Boston Marathon! (a PR)
  • 2,600 total miles run
  • another long trail run
  • run in more cities around the US
(non running athletic goals)
  • Complete a long distance bike tour (Alaska perhaps)
  • Cross country ski race of some sort
I'm already partway on my goals. I just ran my first run of the year, a run up the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This was amazing trail running, and I spent half the run navigating above the snow line. Good times, if you're ever in ABQ for a day, I would highly recommend running/biking or hiking the Sandias.

So that's the running recap on '07 and a preview of '08.

To return to the cheesy "Rent" song, however, the way I measure my year is not in miles logged or races run, it's the friendships I have. Or, as the song says, "measured in love". I feel very blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family. 2007 was a great year, with some wonderful experiences across the country and right at home in Minnesota. I have a feeling that 2008 will be even better!

Happy New Year friends!

6 comments:

Dr Em said...

Happy New Year Nathan!!

Rocco said...

I re-measured our course from the Thursday night runs, and it looks like the course is actually 11.89 miles long. So it's more likely you ran 2399 miles. Hope that's okay.

Seriously though, that's pretty impressive mileage. I needed all 52 weeks to break 2200.

Chad said...

I don't know how you and Mike run so fast on "low" mileage - must be that cross-training.

Oh yeah, and if you can run 1:21, you're totally sandbagging your marathon goal of 2:58.

Nathan said...

Mike, actually, the last day I ran in '07 I ran an extra half mile or so that I didn't log. So there.

Chad, my goals are usually just to improve on what I've done before. So a sub-2:58 marathon is my goal. Any more than that is gravy. But considering that running is taking a backseat to XC skiing, Boston might not be my race to get a huge improvement! I'm glad to see your training's been going so well, it'll be neat to see your times this year after all that mileage.

Mike, seriously, only 11.89????

Rocco said...

Nah I was just kidding Nathan (damn that Al Gore and his inability to let dry humor show up on the interwebs!).

So far as I know, that route is pretty close to 12.0. But it has been a while since I mapped it out.

Anonymous said...

2:58 might be sandbagging for someone that runs 3,500 miles per year and it might be a reasonabe goal for someone that runs 2,500 miles per year.