100 Mile Month - Finished with a Bang!

At the start of the month I stated my goal of running 100 miles during the month of May. My long run this morning carried me over the mark. I ended the month with 106.4 miles. My highest total ever. I needed the full 5 Saturday's to get there, so I don't know if I can repeat it in the months to come, but I will try. Most marathon training programs incorporate A MINIMUM of 35 miles per week which would get me up to at least 140 miles per month. Right now I'm in the 20-25 miles/week range.

So, here is my graph with the full month of May showing.

Another item of note was my long run today. Following my race on Monday I had been somewhat lazy this week. I didn't run the day after the race. I ran an easy short run on Wednesday. And then I had late nights Wednesday and Thursday - one making a Raingutter Regatta boat and the other watching the Lost season finally. Both lead me to skip my morning runs on Thursday and Friday. Because of the light week I decided to make my long run particularly long - I planned on at least 12 miles.

I chose this distance because the trail by my house is about 6.1 miles long. I like this trail for my long runs because it is marked with signs every half mile so I can easily measure my pace. As I ran this morning I was feeling quite strong and went the full length including the .1 miles past the last sign on the far end. As I ran back I noted that I was running a faster pace than the half-marathon pace I ran last Thanksgiving. My pace then was 9:06/mile for a finishing time of 1:59:05. I then decided to double back one of the half mile sections and add 1 more mile to my run to get in a full Half-Marathon.

Of course my pace slowed a little on my way back but was still averaging under 9:00/mile when I doubled back at the .5 to go mark. I ended up running 13.25 instead of the 13.1 Half Marathon distance but even with the extra .15 miles my finishing time was faster than my Thanksgiving Day race. Based on my pace of 8:54/mile my Half Marathon time was 1:56:35. To bad my PR list is only based on "Official Races". But it still feels good to know I'm ahead of where I was last fall. I am confident that if I was actually in a race mentality and not a bit worn out from already running a hard race earlier in the week I would have done even better so I am quite encouraged...

As for my weight update: I weighed in at 194 this morning but my Google 15 moving average (this is a Google gadget that calculates a 15 day moving average to smooth out weight variation) is a bit higher at 195.8. I am hoping to get down to 190 by the end of June to prepare for the Peachtree Road Race I am running on the 4th of July. For those of you who don't know what the Peachtree is, it is the largest 10k in the world with 55,000 runners.