1942

What does 1942 have to do with anything? No it is not the year I was born, I am old but not that old. It just might be my new mileage goal for 2010 which would lead me to a nice round number.

You see, I discovered a potential statistical quirk when I was looking through the spreadsheet that I keep on my running. I happened to look at the sheet with my yearly mileage totals when I glanced at my mileage prediction for the year (1542 miles) which is based on year to date miles prorated out for the year (this is my low estimate) along with my planned mileage which is based on current year to date miles and my planned mileage for the remainder of the year (1887 miles - this my higher estimate, doesn't everyone do this :-) when I noticed something kind of interesting.

I am currently averaging 947 miles per year from 1992 through 2009, if I ran 1942 miles this year than I would be at exactly 1000 miles per year over the 19 year span of 92 through 2010 and hit exactly 19,000 miles. Will I do that many miles this year just to hit the exact miles per year? I wasn't planning on running that many but I can be a bit anal about my stats and it is kind of intriguing as if I stay healthy and do the training and run the races I have mapped out for the year, I would end up with 1887 miles, so if the year works out as currently planned would I be tempted to add 55 more miles. Tempted yes but I would probably just convince myself to let time take of care of it in 2011. Of course, that would mean in 2011 then I could only run 1055 miles and that is below what I am averaging so my only chance to hit it exactly would be this year.

So what to do, I think I will just continue to run, see if I can stay healthy and then see where I am come November and maybe just maybe I might go for it as I normally do tail off my mileage in November and December and an extra 55 miles would be easily within reach and it would be cool to do it.

While I am talking about my running stats, I just set my all time high mileage for March with 167 miles up from 114 miles from February, my previous high for March was 145 miles which I did in 1997, last year my March total was 134 miles.

Last, I have officially started my taper for McNaughton and I think I am on track as everything is pretty much falling apart. Yesterday I ran in Lebanon Hills with Wayne and the heat (and his pace) completely did me in as I struggled to get through 6 miles. Today, my left knee and right achilles are hurting. Why, I have no clue. I don't remember twisting the knee, I do remember some achilles tightness. Does it concern me? No, if I have issues I will just need to figure out how to deal with them and get through the day after all that is why I want to do ultras, right?