November Was a High Mileage Month

My mileage for November was surprisingly high.  I ran a total of 286.65 miles.  Why is that surprising?  I didn’t do any training.  NONE.  I didn’t run a single mile that wasn’t part of a race.  In order to meet my long-term goals for the year, I had to do two quadzillas.  The first one started on October 31st, so three of the races fell in November.  The other one came at the end of the month.  In between, I scheduled three other marathons.

That’s a crazy number of races, but what made it even crazier was doing all that when I’m injured.  At the start of the month, I didn’t really believe I could do it.  I just took it one race at a time and hoped for the best.

I shouldn’t be doing all these races with an injury.  I should take some time off and not run at all for a while.  I compromised.  I didn’t do any training runs.  I just did the races, even if that meant doing them slowly.

I originally scheduled 10 marathons in November.  Then one of them was halted because of hot weather.  I wasn’t given the opportunity to run the whole course; I only ran 19.8 miles.  Because I didn’t run the whole course, I found another race to make up for it.  That was a 50K race.

So here’s how the mileage added up:

    El Maraton del Rio Grande        26.2

    Day of the Dead Series, Day 3    26.2

    Day of the Dead Series, Day 4    26.2

    Rock ‘n’ Roll Savannah           19.8

    Peachtree City 50K               31.05

    Istanbul Marathon                26.2

    Flying Monkey Marathon           26.2

    Wattle Waddle                    26.2

    Wishbone Run                     26.2   

    Ghost of Seattle Marathon        26.2

    Seattle Marathon                 26.2 

    TOTAL                           286.65

I’ve never been a high mileage athlete.  The most I’ve even run in a month is 357.25 miles.  This month actually ranks as the fifth highest of my life, despite the fact I only ran 11 out of 30 days.

I got through these races by doing a significant amount of walking.  I just wanted to finish each race within the time limits and minimize the wear and tear on my legs.  I feel no worse now than I did at the beginning of the month.  I feel fortunate.

I only have two races in December.  Then I’m taking a nine week break.  Some of my friends doubt that I’ll stick to that.  Believe me.  I am SO ready to take a break from racing.  I’m really looking forward to giving myself a chance to heal.  What I’ll really miss is training.  I haven’t done any real training in months, and I hate letting myself get so out of shape.

I’m looking forward to racing again, but only when I’m healthy.  Getting back in shape will be hard work. I’m really looking forward to that.