Archive for January, 2012

Tracking My Mileage

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

It’s January 31, 2012 and I just made a log entry into runningahead.com for today’s nine mile run. My total distance for the month of January is 173.4 miles. This is something new for me, because in all the years I’ve been running I never tracked my accumulated distances so closely. I can thank Dimitri Bilenkin for his great example of how to maintain a detailed running log.

I didn’t start the year off using RunningAhead. Rather, I was using a paper-bound log I received in my goodie bag from the Asbury Park Marathon last year. It’s a nice book, however, not being able to share and compare my workouts easily with other people detracts from its social score. About mid-way through January I saw Dimitri’s log and thought, “I could really use this.” So I transferred my paper log to the RunningAhead website and have been an avid user since. Now it’s easy to send someone a link to one of my workouts or running plans by pointing them to the website. Also, the tools, graphs, and summaries on the RunningAhead site are pretty useful. I tried RunningAhead about a year ago but didn’t stick with it.  This year I am more consistent. I am also making use of the “Training Plans” feature to prepare for the Pocono Mountain Marathon: Run for the Red, on May 20. I’m using the Pfitzinger 18 week/70mi peak training plan, which is nicely laid out in my calendar log along with my completed workouts.

I mention this mileage statistic because it’s a personal record. I don’t believe I’ve ever run this many miles in a single month. With this much mileage I am trying to take precautions to avoid injury. I’m continuing my cross-training workouts, karate classes, and miscellaneous fitness activities like: pushups, stretching, and foam/pvc rolling. I believe the foam/pvc rolling is making a big difference in recovery times from my runs. For instance, I ran 17 miles on Sunday afternoon and Monday I was up and about with very little soreness. In the past, runs like that had left me walking around like a zombie the day after.

Next up: set a weekly record in mileage and continue my running streak since December 30, 2011. By continuing my planned activities, I should exceed 58 miles this week.