I was messing around with my training log earlier today and stumbled upon some interesting numbers. Well, I found them interesting. I’ll let you be the ultimate judge though. Here are my monthly mileage totals going back to when I started logging them.
The first thing that jumped out is that I just set a monthly mileage PR during July. My 255 miles was 25 more than any other month or almost a mile a day. No wonder BR100 didn’t turn out how I had hoped (head smack!). August ended up as I had planned and while my left knee is still a little on the twitchy side, mentally I’m all kinds of excited for my two fall races (Blues Cruise 50K, NJ One Day at the Fair).
I don’t typically target any number of miles for a given year. I run whatever I end up running. But. . . . they way things are going, I have a decent chance of surpassing the 2,017 miles I did during 2014. This was my first year of ultra running and coincidentally or not, I believe some of my best race results were from that year. Sure I was younger with fresher legs, but maybe the extra training miles had something to do with my performances.
Another interesting tidbit about my mileage is that of my 1,425 miles logged so far this year, 323 of them have been in races. Twenty three percent of my miles coming in races may seem like a lot, but I actually hit 28% last year. This is one (of many) reasons why I’ll never be hanging out in the front packs of races. I love to run long distances, but I don’t have the time (or inclination if I’m being entirely honest) to put in large training blocks leading up to them.
Disclaimer: These digits are provided to help you understand the amount of training I do that supports the ultras that I run. It’s obviously not all inclusive as pace or supplemental exercises aren’t listed. Merely a snapshot of how I do me. Ultras are an experiment of n=1 so you need to do what works best for you. Good luck!