Blog Master G

On Sunday when I ran 20.11 miles to complete Week 8 of my second marathon training plan, I reached another insane milestone in my new running obsession: I’ve run more than 1,000 miles in 9 months!

Here’s a fun chart that shows my rapidly increasing mileage over the past 4 months:

Sunday also marked my weekly mileage record: 54.42 weekly miles. In 5 consecutive days (Wednesday to Sunday). On the heels of my second half-marathon. After a 3-day work trip to Philadelphia. All that and I’ve been working some crazy hours lately — last night we launched major new releases of our flagship products for the first time in 3 years.

Inspired by guys like Dean Karnazes — whose career highlights include unfathomable accomplishments like running 50 marathons in 50 days; completing 199-mile 12-person team runs — as his own team; finishing the first-ever South Pole Marathon; running the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run in less than 24 hours — 10 years in a row; running the Badwater 135-Mile Ultramarathon from the lowest point in North America to the highest point in the contiguous U.S. — I’ve really pushed my body to the edge lately (though not nearly to Karzazes extremes!).

I recently read Karzazes’ Ultramarathon Man, a truly inspiring read, which I encouraged my bro to read. He read it in less than 24 hours and he told me it changed his life. He nailed the review of it that I never got around to writing.

So back to my mileage…

Since I started running 12/26/2007, I’ve racked up the following:

• 167 runs
• 1,026.007 miles
• 519.14 miles June 2008 through September 2008 (average of 32.45 miles/week)
• 129.79 average miles per month, June 2008 through September 2008
• 181.24 miles in September 2008 (average of 45.31 miles/week)

And guess what? It’s been just over 3 months since I hit the 500-mile mark, and the 100-mile milestone was only 3 months before that.

Believe me when I say that never in my life did I think I’d log more than 1,000 miles in less than 9 months — in my first year as a distance runner.

Along with feeling great, having incredible focus in all things I do, and constantly challenging myself to improve my pace, I love hearing that my running has inspired so many of my friends. Megan has joined TnT and is training to run her first marathon (in Maui!). Another friend told me this week that I’m his role model, which was really moving and unexpected — and leaves me kind of speechless.

So I’ll keep on running and doing my best to inspire all of you to do what you never thought possible. 🙂