Numbers Game

Since I plan to run a 2 mile road race on July 4, I decided to move my long run to Saturday so I wouldn't be too tired for the race. I ran 14.5 at a steady clip and followed it up with much neglected yard work and weeding to make me good and tired. I then stayed up past my usual bedtime to watch the movie "High Fidelity" with my wife only to realize that our DVD was scratched and unwatchable with only 5 minutes left in the movie. Arghhh.

Today, was an easy 8 mile recovery run with 8 strides at the track. The heart rate stayed nice and low, but I was feeling tired throughout.

With half of 2006 in the books, I decided to take a look at how my training has been going from strictly a numbers standpoint. Here are the stats for the period from January 1 to June 30:

• Total miles: 1584.5
• Missed days of training: 10 days
  
• Most consecutive days of running: 71 days
• Average miles per run: 9.25 miles
  
• Average miles per week: 61.7 miles
• Average miles per month: 263.6

It's really just a bunch of numbers signifying nothing. It's also the longest stretch of I've been able to stay healthy so that's always a good sign. I'm hoping I can build on this solid base in the second half of the year and post some decent road race times and survive a marathon in December. All I need to do is use common sense and not do anything stupid. It might be hard because us males aren't known for that.....