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88 miles

That’s my total miles for last week (Monday – Sunday). 88 miles is the most I’ve ever run in a week, and is more than I used to run most months! I’ve been regularly hitting between 65-75 miles per week, but I really want to start pushing myself a little and increasing my weekly mileage.

With the travel we were doing between NYC and Long Island and between work, the dogs, family time, seeing old friends and the weddings we were attending, I knew last week was going to be a little hectic. I didn’t have a set-in-stone plan and just figured I would run as much as I reasonably could.

I started the week with 19.5 miles in the Northwest Woods near East Hampton on Long Island. After getting 19.5 miles on a Monday, I decided that I would shoot for between 90-100 miles for the week. The Northwest Woods are a great place to run – there are a few well-marked, intersecting trails with a bunch of smaller off-shoots to check out. It’s quiet and peaceful back there and I rarely ran into other people, but you’re never that far from a house or road, so even if you get a little “lost”, you can get out pretty easily. I saw tons of animals, including deer (if you look closely in the picture up at the top you can see one that I had a stare-off with), wild turkeys and rabbits. The only real “problems” with it are that it’s pretty much flat as a board and there’s no water available at all along the course.

Tuesday was 8 miles on the road; Wednesday was 6.25 morning miles on the road and 6 evening miles in the woods; Thursday I ran 8.8 miles on the roads (with a little on the beach).

Despite the fact that I was feeling pretty good, I took Friday off to give my legs a rest in preparation for a big weekend. Saturday I got up early and ran 22.5 in the Woods, exploring some sections that I’d never run through before. At that point I was at around 72 miles with Sunday still to go.

I was planning to hit around 20 road miles on Sunday, but after staying up late on Saturday night and having a busy day of family stuff planned, I ended up doing 7.4 in the morning and then another 9.5 in the evening, leaving me just a little short of 90 miles. If I’d had more time or planned it a little better, I definitely could have run more miles either in the morning or evening (or both!).

Even though I didn’t get across the 90-mile-week threshold, I’m still very psyched with the week. I’m taking today off but will be right back at it tomorrow. I’m still travelling and this week could be a tougher one to get in the big miles, but I’ll give it a good shot.

Congrats to everyone who raced yesterday, particularly at the San Diego 100 and Eagleman!