Limits

Everyone has limits.  There is only so much physical and mental stress that one can take before breakdown occurs.  Sometimes, those limits are hard to find. For some, injury usually strikes before the "true" limit is reached, when bodily processes start to break down beyond the point of recovery, and time off is forced.  For others, the symptoms of overtraining (which vary widely from person to person) set in, and if that person has common sense, he or she will force time off, or else injury soon follows (I've been in both groups at some point, but those are stories for another day).  

It's a good time for me to look back at the past year and look to goals in the year ahead.  Frankly, though, I've never really done that at the end of the year.  I started recording mileage in the summer of 2008, but what good is data that is recorded and never used? Here are my mileage totals from 2009 to this year.  Although I don't use a GPS, these totals are probably fairly close. I always assume 7:00 pace for easy runs, despite the actual pace, and it seems to average itself out in the long haul. 

2009: 2,381
2010: 2,437
2011: 3,097
2012: 3,278
2013: 3,784 plus whatever I do in the next three days

Without knowing anything else, there are a few points of note.  Most obviously, I've been increasing every year.  That's one good sign.  The other items of interest are two sizable jumps in mileage, between 2010 to 2011 and between 2012 to 2013.  I had injuries in 2009 (running-related) and 2010 (running-exacerbated), which knocked a few hundred miles off.  However, my training while in college was fairly conservative in terms of mileage.  I hit my peak mileage during my track season of senior year, with a whopping 80 miles in one week.  We had four-week training cycles (27 days of running, 1 day off) but overall mileage was low.  

Once I graduated, I could do more "playing around" with my training.  I realized I like miles, so I ran more miles.  I also played around with shorter training cycles.  I began with three-week training cycles, then dropped to two-week, and eventually got to one day off per week early in 2013.  I stuck with this for a while while still doing higher mileage.  However, I eventually realized I maybe don't need a day off every week.  So at the end of September, I decided to start testing the limit.  I bumped my mileage up significantly (I was just over 400 miles for each of October and November) and decided to see how long I could go without feeling like I needed a day off.  One week went by, then two, then three, and I was still running near-PR times.  And here I sit at the end of December, still in a 90+ day running streak, still feeling well, and still uninjured (despite occasional soreness or tiredness not beyond what is normal) (a day off is coming, even if it is by force). 

Winning the Garden Spot Village Marathon this year.  Hoping to cut some more time off of my PR in the coming year!  Credit: Garden Spot Village

Maybe it's dumb that I'm testing these limits.  I thought I knew what I could handle, but maybe I can handle more.  Since the end of 2012 and with a very back-loaded 2013 in terms of mileage, I've dropped my marathon PR by 10:30 (to 2:35:31), dropped my half-marathon PR by 70 seconds (to 1:12:12), and increased my peak mileage week to 131 miles.   In 2014, I feel that I can brings these times down more and safely increase my mileage, both peak and overall.  Despite wanting to push these limits, I need to remember the long-term goals of getting to the marathon starting line and actually being healthy to run a fast marathon.  If I stop feeling well, I'll back off.  If I start to hurt, I'll back off.  If workouts or runs start to suck, I'll back off.  But until these happen, I'll push on.  After all, you can't burn out if you never catch fire.