My 2015 runs are done! Today’s 6 mile run was day 36 of the Runner’s World Streak and brought me to 1,111 for the year! It also means I’m ending December at 139.84 miles, making it my highest-mileage month ever.

It was quite a year. Somehow with six weeks off (one sick, five with a ruptured plantar fascia), I was still able to hit my original 1,000 mile goal on 12/9, 1,100 miles on 12/30 and finally 1,111 today. Along the way I ran my first marathon and set a half marathon PR (twice) while raising money for the American Diabetes Association. More importantly, my family was there with me, and I had the support of all of you as I ran in memory of my dad.

2015 by the Numbers

• 190 Individual Runs
• Total Distance: 1,111 miles
• Time Spent Running: 7 days, 3 hours, 31 mins, 6 secs
• Average Monthly Distance: 92.58 (goal was 83.33)
• Average Weekly Distance: 20.96 (goal was 19.24)
• Average Daily Distance: 3.05 (goal was 2.74)
• Money Raised for the ADA: Over $2,100 (counting matching campaigns)

So what’s next ?

Tomorrow I’m going to kick off 2016 by running the Lowell 1st Run with my wife and daughter. After that I’m going to take a few days off to give my legs a much needed rest. And then? Since 2015 was about the distance, both the 1,000 miles and running a marathon, in 2016 I want to focus on running faster. Although I came close to my 2000 5K PR this year, I’ll still be chasing it in 2016. But to run faster, I have to run smarter. Unfortunately, that means working on my core strength and flexibility…you know, the parts of running that I don’t like. And I still need to figure out a nagging plantar fascia issue before it gets worse. But all those things are all doable.

I’m also looking forward to getting matched with someone on I Run 4 Michael. If you exercise regularly, check it out and see how easy it is to make a difference in someone’s life.

Finally, I’m going to continue to encourage my family to keep running. I wish I’d started running when I was younger and I hope my daughter continues to enjoy it and the benefits of an active lifestyle. Of course, I’ll have to make sure she thinks it’s her idea…

And with that 2015, my 1,000 mile challenge, and these weekly updates are done. If you haven’t done so, please make your payment. Forgot to pledge? No problem. Just make a donation. Every bit helps the ADA in its efforts to make diabetes history.

Happy New Year! No matter what your goals are, make 2016 a year to remember.  Just be sure to run the mile you’re in!

Image by bsouthj

(Looking for the link to pay your pledge?)

Remember last week when I said I would need to average 4.7 miles per day to get to reach my new 1,100 mile goal? Yeah, that didn’t happen…

Instead I took advantage of the holiday vacation, and the unseasonably warm weather, to average 5.91 miles/day.* I’m definitely feeling the effects of 31 days of runs, but the extra mileage paid off and now I need to do just 3 miles each day through the 31^st to finish right at 1100. After that I just need to do one more run on the New Year’s Day to finish the Runner’s World Streak. And while I’m looking forward to it since both Melissa and G will be joining me on the first run of 2016, I’m also looking forward to giving my legs a much needed break when it’s over.

Speaking of family, I’d like to thank mine for the all the support they’ve given me this year. When I said I was going to run 1,000 miles they were right there with me. And when I said I was going to do the run streak and then decided to push for 1,100 miles, they were there with me. Running the distance was a challenge for me, but there’s no way it would have happened without the two of them alongside me. Finding the time for four, then five and finally seven runs each week would have been impossible without their support.

Next week I’ll be wrapping up 2015, but this week I want to say thank you to my wife and daughter. I may be a better runner now than I was twelve months ago, but I know I’m a better person because of you.

This week’s 41.34 mile total is just 1.14 behind my furthest week and gets me to 1,085 miles for the year.

*- Did you think I wasn’t going to make it?

(Looking for the link to pay your pledge?)

I’m still going with the Runner’s World streak and this week’s seven runs add another 33.66 miles. That’s 1,043.66 for the year. So what’s next? Well as RunKeeper was so good to remind me, it’s time to start a new goal.

When I set a running goal I try to have three levels:

• Good: Not everything went well, but I’m still happy with it
• Great: My primary goal
• Awesome: Everything just clicked…the perfect run

If I’m realistic when I set my goals, the “good” and “great” are within reach, but to hit “awesome” everything, and I mean everything, has to go my way. For example, my marathon goals were:

• Good: Finish (it was my first marathon, so I had no expectations)
• Great: Finish Under 4:45:00 (seemed doable)
• Awesome: Beat Sharon’s time (ha!)

I finished (good), but at 4:45:12 I just missed my “great” goal. The awesome goal wasn’t even on the table and Sharon’s time was very, very safe.

Another example: I was very open about my goal to run 1,000 miles this year. But like the marathon, I actually had three levels in mind:

• Good: 1,000 miles by the end of the year (accomplished)
• Great: 1,000 miles by 12/9, the anniversary of my dad’s death (accomplished)
• Awesome: 1,200 miles by the end of the year

The “good” and “great” goals are in the books, but five weeks of no running shot the awesome goal out of the water. However, there are still twelve days left in the year and to keep my streak going I have to run all twelve. That’s enough of a goal, right? No.

Maybe it was the cold, but on yesterday’s run I started thinking about what it would take to bump up my (then) 2.92 miles/day average up to 3. Eight hundredths of a mile didn’t seem like a lot but it would mean running 1,095 miles for the year. I wasn’t sure of my exact yearly total, but it seemed doable. So I pushed through 13.11 miles until I could get home to figure out exactly what it would take to get there.

At home I realized that I would need to run another 51.34 miles to get to 1,095. With just 12 days left, that’s at least 4.28 every day. Of course, 1,095 is close enough to 1,100 that I decided to add in another 5 miles to go for a nice, round 1,100. After all, that’s just over another four tenths of a mile per day…every day…until the end of the year. It’s short of the original awesome 1,200 but it’s still aggressive, particularly with the holiday schedule.

So here are my goals for the rest of the year:

• Good: Run at least a mile all 12* days to finish the Runner’s World Streak
• Awesome: Average at least 4.7 miles/day to get to 1,100 for the year

You probably noticed there’s a level missing. That’s because while 2015 has already been a great year, I’m going to push to make the last twelve days awesome.

It’s good to have goals, right?

*And a mile on January 1st

(Want to skip the post and just make your donation? There’s a link for that.)

My Dad died on December 9, 2011. Every year since then, I’ve honored his memory with run in the morning and a beer in the evening. It’s not how most might mark the occasion, but it’s what works for me.

This year I had something special planned: I wanted to reach my 1,000 mile goal on the anniversary of his death. With only 13.1 miles to go after last week it should have been easy. And it probably would have been if I hadn’t been sidelined with a cold all week. But even though I was sick, I forced myself out of bed and onto the treadmill to run a slow four miles to hit my goal 22 days early. I knew my brother was going to get up early and run at the same time, but I was surprised to get a message from Melissa telling me that she was also running in NYC while I was on the treadmill. Knowing the two of them, plus all of you, were supporting me helped me power though the last miles. And while it wasn’t the run I would have preferred to end with, it was the run I had in me.

Mileage Update: 13.1 miles through 12/9 gets me to the magic 1,000. But did I stop there? Hell to the no: Another 10 miles over the rest of the week brings me to 1,010 for the year. But those miles are for me and my family, not the ADA.*

If you sponsored me per mile, please visit my ADA page to make your payment. If you haven’t pledged yet, but you want to join the cool kids, please use the same link and donate whatever you can.

Doesn’t 1,000 miles mean it’s time for another 100 Mile Beer? Yep, and for the last of them I’ve got a 2014 Smuttynose Smistletoe courtesy of John, who was crazy enough to join me when I ran from zombies in 2012. It seems fitting to celebrate not only my 1,000 miles, but also the fact that we’re both still running today. I’m looking forward to celebrating his first marathon in 2016. (no pressure…)

Photo – A&E

* – Unless you want to link you pledge to my total mileage this year. That would make you even more awesomer!

Thanks to the long weekend of the Thanksgiving break, I fell into the Runner’s World Run Streak.*  To complete it I just need to run at least one mile a day starting on Thanksgiving and ending on New Year’s Day. I hadn’t planned on doing it, but I’m ten days in to the 37 days and a mile a day should be easy, right?

If you’ve been following my journey to 1,000 miles this year you already know I’m a bit of a a compulsive runner. If you’re new to this site, here some good examples:

• Three half marathons in six weeks? Sure, why not!
• A half marathon a week after my first full? It’s on!

Because one of the above didn’t end so well for me so I’ve had to be careful not to overdo it on what used to be my non-running days. So I’ve been trying to play it safe. Fortunately, with the weather shifting I’ve been on the treadmill more so I was finally able to finish Game of Thrones. I’m now watching Silicon Valley and the shorter show length is making it easier to stick to “safe” back-to-back-to-back runs distances and speeds. I also have to be sure to keep up the little cross training that I have been doing.

It probably won’t surprise anyone that I haven’t managed to run “just” 1-mile yet, but the shorter runs did give me room to get a little creative with this week’s total distance. That’s how this week’s 23.37 miles got me to 986.9 for the year. The remaining distance is something runners should understand. Hey, I did say it was a “little” creative…

Photo – DreamWorks

*- Were you expecting something else?

The week started with a cold and rainy half marathon and ended with a cold and rainy ten miles. In between those two runs were Thanksgiving and my second Thanksgiving morning run with all the local family runners so seems fitting to list some of the things I’m thankful for. But I’m going to keep this update short so I can get back to spending time with my family…

This week I’m thankful for:

• My family
• My friends, old and new
• Everyone who has supported me
• My health
• A new half marathon PR
• A missed 5K PR, and the chance to go after it again next week
• The 5 weeks left in the year so those of you who haven’t pledged yet still have time. =)
• And of course, the miles. All of them.

I may be within reach of my goal, but there’s no way I’m slowing down. This week’s 42.48 miles is a new weekly record and enough to get me to 963.53 for the year. I can’t wait to see what the remaining 36.47 (or more) have in store.

This post was inspired by a conversation I had with someone who couldn’t understand how I was able to fit running into my schedule.  It was fitting that this happened on a week where I had a lot of things, good and bad, competing with my running time.

Family and work are my priorities. Everything else, including running, has to fit around them. Some weeks everything clicks and getting the miles in is easy. But more often than not it’s a lot harder to fit everything into neat blocks on the schedule. For example, one of this week’s runs happened just over three hours after I went to bed. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do (OK, it was pretty stupid) but for me, on that day, running was more important to me than an extra hour of sleep. However, the next day it wasn’t and I didn’t do the extra run I’d planned for the week.

The fact that I can (usually) find time for family, work and (in my case) running, doesn’t make me a time-management expert. It just means that I’ve accepted that in order to do the things I want to do, some things aren’t going to get done. That’s just life. There’s no trick to it.

I guarantee that you’ve been devoting time to your priorities even if you haven’t explicitly identified them. Don’t believe me? Has anybody ever said one of the following to you?

• “It must be nice to have time to do             ”
• “Where do you find the time?”

Whatever you were talking about when somebody said that to you, that’s one of your priorities. And whatever it is, you somehow find the time for it. Notice I didn’t say “make time.” That’s because we all get the same 24 hours each day and it’s up to each of us to figure out how to use it. No matter what you did today, there was something you didn’t do in order to get those thing(s)  done. And that’s just the way it is.

So think about what you did today and what you didn’t do. Not happy with the list? No problem, you can always change your priorities. You may not be able to drop everything to focus exclusively on your priorities, but you can probably figure out ways to work on them.

Tomorrow starts when you get out of bed…what are you priorities going to be?

No long run this week because of today’s Wolf Hollow Half, so just 12.92 miles this week, bringing me to 921.05 for the year.

Remember last week when I was excited about all but one of my runs being outside because of the great fall weather? Well this week saw a return to more seasonable temps and all but one of my runs were inside. However, I can’t really blame the temps so much as my schedule: It’s just easier to hop on the treadmill when pressed for time.

So yesterday I was going to run outside no matter what. Although 40 degree temps, winds over 25 mph, and snow flurries almost turned me back in the beginning, it was a great run once I warmed up. The trees are almost bare but the air was still full of the leaves the wind was whipping around. I stopped several times not only to take pictures, but also to just enjoy the sounds and smells of the changing season. Appropriately, I was listening to the last of Thoreau’s Walden on the run and it ended as I walked up the driveway. It was the perfect end to a great (if slow) run.

Yesterday was also my first 13+ run since the New Hampshire Half and my last before next weekend’s Wolf Hollow Half. Based on yesterday’s time I’m in no danger of breaking my PR so my goal is to go faster on the open sections to offset the slower speeds of the trail portions of the course. The wind could have cleared the leaves, but based on the condition of the Rivier trails yesterday I’m going to plan for the worst.

24.54 miles this week brings me to 908.13 for the year. I’m in the home stretch now with about 92 more miles to go. And since I crossed another 100 mile mark, it’s time for another century beer, this one thanks to Bill and Roxanne Jahn. I had to hit a few stores but I was able to buy the next to last bottle of Founder’s reDANKulous at one of them. I’m typically not a fan of red IPAs but the overwhelming hops in this one made it very enjoyable. It’s definitely on my list for next year if they brew another batch.

Photo – Nathan Rupert

On Halloween we brought home a new kitten and after a week of trying out a variety of names we finally went back our first idea. And now that she has a name you can officially meet Boo, the little fluff ball attacking my shoes in the picture above. She’s adjusted well to the house over the last week, but has apparently decided that my shoes are her toys. Unfortunately, I’ve been slow in learning to hide my shoes from her so I guess that makes her smarter than me…

Enough about the cat, what about the running? Well, thanks to the end of Daylight Savings Time and some unseasonably warm temps, all but one of this week’s runs were outside. Fall runs are one of my favorite things about living in New Hampshire and I’m going to enjoy them as long as I can because I know we’ll be in the midst of winter soon.

Mileage Update: 23.25 this week and 883.59 for the year.  I can almost taste the 900-mile beer.

The week started with a family race, with Melissa and G doing the Santa Fund 5K and me doing the 10k. It was the day after our Halloween party and the day before my last-minute business trip so I didn’t have high hopes for the day. But I’d also promised my brother I’d use the race to scout out the course for a half we’re going to do in November so I was willing to run it just to see what happened…

Although she’d run 5ks before, this was my daughter’s first time without her mother or me running with her. I knew she would do well as long as she had fun, but this time it would be up to her to get herself to finish. And she did, coming in third in her division and 61st overall. More importantly, she now knows she can run a full 5k (“except for the water stop,” she told me) and is looking forward to running another on Thanksgiving with her cousin.

As I mentioned, I wasn’t feeling my best. Yet somehow I still managed fourth in my division and took 2:20 off last year’s time. It was also a new 10K PR for me, but my Garmin’s distance was off enough that I’m going to call it “unofficial” PR. Still, it was a nice surprise and I have no problems using the time as my new benchmark.

This week’s 19.41 miles also brings me to 859.34 for the year. There are still 140.66 miles to go until 1,000, but I’ve now run almost 2 miles further than I did in all of 2014. That’s another record for a year that that’s already seen PRs in the half marathon, the marathon*, and now the 10K. Sure I’m still chasing my 2000 5k time, but it’s been a great year so far!

So with all those PRs and just 140 miles to go, what’s next? I’m in uncharted territory now, so how about raising more money for the ADA?

If you have donated already, thank you but please share this with anyone who might be interested. Diabetes affects many more than those diagnosed and I’m sure you know others who would be interested in finding a cure.

If you haven’t donated, now’s the time. I’ve got two months to run 140 miles and while that should be plenty of time, November and December are cold in New Hampshire and your pledges will help me lace up and get out there no matter how cold it gets.**

As always, thank you all. I’m not sure I could have done this without you and I’m looking forward to the next 140 miles (and two more century beers!).

*The first is an automatic PR
**Or get on the treadmill. But still with the lacing up.