Tell me if this isn’t an all too familiar scene: You and/or your running friends follow a hot, long run with a few short laps around the parking lot just to even out the mileage on your GPS. A round number just sounds and looks a lot better.
I can relate. Well sorta.
I’m one of those weirdos who never uses a GPS and yet I am always quick to check the mileage and pace from a buddy who has one on a long run. Just like everybody else, I want to know how far we’ve covered, how much is left and how quick (or more likely, slow) we’re moving along.
The thing is the exact total mileage for the run—here, I’m mostly talking about long runs—doesn’t really matter much to me. The time on my feet is more important; the mileage naturally follows. Basically, I know if the total long-run time on my watch is say, two hours, I’ve gone a certain distance (approximately 15-16 miles) that doesn’t vary a whole lot.
Chances are I might be off by a half mile or so, based on the vagaries of the course and the weather, but it’s not a big deal. Certainly, not a big enough deal to run around the parking lot with my GPS-carrying friends to round the long-run mileage up.
Nevertheless, I can relate to everyone who records every last step they run. I used to keep meticulous training logs that detailed most aspects of my life as well as my running. On a daily basis, I used to record my mileage as well as my weight, how much I hydrated and ate, my swim, cycling and lifting workouts as well as which movies I had seen. Since I used to spend a great deal of my life on the road, nothing gave me more pleasure than to record exactly where in the world I had a great run. My log became my running passport.
In addition to the arcane crap I filled my training logs with, I recorded the usual stuff everyone else does: Mileage, course and elapsed time and then totaled the mileage for every week, month and year. Races—especially marathons–took up an entire page with my splits and detailed analysis of what went right…and wrong.
But it was my weekly mileage that became so sacred that, somewhere along the way, the mileage became an end in itself. If 55 for a week was OK, 60 was a lot better. A peak marathon training week that ranged in the 70s wasn’t nearly as satisfying as an 80-mile week.
The mileage highs were triumphant and built confidence; the valleys were so depressing it would send me into a tailspin. A low week of 36 sucked. By running around a little extra, I could get it up to 40 which didn’t hurt as bad. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I gutted out a superfluous three-miler just to even the week out. Or ran an extra few miles on an airport access road in between flights.
My mileage numbers eclipsed all else and became the goal; more so than the marathon. Resting before or after the marathon? Never. Not me. I wasn’t going to sacrifice a week or two of round numbers—it would lower my yearly total–just for the race. I ran the day before every marathon and somehow, the day after.
Gradually, it dawned on me: I was crazy.
Then, on a family vacation, I made a conscious decision to leave my training log home and went cold turkey. I still ran, but when I got home, didn’t bother to record whatever miles I had run. A few days later, I flew somewhere and still didn’t bring my anchor…my log.
And it felt good.
These days I don’t bother with any type of log. To me, a two-hour run is just that. Nothing more, nothing less. It disappears from my consciousness the moment after I shower.
I still care deeply about my running, but I’ve ditched the obsessive record keeping and mileage mania that used to rule my roost. Running is easier and less stressful without that burden.
Not that anyone has noticed. Every December, a friend still sends me a brand new training log. But I just flip through the pretty pictures and then toss it.
I’m free.