Dave – A new milestone – 200 miles of running in 7 days

I can’t believe I’ve just ran 200 miles in the last 7 days and also walked 15 miles on top of that. A friend of mine ran that distance 2 weeks ago he said why don’t I do it, I thought about it and said no way, the maximum I thought I could ever do was 140. I didn’t think any more of it as a weekly goal but knew last week I had planned to run a lot of miles to finish the #GVRAT (The Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee) before I go on vacation May 30th. Every time I thought about finishing in that time I kind of dismissed it, I knew it meant running a marathon a day for 2 weeks and some longer runs on top of it. As this weekend (Fri-Mon) came around I set myself an ambitious goal of 31, 42, 42 & 31 miles which would leave 3 more marathons for me to finish the 635 miles in 28 days on May 28th, and hopefully a Top 100 finish (out of 19,000+). Yesterday when I was running I knew back to back 42’s was going to be really tough both mentally and physically, so I decided to run 50 miles yesterday so it would only require me to run 34 today, so much easier. My usual weekly mileage is around 45 miles, but during this pandemic it’s been higher around 70 miles. Last week was a new high for me with 108 after the previous weeks 92. It was only yesterday when I looked at Strava that I realized if I ran the 84 miles it would bring me to exactly 200 miles, kind of weird that it worked out that way. Fingers crossed the next 4 days will go to plan and I can finish this race without injury and then enjoy a 9 day break from running. This race has been fun but pushed me way outside my comfort zone, and this heat and humidity is no fun, but at a 10:02 pace it’s been an amazing journey. 105.76 miles remaining over the next 4 days, “Too Easy”.