Day 2,201 and Reflection on six-years

            My first year of running every day was probably the most difficult, yet it was the year that I saw the most improvement in my marathon time. My time in 2014 was 3:29:47 the following year after running every day my time was 3:17:58, and the next year was my best time 3:15:22. I am fully aware compared to a lot of people these time might not seem impressive, but for somebody that started out running a 3:58:22 this was amazing progress.

            I pushed myself hard in 2016 and ultimately felt that my ankle was getting injured, and I started running less and less, for the next three-years saw a drastic decline in my marathon times and in my running in general; 2017, 3:28:30; 2018, 3:40:34; and 2019, 3:28:10. In 2018 I was gaining weight and running slower and slower and my time demonstrated that, so I knew that I needed a change, and in the summer of 2019 I fully committed to that change. That summer I decided to stop going out to eat at all and to drink little to no alcohol (once a week). I ran 100 miles in a week that summer and had a month where I ran around 280 miles. I was feeling better and even though I wasn’t running as fast I could before, I was just dominating the miles again.

            At the end of September, I told my wife that I was done eating meat all together. The more I read and researched the topic; it just made sense that I should only be eating a plant based diet, so I started to make the change. I started to see differences in my body almost immediately. I went from running only 1,040 miles in 2018 to ending 2019 with a total of 2,298.87 miles. 2019 became by far the most miles I have ever ran in a year. My second best year is 1,730.77 in 2015 which as I explained before was also a significant year in my life.

After I made the change to plant based I started running faster again beating all of my previous Strava records. I ran 34 miles for my 34^th birthday in December, and finally signed up for my first ultra 50 miler scheduled for June 2020. I am currently on pace to run 3,000 miles this year, which seems so impossible to even think about considering what I was running before, but now I can go out and run thirty-miles and still feel like I could keep going. I had hoped to PR this year, but first my local marathon was cancelled due to the coronavirus, and then they opened it up to a virtual marathon. I wasn’t feeling that well, but I decided to run it the morning of the original marathon anyway and go as fast I could. My elapsed time for that marathon was 3:17:25, not my fastest, but pretty close. Furthermore, my 2020 virtual marathon was first marathon I only drank water.  

            I don’t know what my seventh-year of running has in store for me, but if the past six-years have taught me anything it is—never be afraid to make a change.     

* If you want to follow my daily runs check them out here: https://www.strava.com/athletes/1198614