Day 4,273—3,016.7 Miles—

 

      This is my 12th year streaking and my second-most miles ever in a single year. My goal for next year might be 2,800 miles. I will decide tomorrow. I need to prioritize recovering. I am about to take another bath, and I am feeling somewhat better. It was the right choice to no do a lot of miles this week. 

I averaged 8.2 miles a day this year. I wish I knew my real lifetime miles, but I have only been keeping an accurate measurement since 2011, even though I ran my first marathon in 2009 and started running regularly in 2002. I could estimate how much I ran during that period, but I don’t really know. I know initially, when I started getting into running again in 2008ish. I started with a goal of 100 miles every month, but I am not even sure what year that was. I ran my first half-marathon in 2009, but I did smaller races starting earlier.

       I picked out four 100-mile races in different states I want to do in 2026, which first made me feel good, but then I started thinking about the more difficult states to travel to, like Hawaii and Alaska. Alaska has more races, and not all of them are hard to enter, but Hawaii only has one 100-mile race that I was able to find, which has very limited spots, so they do a lottery every year. They also require 8 hours of trail work, which isn’t the end of the world, but it is another variable. 

I know the most important thing about making progress towards any goal is finding that next step, so looking out into the future, when I only have the difficult ones left, isn’t super helpful. The one in Hawaii is going to require an unknown number of attempts to enter, so I should plan on trying to register for it maybe in 5 years, but I would rather do it when I am getting closer to the end of completing all 50 states. One thing is for sure: there is a lot to consider, and the most essential part is moving forward, which might mean that I have to let go of being able to know for sure I can finish in 10 years. Initially, I didn’t have an age in mind when I would finish, but 50 by 50 sounded so good in my head. Realistically, I might need to consider giving myself more time.