Three Things

I recently ran a marathon during which I surpassed 100,000 lifetime miles. I was asked to write something about it for the Medina County Road Runners Newsletter. If you've been following my blog, you've seen some other posts about this mileage milestone. This is more of the same.

Three things I know are true:

1) There are a lot of accomplished runners out there. Some are ultrarunners. Some, I'm proud to say, are my friends. Some of these folks have also run gobs of miles, possibly even as many as I. But...

2) A lot of runners don't track their mileage as I do. I know. I'm a little goofy like this. It's in my genes. Maybe my jeans as well. Counting, tracking, measuring: it's what I do. I do it for a living, and also for fun. Most folks don't suffer from this measurement disease. I simply have my very own anal-retentive trait, that's all. Even so...

3) 100,000 is still a lot of miles.

The logging began in 1978, the year of my first marathon. I ran in some years that I cannot account for, but my total includes only miles for which I have log entries. Every one of the 100,000 is documented in some way: miles that I've tracked in logbooks, in spreadsheets, using online applications, and most recently with my GPS device.

Some fun with that number:

• The circumference of the earth is 24,901 miles, so I've gone around over four times.
• The distance from the earth to the moon is 238,900 miles, so I've gone 41.8 percent of the way there.
• The distance from the earth to the sun is 93,000,000 miles, so I've only gone 0.108 percent of the way there.
• 100,000 miles over 41 years is an average of 2,439 miles per year.
• 100,000 miles in 41 years is an average of 6.68 per day.

During a recent group run, I was asked which of my many runs are the most memorable. We discussed a few:

Completing my one and only 100-mile race at Mohican (I might have added that my DNF at that location ten years hence was also memorable).

The Green Jewell 100K where I got lost, then found, then won the race, then had to get in the car and go directly to the airport in order to fly to Europe. Thank goodness for baby wipes.

The time I was running in pitch-dark blackness with only a reflective vest (these don’t work so well when there is no light to reflect), and was hit head-on by something moving very fast down a hill. It was a biker who wound up sprawled away from his now crooked bike. I never saw him coming.

I could have also mentioned my first marathon, my first sub-three-hour marathon that took 11 years to achieve, and my last sub-three that occurred on the most beautiful day the Towpath can offer.

But my most important and most memorable run will be my next one. My next one with friends that is. I like the solitude of running alone, but running with friends is all that much better. I enjoy, remember and cherish group runs more than any. My next one of those will surely be my most memorable.

Until the one after that.