Monthly miles:

When I enter my daily mileage into the Runner's World log, it tallies my weekly, monthly and yearly miles. So, for this June it reads: 59.3 mpw, 249 miles this month, and 1327 miles for 2008, thus far. Now, I kind of like the monthly totals. They're more forgiving if you've missed 10 miles due to travel, soreness, etc. It's a loophole around the "I've got to hit X number mpw," that we runners fall into.

I'm a big picture guy as an advisor, but don't practice what I preach, so I tend to be a streaker as well as a weekly total hoarder. Not that I run THAT many mpw, but I like to be over 50 EVERY week of marathon training until the taper. Does it really matter if one week is 42? NO! But I'm not so bright with such matters, so I'll go for 50 at the risk of hurting myself.

This week, for example, I was going to cut back but did I? NO>>>>>>I went the same 59 as last week, with the faster long run and 2 days of easy speed. So I was BAD. We all know that come race time, 250 miles last month is better than 125...but does a 70 mile week mean more than a 67 mile week? Hardly.

More miles give me confidence, but so do faster miles and feeling healthy and light, and having nice shoes and a cool racing outfit and some cool gels and a bunch of friends watching and of course, good, cool weather.

This means monthly is good; it's a cumulative GPA, not this quarter's...