Monthly review for January

I didn't do a monthly review for November since the Philly Marathon was the big event for that month and I didn't want to do one in December since I was scaling back to rest and get ready for the new year of running. I did sign up for my first Ultra (the Strolling Jim 40 miler) and that kicked me back into gear.

My previous 30 day average on Jan 1 was 105 miles and my 30 day average on the 31st was 198 miles. I did for the first time ever go over 200 miles in 30 days (the 29th and 30th). Generally it's not recommended to increase that quickly but I was still fit from training for the marathon. I've posted my total graph (below) since really getting back into distance running. For the last 2 years or so I had just been running about 15-25 miles a week (if at all).

One thing I've learned is I finally do lose weight running when I hit about 180-200 miles per month. I may have doubled my mileage but I've more than doubled my hunger. I try to feed that hunger but I'm still losing weight.

February preview: I will be doing my first ever training runs this month that are over 20 miles by design. If all goes as planned, my longest runs this month will be 22 and 24 miles. My moving 30 day average should hit a high of 211 but I'll finish the month around 200. So this month is not really about adding miles in general as much as it is about doing really long runs (over 20). I'm building towards doing two 30 mile training runs before the 40 mile Strolling Jim.