Is 100,000 lifetime miles a big deal?

Dopplebock wrote:

Drill - You hit it on the head.

A significant number of high school and college runners run because they are good at it. Many stop running soon after college, because they are not good enough to make $$. Most people who get to 100,000 run for the love of running not because they are world class athletes.

You have to run a lot of 90+ mile weeks to average 70 MPW.

no one runs 100,000 miles for the love of running. it's called an addiction or a compulsion.

To me, a big deal would feel like an accomplishment. I'm well over 100,000. It was just a by product of running everyday. It's not like it's something I worked for like getting two hours off of my first marathon time did. I can see where someone might feel like it is. I think we all get to decide what our accomplishments are.

HRE wrote:

I think we all get to decide what our accomplishments are.

Snowflake, Should we give everyone a medal too?

Ohio is my real home wrote:

It doesn't seem that impressive to me. My HS coach had 100,000 miles before he was 40. My wife is 52 and has 100,000 miles.

I'll bet that nearly every runner over 65 years old has 100,000.

I will cross over 80,000 this week, I started running in April of 1979 at the end of my 8th grade year. My dad gave me a running log the day I started running and I've written down every run in a run log since then.

I don't race anymore, so hitting 100,000 miles is kind of my last goal to reach. It'll take me a good 15 years + to get there though as I rarely go over 1500 miles a year anymore. I do enjoy running and nearly all of my friends are runners, so I go slow and avoid injuries so I can keep running along, no matter how slow it may be.

I think as you get older your goals change, you care less about trying to win races, or placing high in your age group at races, and just focus on being healthy and being able to keep running.

I get asked all the time what I am training for, my response is "I'm training for retirement" and it's true, I don't want to be one of these people who retire without being able to do whatever I want because of poor health.

Some people think it's impressive, others don't, doesn't really matter to me what people think. I know when I cross that barrier I will feel a sense of relief and accomplishment.

Dril wrote:

HRE wrote:

I think we all get to decide what our accomplishments are.

Snowflake, Should we give everyone a medal too?

Everyone but you.

It's a big deal to me -- I'm at 99,700, after almost 49 years of running.

I can count on one hand the number of voluntary days off I've had since 1970, but I've gone through a lot of injuries and other challenges to get this far. I was never a 5,000 mile/year kind of runner (3400 was my highest calendar year) but I've been pretty consistent over the years. At some point just getting out every day becomes the accomplishment.

I'm pretty damn determined to get to the 100k. 50 years would be nice too.

Nice topic! I'm sure I'm there. Started running at 15, now 59. We had the 750 club for the summers prior to cross country. I did that twice. I ran eight consecutive 100+ weeks prior to the 79 Boston Marathon. 4,500 miles in 1980. Four different 2-month breaks for injuries, minor surgeries. 24 marathons and 300+ races. Since 2014, just running 20-miles a week, stopped beating myself up, and loving it. Went over a 1000 for the year a few weeks ago. I need to pull the old running logs out of a few boxes from a move years ago and add them all up.

I've got hard copy documentation of every mile I

have run since 1972 when I was a sophomore in college. I now am near 150,000 miles and that doesn't include my high school years or my first 1.5 years of college.

I'm 48 and haven't hit 100,000 miles, but I'm pretty close, probably around 90,000. I have a lot of documented years, but also some undocumented years. I won't be able to say when I hit that number, which shows that I don't care about it that much. I never thought about it before coming across this topic on this message board some years ago.

For me, I just like running, as well as other physical activities (nordic skiing, mountain bike, climbing, etc.) where I'm outside enjoying the outside world of trails, mountains, woods, etc. I rarely do boring runs that are primarily roads, so it's something that I look forward to daily, not a chore. In junior high, I got into cycling and was riding 1-1.5 hours a day before I started running the summer before 11th grade. I was used to that amount of activity timewise, so I ran 9 miles a day/63 mpw immediately as a new runner. In college, I had a year on the cycling team, where we'd ride 2-2.5 hours daily, then I switched back to running, where I kept up about the same amount of activity timewise, with up to 145 mpw, and a high year of about 5000 miles.

Since college, I've had an activity time of about 1.5-2 hours a day on average (not counting even more time doing dog walks). The only reason I haven't hit 100,000 miles a long time ago is that I love being outside so much I moved to Alaska. I ended up switching entirely to nordic skiing for many winters, which cut my typical around 4K miles per year when I lived in CA down to 1.8-3.2K miles a year depending on the length of the ski season. Also, some of the summer running is up and down mountains, so a 2 hour run might be only be 7 miles (but several thousand feet of climbing).

I've been fortunate with my health. I had 2 years of chronic fatigue/overtraining syndrome in my early 20s, but still managed 1600+ miles the lowest year, jogging it out. I was injury free my first 22 years of running. This current year is the first where I've had forced running downtime due to injury (Achilles, but it's finally healing up), but will still be at around 1700+ miles (+2200 miles of skiing, cycling, walking).

If you count lifetime all self powered mileage (nordic skiiing, cycling, walking), I was probably well over 100,000 miles before I was 40.

1955 wrote:[/b

I can count on one hand the number of voluntary days off I've had since 1970, but I've gone through a lot of injuries and other challenges to get this far. I was never a 5,000 mile/year kind of runner (3400 was my highest calendar year) but I've been pretty consistent over the years. At some point just getting out every day becomes the accomplishment.

I'm pretty damn determined to get to the 100k. 50 years would be nice too.

I'm similar to you. I've rarely chosen to take time off, but have had dozens of forced layoffs. I'm always shocked that there are people who have strung together 5000 mile years. How blessed to have a body that can sustain that workload! My highest year was 3650 in 2002. My lowest was 455 in 2011 (herniated disc).

I've been keeping a log since I started running at age fifteen, 31 years ago. My ballpark guess of lifetime mileage was 71,000 but I just went and added up my logs for the first time in 15 or so years and I was off. My current total is 64,700 miles.

I have been running for all of those past 31 years, but have been injured many, many times. I've had 33 serious running injuries that have left me unable to run for weeks and sometimes months at a time. My mileage would be much higher if not for that. But I keep plugging away. 2014-2016 was a sort of renaissance for me, being able to train again like I wanted (raced 15:58 for certified 5k at age 44) but 2017 has been rife with injuries (hernia, flexor tendinitis, glute strain, near-fractured patella) :(

I would love to get to 100,000 miles. It will be 20 years I'm sure. Hopefully my body holds out till then.

The problem with doubters is that they are projecting - their injuries, their inability to focus, their commitment issues. Yep, I will pass 100k miles in less than 2 years, if I stay healthy. Out of 25 years of running, I was lower than 3500miles only the first year (barely), and had more than 8 years higher than 5000 miles. Yep, I have been injured my share, however, it took only twice longer than a week or so to heal (I had one 3 month break and one lingering injury that took almost 5 months, but I was still able to run for most of the rime, although not consistently).

BTW, 11 miles a day, even at slightly out of shape state, does not take me longer than 80 minutes. It does not take anything from my career or family time. Just wake up early, well before everyone else, or add a lunch run. 80minutes. for freaking sake... how much time you waste every day?

78,579 as of yesterday.

I've kept logs since I started in 1974 and age 57 it would be a challenge to get to 100,000.

Btw a at-glance weekly appointment book was about 3 dollars then and I paid 26 dollars for one yesterday at staples....

Proud to have national class pr's and still have the desire to go out and do track workouts and run the trails.

My hat is off to those who can get to 100,000

HRE wrote:

Dril wrote:

Snowflake, Should we give everyone a medal too?

Everyone but you.

If you're barely moving when running you'd have to argue that it's probably not actually doing you much good and hasn't been for some time.

Been keeping track since October 28,1970...not of mileage but of training. As HRE wisely noted early on in this thread, one does not set out to run 100,000 miles. Instead, it is a byproduct of a lifetime in the sport.

I have trained nearly every single day for close to 48 years ( am almost 62) and have logged 108, 493 miles. I still train to compete in spite of how dramatically I've slowed down (can no longer run 1 single mile at my 2:25 marathon PR pace).

If you think hitting 100K is easy, you are wrong...but achieving it isn't a big deal. PRs and wins and lifetime fitness, now THAT'S a big deal.

Long may you run.