I quit tracking my mileage because its a number i dont want to stress over

No way could I do this and I think it creates a big opportunity for over or undertraining, but at the same time it seems like a pretty healthy approach for the right type of person.

I feel like it depends on what caliber athlete you are and how much you really care. If you're just running for fun and aren't too worried on improvement or hardcore training then I don't see a problem with it.

But if you're trying to break records and have running as a major part of your life, I feel like tracking mileage is important.

If you train by minutes instead of miles and make sure to consistently train a similar intensity and number of hours per week to your best training cycles, this is probably fine.

Welcome to my 90 minute runs as an old guy who just wants to feel good. No one can rightfully tell me I went less than 10 miles. If I did go less I got the equivalent workout. More than likely, I exceed 10 miles but I am not counting so who cares.

How so?

I never counted my mileage because I figured I would just add junk mileage to hit a number. My unscientific background suggested that the extra calories burned wouldn't help more than the extra rest. Then I got a Garmin and one year I counted miles. I did run more to hit a weekly number but my race times were no better. So I stopped counting and saved the time I spent on junk miles.

Cool story bro

I think the older you get, the more a runner should stress time.

As an older runner, I began to see that I was spending way too much time training to keep my head above water, mileage wise.

I am re-considering this but old habits are hard to break.

I also recently became obsessed with calories burned…. It just happened. All these watches measure that too. That’s my next obsessive disorder to break… I’ve walked around my room real fast if the calories burned running was 744 and I need 750 ha

There's no such thing as junk mileage.

Every mile (especially the slow ones) are improving mitochondrial density and function, as well as a whole host of other running-specific adaptations.

I have a tendency to be a perfectionist /ocd and strava sometimes intensifies that. I think when you've been running consistently for years you don't have to be so rigid in your training.

yeah any quick math people who know wtf exactly op was claiming to get back that much? thats nuts. and i assume they wouldn't totally zero out all of his mileage deductions? because obviously if you made like 20k+ a year on doordash your mileage isn't zero.

That's okay. You don't have to get better. By all means you definitely can eat sh!t and lay on the couch.

Yeah, I've taken this approach for the last decade or so (I'm late 40s). I time all my runs and intervals, but don't record them anywhere, and just keep a rough mental ledger of how much I'm running.

I think it has worked pretty well for me, at least from the perspective of maximizing enjoyment, maintaining motivation over the long term, and performing at a reasonable level. Could I be running a little faster if I went back to careful tracking? Maybe. Or maybe I'd be injured or burned out. I have an obsessive enough personality that I can't start tracking mileage and workout splits and so on without turning them into goals for their own sake - which ends up illustrating Goodhart's Law ("When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.").

I quit formally counting miles after I figured my pr's were set in stone years ago. I was only competitive socially, w my friends and clubmates anyway. I was more of a "hippyjogger" and was in it to commune with my inner dork and nature. Liked certain courses at certain times and rarely traipsed around a track. But in coaching I used pretty much traditional times and distances. Said stuff like "running is much too important to take seriously," and stressed running as a way of life, not combat.
However, after so many years and miles you just know--close enough--about how many miles youre running and have that little secret tape going. Close enough for jazz.

If you're not too serious it's fine. Otherwise to properly run a periodized program you'll need to know pretty close to the actual miles.

Consider tracking your minutes rather than your miles if you want a real stress reliever. A 10-mile run will take progressively longer as you get older, but an hour-long run is always a long run no matter how old you get.

Lol!exactly!

If you have goals, you should measure....time, speed, distance, effort...one or all. No goals....run free like a fox.

100% - I hear ya, brother!!!