However, there is one thing that I do feel is pretty remarkable considering my lack of effort in February. Last night, on the last day of February, I went over the 100 mile mark (101.5 to be exact) for the number of miles I’ve run in 2010.

Back at the start of 2010, LauraC and Erin, challenged each other to a road race to see who could be the first to run 500 miles in 2010. They invited people to join in the challenge and created a blog that lists all the participants’ stats (as well as posts about the participants, recipes, and workout tips). I thought a lot about joining the challenge, but I was just too scared to put myself out there. I was worried that I’d be blown away by participants who are serious runners, and that I’d end up looking foolish. However, I did decide to keep track of the miles that I put in on the treadmill and elliptical machine and made it a personal goal to reach 500 miles before the end of 2010.

Prior to January 1st, I was running roughly .5 miles before every strength training workout and about 2.5-3 miles on the days that I did only cardio workouts, which came to about 7 miles each week. I calculated that would need to run 10.4 miles every week in order to reach 500 miles by the end of the year. But I’ve actually been running an average of 12 miles per weeks (some weeks less, some weeks more), which has put me well on track to reaching my goal. In fact, if I continue to run the way I have been, I should hit 500 miles by late October or early November.

I know that there’s always a chance that I’ll have a bad week or a bad month, as far as the running goes. But I already know that having this goal of running 500 miles is motivating me to get myself to the gym when I’m tired, and really, really don’t want to go. While it’s true that I skipped several workouts in February, I know I would have skipped even more if it weren’t for this goal. Because I think about that 10.4 that I want to hit each week, and I know that if I don’t go one night, I’m just going to have to put in more miles the next night.

So thank you, thank you to LauraC and Erin for inspiring me to run. I know that you’ll both (along with many others) beat me to that 500 mile finish line, but as long as I finish sometime this year, I’ll be quite pleased with myself.