How Would You Describe Your Running 10 Years Ago?

Have you ever stopped to look back on your running career? How have you changed over the past decade?

The first time that I was asked this question was about a decade after I graduated from high school. I was on the cusp of a level of training that I had never even considered or dreamed of. I was training through the Summer months between high school graduation and my freshman year in college, and I had no direction and no idea what to expect when I got there.

My main concern was how to get my mileage up. In high school, I doubt that I ever ran more than 35 miles per week, and I have no doubt that I usually ran much less than that. I had not yet become obsessive compulsive about tracking my training at that point.

I knew that 35 miles per week just was not going to cut it, so my goal was to raise my mileage up to around 60 to 65 miles per week. By late July or mid-August, I was consistently getting that level of training in, as well as working full time in Sales Promotions for Merrill Lynch and getting over to the bowling alley for a few rounds after work most days.

Once I got to college, I only ran 85 miles the first week because I missed a few workouts due to freshman obligations. I spent the next few years running between 85-95 miles most weeks, topping out a couple of times at just over 120 miles and not infrequently running 100-105 miles, especially early in each season.

That high mileage built a great base for me, but my college coach had a completely different style of coaching than I was used to from my high school coach.  His workouts produced great short term results and then resulted in injury after injury.

Half a decade after graduating from college, I was running much lower mileage but still ran at a pretty quick pace for all of my runs, whether I should have been or not. I was regularly competing in a couple of marathons per year, was making my way to Boston, and was on the verge of discovering the ultra-running scene.

Another half of a decade later and I had gotten my body back to doing high mileage weeks, was running mostly on trails, and had started competing in races as long as 50k or 50 miles on a pretty regular basis.

Think back on your own running history. What changes have you made to your training, and how have those changes reflected in not just your running but in the rest of your life?