Whew…what a finish to the year, and what a whirlwind the last few days have been (more on that in a later post)! If you’ll recall, I finished up November with a 1 mile run on the treadmill, just so that I could hit 130 miles in a month for the first time. Well, November has nothing on December…

The month started off slowly, with 20 miles in week 1 and 26 miles in week 2. The low mileage was due to a couple of things—first, I was recovering from a pretty nasty cold and was resting up for a race, and second, we went to Birmingham, AL for Julie’s grandmother’s funeral. However, by the end of week 2, I’d started a running streak that would see me cover 124 miles in the final 21 days of the month—18 days of running, and 3 days of rest.

During those 18 runs, I always ran at least 6 miles, and often would run more. I wasn’t exactly sticking to my training program, except when it came to tempo and interval days—I always got those in according to the program. I haven’t gone back to see how many miles I should’ve run during that time, but it is a lot less than what I did run.

• Total Miles: 150.1
• Total Time: 23:23:12
• Average Pace: 9:21/mile

Additional Notes

Compared to November, I ran an additional 20 miles, taking just under 3 extra hours to do so. I did my first trail run, at Eagle Mountain Park. It was 6 miles of ups and downs along the shore and bluffs of Eagle Mountain Lake. I hope to run out there more often. I only ran long once, but it was for 12 miles—my 2nd ever 12 mile run. December is the 5th 100+ mile month in a row, and the 7th in the last 8 months. December was my first month over 140 miles and my first month at 150+ miles.

Here’s a closer look at how my runs broke down in December:

• Easy: 74.07 (12 runs)
• Hill: 18.01 (3 runs)*
• Tempo: 35.02 (6 runs)
• Interval: 11.01 (2 runs)
• Long Run: 12.02 (1 run)**
• Longest Run: 12.02
• Shortest Run: 4
• Best Paced Run: 8:41/mile (Tempo)

One last note: In the November recap, I mentioned that I would be running a 5K in early December. Unfortunately, I didn’t run that race, as we left for Birmingham a few hours before the race.

* One of these runs was my trail run at Eagle Mountain Park.

** This long run was unsupported, meaning nothing to eat or drink during the run.