Saturday, March 31, 2012

Miles 487.3 to 495.3

Total Miles: 495.3
Miles Today: 8.0
Map waypoints: H to I
Seven mile streak: 8 days

Google Map

Picture of the day




Cal Ripken

I admire Cal a lot. He played 2,632 consecutive games over 21 years with the Baltimore Orioles. Other than that, I really don't know much about him as a baseball player. I'm sure he was good or the managers wouldn't have kept him in the lineup.

The reason I looked up the number of games is I thought of trying to do seven miles a day for the same number of days as consecutive games he played. That would be a little over 7 years or 18,424 miles.

Mark Covert of Lancaster, Calif., who started July 23, 1968, has a 44 year streak of running at least 1 mile a day.

I'm not likely to challenge either of these streaks. But I do think it's important to set aside some time each day to do things I enjoy. Life would want me to work all the time doing what other people consider important. But I don't think it's selfish to do set aside some time each day to do things I enjoy.

My style doesn't include exercising with injuries. Still...the idea of a streak is alluring. I've been doing 7 miles a day, but that is probably too much to attempt for a streak...or is it? Maybe a streak of averaging 7 miles a day would be more doable. Before committing to it, I'll have to be ready. It would have to be just for myself.

I added the 7 mile streak to the summary at the top. It's going to be hard to maintain when we go shorter distances on a backpacking trip. So, I'm giving myself permission to break it and start over as many times as necessary until I'm in good enough shape to keep going.

Sore heels

Yesterday, I felt really good and averaged 4.1 mph for 7 miles. Now the bottoms of my heels are a little sore. I'll have to remember not to push harder when I'm feeling good as it can affect the next days too much. I'm not a big believer in the "No pain, no gain" philosophy. Sure it works if a person wants to achieve physical gains quickly. But it often ends up in loss of motivation or injury. The exception may be if the pain is the person's goal. Nothing wrong with that. A hard workout does feel satisfying.

Personally, I like to do about 80% of what I know I'm capable of and keep repeating this. Some say you can't expand your limits unless you press them. I've found the 80% increases over time without getting into bad fatigue, loss of motivation or injuries which can result in reducing distance for a long time.

In my opinion, 80% one hundred percent of the time is better than 100% eighty percent of the time.

Greenhorn Mountain Trail

Krister and I walked about 2.5 miles up the Greenhorn Mountain trail. The trail was mostly clear, but there was some snow in places. There is a nice campsite off to the north of the trail 1.7 miles from the trailhead. It would be a good place to go on Friday night if we leave after work.

The uphill sections did not seem as steep as they did last year. The scary parts did not seem as scary.

See you down the trail,

Gershon

End of day


TransAmerica Trail Virtual Hike



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