1000 Miles What?!?

I just read part of a blog by a journalist with the Kansas City Star about running.  She chronicled her goal  to run 1000 miles in the course of 1 year.  It held my attention enough so that I read about half of it.  My initial thought was, what's the big deal?  I've run at least 1000 miles every year for the last 40 plus years and really for a runner that's not saying much.

It got me to wondering if she asked her co-worker Yael Abouhalkah for any training advice.  Yael was a very good high school distance runner at Shawnee Mission West long before becoming one of the leading political columnists for the Star.  Yael started running again in earnest a few years back and even snagged a qualifier for this year's Boston Marathon .  He'd kick my ass in a 5K right now.

Despite my initial skepticism about making a big deal over her 1000 miles I realized that it really was a very good thing.  Good for her.  She was 30 years old and wanted to do something that would help keep her healthy and to shoot for a goal which included running the marathon.  While she didn't reveal the time she ran in last fall's Kansas City Marathon I did some detective work and found that she ran 4:45.  That's not bad, but consider this, she ran 30 minutes slower than the Czarina did in her first marathon at age 48 on a similarly difficult course.  But hey, any marathon under 5 hours is a good thing. 

In the end the fearless blogger made her 1000 mile mark on New Years Eve.  I applaud her effort.  I think for the average person the thought of running almost 3 miles every day is a little daunting.  But I think about all my running buddies who would go mental if they ran anything less than 2000 miles in a year.  That's a threshold I rarely crossed since I started running.  But that's a whole different blog.