I’ve been successfully upping my mileage over the past few weeks.

After running my marathon in September, my mileage went from near 200 miles a month down to about 40.  Mixed in there were various injuries, specifically my hip.  So I would take time off and then try running again, get hurt, take time off and then try running again (you get the picture).

Finally I settled on a 3 mile route in my neighborhood.  I ran that route and only that route for a month or so.  It was getting really frustrating to be doing so little, but my theory and experience was that I needed to rebuild a base and allow my body to adjust to running again.  Here was a guy who just ran 26.2 miles and was having trouble with 3 miles.

Anyway, I finally added about .8 miles to my run by running a little different route.  This became my route for another few weeks (with a couple long runs built in).  So 3.8 miles became my base.

A couple weeks ago I added another half mile to my route.  That got me up to 4.3 miles a day.  Then this week I added another half mile.  So now I am close to 5 miles a day.  So now I am up to an amount of miles that I feel is acceptable for a while.

Generally I try to not add more than 10% to my mileage a week.  This will vary if I run a long run with TJ, but I am trying to keep my daily milage to a figure that isn’t more than a 10% increase.

The past two days of 4.8 miles have been good runs.  Monday was awesome.  I went slow and felt I could have run another 5 miles if I wanted to.  Yesterday went well.  I went a little faster, but it was coooold outside (for Bama).  It was 34 degrees with a 10 mph wind.  Fortunately I bought a face/neck wrap at Dicks Sporting Goods on Sunday and broke it out.  I was warm/really warm for most of my run and all I had on was a light jacket and shorts (along with the wrap).

Here is a picture I took after my 5 miler yesterday.  My Lovely Wife is enjoying Korean dramas at the moment and so this picture I call my “City Hunter” look!

City Hunter