GPS Stats and New beginnings

I ran AND survived the marathon!  I keep looking back at this morning and thinking, "I ran 26.2 miles.  That is CRAZY!"  The weather was so nice.  It was cloudy and cool and we started out the run feeling pretty good. I stopped feeling good at mile 16 and I was really hurting by mile 21.  For the last 4 or 5 miles Katie and I had to keep telling each other that we were just shooting for the next mile.  We could only take it a mile at a time toward the end of the marathon so that we didn't get completely overwhelmed!  At one point during the marathon, it hit me that running a marathon is completely ridiculous and I turned to Katie and said, "I'm running 26.2 miles.  What the HELL am I doing?" (Yes, the curse words were coming aplenty, especially toward the end). I'm proud of us for making up our minds and then seeing it all the way through!  Our family came to watch us cross the finish line and I love that our family supports us in some of these crazy running schemes that we (I) come up with!

Awhile ago, I decided that once I was done with the marathon, I would document my GPS stats and then reset my GPS unit and set a new goal.  So here they are.  In the almost (just 2 months shy) 3 years that I've had my GPS I have run a total of 1,313 miles with it (I've actually run a little bit more because I did some runs on the treadmill or without the GPS because it was dead or for whatever other reason). It took me 222 hours 40 minutes and 43 seconds to run stated mileage.  And it stopped counting my calories because I've burned too many but, I burn an average of about 115 calories per mile so that means I've burned about 150,995 calories total. Crazy.  So, my new goal?  I want continue to run about 20 miles per week.  So from April 18, 2011 to April 18, 2012 I want to have run at least 1,040 miles.  I Also want to pick up barefoot running so for the next couple of months I'm going to be working on transitioning into Vibram FiveFingers.  I tried it last summer but started into it way too fast and got injured.  So this time around, I'm going to build up so, so slowly.  I'm excited to see what this year's running will bring!