At the start of the year I set a goal of 50 days in a row of running. This was coming off almost two full months of no exercise at all. Last I had run was the first week of November.

I decided to sign up for a few Garmin badges, uncertain of whether I would meet them or not. One is a badge for running 50 miles each month, which I figured was more than attainable, the other was for running 505 kilometers (313.8 miles) by March 30, which I didn’t think was doable but signed up for regardless.

Towards the end of January I realized I was close to hitting 100 miles a month without much effort. I was running around 3 miles a day, with some shorter runs and longer ones here and there. With a little promoting from a friend, I decided to go for and run a couple longer tunes in the last week to hit 100 miles for the month.

Which felt awesome.

I went a little nuts in February and ran 134 miles. More than I had in any month since college. Calves were perpetually tight. I wore compression sleeves on my calves at night which helped, bought new running shoes mid month, and stretched more. And then on my birthday (Feb 19) ran a 5k at my fastest pace since college.

I decided to dial it back a bit in March, aiming for 100 miles again, but hit some other goals. Garmin had a badge for running a 15k in March, which is just over 9 miles – so I did a 10 mile run in early March. I also want to run a half marathon before the end of March.

But my favorite achievement so far is hitting that 505k badge. Having only hit 100 miles in a month once before in my adult life (October 2020), hitting three times in a row to start 2021, in the midst of turning 42, and with a toddler under 2 years old feels like a big accomplishment.

And to hit 505k by mid-March, feels really great. Suck it middle age! I still got this.