My 90-mile week in running. In pursuit of excellence and in defiance of goal setting.

My love of running has led me to pursue excellence in this sport. Of course, I will never reach the level of professional athletes. I’m too old. Well, I’m not old but I will always be an amateur runner.

Actually, my age is my strength too. I started running a lot, less than three years ago, at the age of forty. If I stay healthy, I can continue to improve and will eventually be competing against a smaller field of middle age runners. In my age group, I can stand out. There will always be runners of extraordinary ability, but I can be very good.

This week was a remarkable milestone in my running journey. I ran 91 miles and that was with a rest day — I didn’t run on Monday.

In the last four weeks, I averaged 84.5 miles a week.

Ninety miles means that I ran — almost — a half marathon every day.

My training had different types of runs — easy runs, hard intervals, a tempo run, and a long run of twenty-plus miles. This afternoon I ran twenty-four miles.