A few years ago when I did the 2015 miles in 2015 challenge, I blogged every month about where I was in the process. You may remember those posts, an assortment of collected thoughts which ranged from an exhilarated “I’m doing this thing!” warrior cry to a worn out “Why am I still doing this thing?!” tirade, with every other emotion in between. There was a lot of talk about feet, about weather, about doing the math in my head, and about making running into a habit. A much loathed habit at times but a habit all the same. Along the way, the posts got to be a little repetitive, so I decided on this go around to do it differently. I’m not going to update you every month… just every three months. Or, better yet, every five hundred miles.

Which is what brings me to THIS post. Yes, I hit five hundred miles last week. Wes and I have committed to run every last one of these miles, and let me tell you, that’s no easy feat on the feet. (Ha. So punny.) Honestly, the toughest part of this whole thing has been my pride, which at times has struggled with the fact that Wes consistently outruns my mileage at a much faster pace than I do. I’ve responded to this with the very uncharitable observation that “well, you’re three years younger than me and a man, so you definitely should be outrunning me!” So sweet and kind. That kind of thinking was bound to lead to disaster, and it did after the New Orleans marathon last month when Wes took a rest day the next day (which was wise) and I saw my chance to get ahead of him on mileage and ran as fast as I could for an hour on the treadmill at our hotel. That was an unpleasant farewell to more toenails (ugh), and I spent the next few days hobbling around, convinced that I had legitimately broken some bones in my feet. Wes actually sympathized with me and helped me as I lamented my pain like a wizened old crone. Why did he do that? Because he’s so much better than I deserve.

All that said, I’m no longer going to begrudge him a few miles. Which is good because he’s got an ultramarathon this month while I’m only running a half marathon, so he’s so far ahead of me with training miles that I’ll never catch up. Que sera, sera. I’m looking forward to that half marathon and anticipate that it will kick my butt since I haven’t run any hills at all this year. (The race is in Kentucky. Hilly, right?) I’ve run almost all of my miles this year at the gym because I can prop my Kindle up on the treadmill and read as I’m going, which is so totally the way to do it. Some days I wake up actually eager to go and run because — you guessed it — that’s the only uninterrupted reading time I can get. What did we do before Kindles, y’all? We didn’t even know what we were missing!

My next goal is to hit 1000 miles by the end of June. I’m averaging 6.2 miles a day so that I can take one rest day a week and still stay on schedule. Without another full marathon on the schedule (not until next January, at least), I think I can keep myself from getting injured again which should help me keep that pace for the next few months.

Here’s hoping!