A PR streak

Throughout my running career so far, every race I've run has resulted in a PR for me at that race's distance, with 2 caveats and 2 exceptions.

Caveats: (1) I don't count my two DNFs, both in the 100-mile distance -- how would you count those, anyway? (2) Farmdale is NOT a 50K -- no way!  I ran a solid race that day and finished 3rd just 22 seconds behind 2nd place Matt Condron.  The course is not that hard, but my time was barely better than my personal WORST at the 50K distance (which was at my first ultra, Another Dam 50K in Ohio, 2008).

Exceptions: (1) Boston, 2009.  I ran this just 9 days after running the McNaughton 50-miler (finishing 3rd -- guess who finished 2nd).  I finished Boston in 3:11:48, slower than my PR of 3:06:26 (at Big Sur, a harder course than Boston). (2) In 2007 I ran two half-marathons, both as afterthoughts.  I ran Madison in May to train for my first marathon and finished in 1:28:53.  In the fall I planned to run my second marathon in Indianapolis, but I developed knee problems (which spurred me into my minimalist shoe migration, incidentally) during training.  Poorly trained and injured, I ran the half-marathon and finished in 1:31:47. 

My streak goes all the way back to my first 5K in 2004 and includes every distance I've completed with the exceptions above.  It also includes Clinton Lake whether you count it as a 50K or not (it's a mile shorter but harder than many 50Ks).  So I guess my goal at Ice Age this May is to beat my PR of 8:50:10 in the 50-mile distance, a PR that I set last year in the same race.