Parable of Wisdom

I often hear many of my fellow runners tell me that they are going to move up to 100 miles per week. Often times they are logging quite a few miles per week, but nothing more than 50-70 miles. Many of them believe that this will speed up their improvement process. More often than not I see many get injured and their running is stalled for a while. Today while perusing on the Let’s Run forums I found and interesting parable that a poster related to running patience.

Have you ever heard of the Legend of Milo - the only undefeated Gladiator in ancient Rome.
Milo was the greatest of the Roman Gladiators and retired undefeated and was treated as a semi-god in Rome. The key to Milo's success in the coliseum was his legendary strength. He was simply stronger than everyone he competed against.
Here is how Milo developed that strength. He grew up as a kid in a rural area of Italy and his family was poor. They spent most of the money they had on a baby calf so that they would have a supply of milk to drink. But the area they lived in was very rocky and with few grassy areas for grazing. The best grassy field was at the top of a near by hill. Well, Milo's job as the eldest son was to take the calf to the grassy field at the top of the hill to graze each day, but the path there was rocky and Milo worried about the calf getting hurt and his family losing its investment. So each day Milo carried the calf to the field and then back down again. Day, after day, after day. As the days and weeks went by the calf grew and so did Milo's muscles from carrying it. So after just a few years of doing this, neighbors watched in amazement as Milo carried a full cow (the calf had grown up) up and down a hill to the pasture. He was able to do this because he was consistent and did it each day and the calf only grew a matter of ounces per day.

So there you have it. Be patient and build up your mileage over the course of years and not months or weeks.