My own thoughts about having to keep moving the goal post

I've been thinking about the extremes that we go through in running.

I'm was having a conversation with some friends trying to figure out "what is really crazy, what is too much?" and couldn't really arrive at an answer. We were thinking of the scale being 1 to 10 with a marathon at 5 and 100 miler at 10.  Of course we are all training for a marathon at the time so our scale is going to be normed on our own experience.

We all have our limits where we either get bored with something, uninterested, just plan not having fun anymore, etc.  Even Forrest Gump decided to just quit running one day.  He went on supposedly a run across the country (maybe even a few times back and forth) and then one day, that was it.  He just was done.

I've been reading a few books about those who did some extreme trail hikes (PCT, AT) and when they reached the point of quitting.  Some never do, and they complete it in whole.  Others stop a few times, take some days here and there, leave the trail, pick it back up a little ways up (or maybe a few states up).  Granted, they all stopped to camp and they are mostly hiking.  I know people who have run 50, 100 miles in one race.  They really want to do it and do a great job.  They keep their spirit up somehow and don't want to quit.  It is for them, and they know they feel like this is where they belong. 

There are also 12 and 24 hour races.  Not just a few, but a lot of them.  Triathlons, Half Ironmans, Ironmans.  Doing 7 triathlons on 7 different Hawaiian islands on 7 consecutive days (just read a book about the attempt). There are so many options of what you can do if you want to do that.

Once you reach a monumental goal like that, what is next? If you run 50 or 100 miles, do you need to keep topping your next thing?  Where does it end for each runner? 

I have come to the conclusion that this is a personal thing . Some people are done with a 5k.  Or a 10k or half marathon or marathon or 50k... or one of the longer ones (50 miles, 100 miles). 

What if you don't know what your limit is?

I've also been reading accounts of how repeatedly running a lot of miles in a week isn't actually good for you.  There's been talk of a reasonable upper limit being 20-25 miles a week.  After that, the benefit declines and you can be doing more harm.  Really the same with any extreme cardio.

So what do you decide in the end?  Everyone is going to be different in what they decide.

The more important thing is feeling good about what you've decided and try to not keep one-upping yourself.  Try to not compare to others who maybe have a more or less ambitious goal and just accept that we are all different in what we think we should achieve or want to achieve.

That's probably the hardest thing of all.  Seeing other people doing it and saying, "That's ok, I'm going to pass on that distance.  I think I've reached my limit and I'm going to focus on shorter distances (for me, my norms)."