Shifting back to miles per run

Happy September, my shirt even had a post-run smiley face

Labor Day greetings. I'm glad to report that I logged 80 running miles in August. It was actually 80.46 but who's counting? And don't get me started with Garmin GPS variance that generally under-counts run distance by 2.4%. So I ran 80.46 but I may have run 83.4. My August goal was 75 miles so any way you slice it, I'm happy. SIOR, who is not delusional even though she considers her upcoming trek to Everest base camp an easy hike, thinks I should go for 100 miles in September. I think I'm going to repeat the 75 mile goal for September and see what happens.

Now that I'm averaging 18+ miles a week, I'm ready to shift focus to running distances. My 80 miles in August and 71 in July were built around a lot of runs. With very few exceptions, I've run six days a week since mid June. I ran 27 days last month to get to 80 miles and I'm wondering if it would be more beneficial to aim for 75 miles a month, running 5 days a week. That would give me the flexibility to add another rest day to recover from long runs that aren't happening right now.

Back when I was commuting by train, I would usually run 2.5 miles at 4 AM from Tuesday through Friday and do 8-10 miles over the weekend. When I switched to commuting by car, my run schedule got disrupted and my weekly mileage and run frequency plummeted. Now that I'm commute-free, I have more options.

One thought is to do three days running with one day resting. It works out to six runs a week, but I'd never be more than three days from a rest day. My current schedule has me running five days straight for every rest day.  I could also go back to short runs (less than 3 miles) 66% of the time and longer runs (4 or more miles) 33% of the time. I could do that running either 5 or 6 times a week.

Since September has already begun and I've already logged 3.4 miles today, I think I'll aim for at least one run a week over 3.5 miles and edge up that target as I go. It's been a long time since I'd consider it no big deal to run six or seven miles on a weekend day. Right now, I just want to get back to doing four.or more.