Are you in your 40s? I'm in that 40s group, and it mostly seems to consist of really good runners who have run their whole life and are good at it, and then a few people like me who are new to the sport and aren't that athletic. My goal is usually to not be in the bottom 20 percent of my age/gender group, and sometimes I accomplish that.

So yeah, don't worry about your age group at all. I prefer to compete against the field as a whole, but mostly I just compete against my own times and try to get better.

Yep....40s
And competing against anyone won't be a part of my thoughts. As weak as it may seem, If I can complete it, I'll consider it a success. I enjoy running (again, don't believe I just typed that) but I don't fancy myself a runner.
Hell, before I started this, I literally couldn't go more than a couple of miles at a sub 10 pace. I may still be looking at a time north 2 hours for 13 miles (have never timed more than six), but as sad as it would be to any real runner if I can do it under 2 1/2 hours, I honestly think I'll be OK with it.

I've only broken two hours once in roughly 30 flat halves (not counting my mountain races), and I think two hours is pretty good. I've been as high as the top 26 percent of runners with a time around two hours.

I hurt my foot a couple of months ago and have barely run at all while healing up, so I'm out of shape and overweight. I try to run one half-marathon every month, so after considerable musing I signed up for one in December just to keep the streak going. It's not going to be pretty.

Annnnnnd.....done.

Two years, 11 months, and 27 days - 1,092 days covering 4,070.3 miles, and as of today I have finished my virtual run across the United States. Some stats:

Average Daily Distance: 3.72 miles per day.
Average Weekly Distance: 26.1 miles per week (Equivalent distance of 155 marathons - one per week)

Most Miles in One Month: 175.6 in January 2010 (5.66 miles per day)
Fewest Miles in One Month: 51.1 in July 2010 (1.66 miles per day - minor knee injury and big vacation)

Most Miles in One Week: 51.4 in July 2011 (7.34 miles per day - three-day weekend over July 4th)
Fewest Miles in One Week: 0.0 in July 2010 (knee injury and I was on a boat all week). This is the only week of the run in which I logged zero miles.

Miles By Month:

January – 464.4 (I guess cold weather is my forte.)
February – 316.9
March – 378.0
April – 357.0
May – 332.2
June – 297.5
July – 316.2
August – 292.8
September – 344.7
October – 288.4
November – 312.2
December – 370.0

Total: 2,115.6 miles running, 1,954.7 miles of exercise walking (mostly to work and back).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKKmzmeU5-0

Congrats

Hit Montana this morning. 1148 miles to go.
Revised goal to try and make it by Christmas. (Will need to average just over 117 miles per month to make it by then.....barring injury I should be able to)

LOL

You have a very active mind.

I think the most impressive statistic not mentioned here is how many ideas or inspirations you may have experienced due to slowing down the pace of your life by just a few minutes a day...

Crossed the Montana border into Idaho this morning. Currently at 3,290 and have 773 miles to go. Should finish by Christmas and make it in just under three years.

Nice work. It's kind of all downhill from here.

I remember Montana taking a lot longer than I expected. It was just a corner of the state, but that state has really big corners.

By the way, I started a new run. I found another running web site that I could twist around to map a long route, and you can pick the route. So I started in Van Buren, Maine, and my goal is to visit every state. Along the way, I have to go by the state capitol building and also visit at least one famous state place.

I'm almost through Maine now, having stopped at Acadia National Park, passed by the capitol building in Augusta, and passed through Kennebunkport.

And before you say that Maine is a small state ... holy cow. It takes forever to get across that state. It's diamond shaped so it's long from north to south, and you have to do a curve around the coast to stay on roads. I've gone 477 miles so far on the map below and I'm still not out of Maine. It's a longer distance north to south than are Colorado and Missouri.

Would you be inclined to share the site?

Gonna be a hell of a trip to hit Hawaii and Alaska

Oh. I forgot that part.

It's http://gmap-pedometer.com/. It's not designed for a long-distance run, but if you do a run and save it as a route, and then edit it the next day and add your next run to it, you can make it work pretty well. It's a bummer that they don't do the street view so you can see where you're at, but you can make the map.

And yeah, I haven't quite figured out how to handle Alaska and Hawaii yet.