Running …

… because I can … because it's fun … because it's healthy … just BECAUSE.

Tag Archives: streaks

Streaking. Not streaking. Streaking.

The last time I did a running streak, I ended it feeling really out of it. It was the second time I’ve attempted some sort of streak and it just left me unsatisfied after hindsight set in.

Fast forward a couple of years and I found myself intrigued once again by the Runner’s World challenge to run at least a mile every day from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day.

I didn’t think about it too much — I decided a couple of days before it started to go ahead and do it. Nothing else has been normal about this year, so I figured this could be a good way to end the year and enter 2014.

After kicking things off with a race in Ohio, then easing my way through the first week and then doing the Surf ‘n’ Santa 10 Miler, I was really looking forward to getting through the month with a mile or two here and there, and a handful of 3-4 mile runs. Nothing big. Nothing crazy. Enjoying running to run.

The day after Surf ‘n’ Santa, my throat hurt a bit, but I squeezed in a mile between periods of rain and sleet. That afternoon I had a low-grade fever. Nothing much to really worry about though.

Monday morning, my hands hurt. I could see small red spots showing up. I thought about running a mile just to keep the streak alive, but by that afternoon my feet had the same feeling as my hands.

On a pain scale of 1-10, I’d say it was only a 2. It felt like my foot was asleep after sitting for a long time, only it wasn’t going away. The red spots only intensified.

I self-diagnosed myself with hand, foot and mouth disease — mostly a children’s illness, but it was something I didn’t have when I was younger.

On Tuesday I finally opted to go to the doctor just to make sure that was it. Sure enough, that’s what it was. Tuesday night and early Wednesday were the worst. Then as quickly as it hit, it started to go away.

I opted to let things heal before running again. The run streak became a runless streak of 6 days, nearly ending a streak I re-started last year after being sidelined from the flu of running at least a mile a week.

I took Monday off and today I agreed with myself to get the streak going again. It’ll only be 2 weeks, but I don’t want the “disease” to be a defining moment for me.

As I look ahead to these two weeks, I also want to end the final full week of the year recapturing one of my biggest highlights of the year — running 26.2 miles for the week.

You can see my post from earlier this year of why I did it. It meant so much to me for a variety of reasons that I want to do it again …

Moved.

moving, Richmond

It’s been one hell of a week with getting out of my apartment and seeing boxes of stuff from there, storage here in Richmond and from my mom’s house in Bedford come together.

I feel overwhelmed by these strange things that I have kept my whole life, and by what my wife and I taken from place to place.

Enough is enough.

I’ve given myself a deadline for several things with this move and with running: July 1. It’s the new Jan. 1.

  • No boxes in my house that I have to go through. Some boxes – just a small handful – may have to go to the attic to be unseen, but my wife and I are making tremendous progress de-cluttering our lives. I have to go through these things so they don’t just continue to collect dust.
  • Pick a paint color for the baby’s room, or at least have it narrowed down. The project to finishing his room also will have a deadline soon.
  • Refocus on my diet. Moving in the past week has led to some really bad choices to eat quickly. The reset process has started this week; the major focus comes in a couple of weeks. I have to at least celebrate my birthday next week before I eliminate some things, right?
  • Develop a training plan to get to the 5k PR mark. I’m signed up for a 5k on July 4 in Ohio (that I know is a 5k since I’ve done it before), but I know that I’m not in PR shape. That race will really be the benchmark to see where I stand.
  • Read blogs again. I miss my virtual running friends, but as a way to stay focused on other things, I had to make a cut to blog reading temporarily.

As for some other things going on, my 35 “streak” was going great until the move. It wasn’t that I didn’t think about it, but I was so exhausted at the end of every day Friday through Sunday that nothing else got done.

It was a nice challenge for a little while, but it wasn’t such a great goal with what I had going on. That doesn’t mean I won’t stop doing some things related to that number this month though.

I also slipped in an extra soft drink this weekend, which once again dampens my “13 goals” for the year. Just as I did in April, though, I think I can get through July before I have another one. I simply wanted an extra caffeine boost on Sunday to keep opening boxes.

Ending a streak

After last year’s Runner’s World Holiday Streak, I was done with wanting to ever attempt streaking again. It just seemed unnecessary once it was all over.

Don’t take that as a knock to streaking though — those who do it safely have a great thing going.

While running every day for a set length of time isn’t something I’ll intentionally do for a while, I have had a streak going on for quite some time that I’ve never mentioned — running at least a mile a week from Monday-Sunday.

Even when I was injured at the end of 2010, I still got in at least a mile in that traditional week. I believe a couple of times at the end of the year, I still managed to take at least a week off (you know, like running on a Wednesday, then not running again for 8 days). It was an effective way to recover, but still keep that streak alive.

The last time I remember recording a 0 for a week was near the end of 2007 when I had some pretty major chest congestion. I wrote about the big zero only briefly and I’ve never talked about not running at all for a week since then.

That changes today as this 5-year streak of running at least 1 mile comes to an end. The flu wins.

There’s no way, though, that I’ll dwell on this or be sad or cry “woe is me.” I could have run a mile or 2 today, but I opted for a little more rest. I’d say I’m 85% recovered and I want to be at a point in my recovery that I know a run won’t set me back.

Sounds like a great Christmas gift to give to myself …