no more streaking
The running streak ended yesterday.
On July 1, I had a crazy thought, with MMD (my big mountain run I do every August) about 6 weeks away, I thought it would be a fun challenge to try and run at least 2000 meters (1.25 miles) every day for the month of July. When August 1 rolled around, I had momentum and decided to keep going until MMD, only 10 more days, making it a nice and even 40 day streak.
MMD was my first run in the 20-something miles since MMD the year before, and I was pretty sore come Monday, but still motivated to keep the streak going. When I got home Monday afternoon I put Nolan in the stroller and headed out for a walk and eventually an easy jog.
As these things typically go, my legs started to feel better the more I moved.
On Tuesday I couldn’t think but help if a client came to me in this situation, sore and beat up from a hard effort but wanting to continue a pointless streak, what would I tell them?
I landed on it’s not going to be productive. It won’t help my training in anyway to get out for a 12-minute run. The rest will do me better, or just a walk or maybe a walk and a nap.
It felt freeing to stop it. Disappointing in someways, because I was curious as to how far I could continue. And it’s motivating seeing people on Instagram and YouTube on a running streak into the 1000s of days. At the same time I’m looking forward to doing something different for training today, and later in the week, once my legs feel better, getting back to running a lot.
Last year after MMD I hated running. I full stopped for about 9 months and was even considering never starting back up again. I just wasn’t enjoying it like I used to. This summer, and the past 40 something days taught me to enjoy it again. It was a productive experiment, despite the last couple days.
I built my volume steadily for 6-weeks in a row. Something I’ve never done this consistently. I logged nearly 40-miles in a week, which is also the most miles I’ve got in a week, and only done it a couple other times. I accumulated 138 miles in July, the second most I’ve ever done in a month! Which is kind of hard to believe, actually. But the data doesn’t lie.
Needless to say, I’m proud of the experiment and it taught me I can handle more volume than I thought.
I’m going to let the legs recover for a couple more days and then I’m looking to getting back to more consistent running and trying to build up my volume, for no reason other than the fun of the experiment.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain