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Run streak wrap-up

Posted in Offseason, Run Streak, The Lady, Training, WeatherTagged , , , , , 1 Comment

Punchline: I am officially hooked on the run streak.

Run ALL the days!
Run ALL the days!

Technically, the holiday run streak ends today. But The Lady and I are having so much fun with it, we’ve elected to keep it going for as long as we can.

It’s been educational. The biggest learning experience has been seeing how the body adjusts to the new regimen. Weeks 1-2 felt like a training schedule. Even though our mileage wasn’t nearly as high (long runs in particular were shorter), it had the same structured feel as a half marathon or full marathon training regimen. In that sense, it was exciting. Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, even the 1-mile runs had tangible cleansing effects.

Week 3 hit pretty hard. I felt tired and worn out. This was my body finally realizing the full impact of running every single day: rest wasn’t to be found by taking the day completely off, but rather by going forĀ shorter, easier runs. These seven days were tough to get through.

Then in week 4, it was like someone flipped a switch: suddenly everything clicked. Barely two days after a less-than-stellar attempt at a progression run, I hammered out this gem of an “easy” run.

I didn’t realize what my speed was until I’d clicked through the first three miles in barely 25 minutes.
The last mile was a bit of an uphill.
Of course, I was running through Athens, and this was the shirt I was wearing.

Exactly one week later, The Lady and I joined the nearby running store for its weekend group run…and proceeded to kick evenĀ more ass.

I blame The Lady. But it was still fun as anything.
Managed to choose a relatively flat route.

Of course I’ll still wake up with a strong desire to keep sleeping, or an unwillingness to exert myself in the cold outdoors. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I justĀ know that I’ll feel immensely better once I return, and probably even while I’m still out there. It’s been a very nice constant through all the holiday travels, too; even though it can feel a bit hectic trying to adjust one’s routines when traveling three times in three weekends, suiting up to run regardless of the weather and location serves as a nice anchor to all the chaos around it.

Out-of-towners visiting other out-of-towners always makes for a great time šŸ˜€
We had this adorable fuzzball greeting us at the start and end of our runs in Athens.
All this traveling makes us a little loopy.
Kitty loves that we go running, and is thrilled to observe from her box inside the warm apartment.
The Lady approves wholeheartedly of this weather.
50 degrees in Athens, 10 degrees (with a -6 wind chill) in Lewiston. Run regardless.

By running whatever feels good, and just having fun with it–doing my usual offseason thing of pushing myself for no reason other than to push myself–running every single day, almost without even trying, resulted in my first 100-mile monthĀ outside of any particular training regimen!

Screen Shot 2013-12-31 at 2.34.36 PM

I logged 100 miles this month with no formal training plan or prior goal to do so, beyond the simple requirement that I log at least 1 mile between each rising and setting of the sun. And it’s feltĀ good.

The run streak has been a boon to health, in more ways than one. I have no idea what 2014 holds in store for me, but I think this run streak has provided an excellent base to build upon. I’ll keep it up for as long as I can!