Sunday, November 4, 2012

Streaking

Given my readership, I am sure no one thought of this sort of streaking when they read the title:

 
Undoubtedly everyone's minds immediately jumped to running streak i.e. the practice of running every day for an undetermined number of days in a row where a run must conform to a minimum distance or time determined by the "streaker". If I am not mistaken there is an official society for streakers and I believe their minimum is a mile (too lazy to google).

It may surprise some that prior to this "streak" (I put it in quotes because I am only on day 16 which some people would not even consider a "streak" but rather just a regular block of training), anyway prior to this "streak" the most days I had ever run in a row was 6. I am a big believer in the hard/easy principle. I run my hard days very hard and my easy days are necessarily very easy and off in order to allow for the hard days to be hard. With the goals I have had over the past few years i.e. run as fast as possible over distances between 3 km - marathon, rest days to the tune of 1-2 per week are essential, this is even more true at 38 than it was 10 years ago.

Streaking, I think, accomplishes one goal only and that is that is allows the streaker to run many consecutive days in a row. In other words it is a means to its own end and is not conducive allowing runners to reach other more constructive goals. It can lead to bad decisions and obsessive compulsive behavior. Nonetheless, I am trying it for a few reasons. First, I have no serious competitive goals for the next little while. I may do two indoor 3000 m races in December but with no serious ambitions. Also, I have never streaked before so I am curious to see how long I can go and what effects it has one my person and my body. The last reason is personal and in the category of things that I don't blog about but let's say even an amateur psychologist would realize that in the face of a serious, bad thing that I cannot control it is soothing to have something fairly benign over which I do have control.

So here I am on day 16 of my streak. My rule is that for a run to count it must be at least 30 minutes or 6 km.

4 comments:

  1. Steve DeBoer, who I know, is in the top-10 all-time in running streaks, somewhere over 30 years (maybe 40) without missing a day - I have another friend who's run at least 10 miles every day since 1982, but doesn't want anyone to know about it. My record's 423 days. Ron Hill, the famous marathoner, ran at least 4 miles every day until he intentionally took a day off after 26.2 years; when he had his appendix out, he ran about midnight two nights apart so he wouldn't miss a day when he had surgery.

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  2. Wishing for the bad thing you cannot control to fade away soon... and definitely before you get injured :-) Sending you good vibes...

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