Today marks one full year of running every day...a streak of 365 days!
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| 2015 Brooksie Way Half Marathon - course PR of 2:26:17 |
Considering my last (and only) streak consisted of 97 days about 2 years ago, I'm in disbelief that I have lasted a full year on this one. Honestly, the streak didn't even start intentionally. I just got on the treadmill January 22, 2015 and then decided to get back on it the next day, and the next, and just kept going. After about a week, I decided I should try to best my previous streak. What I found this time around, though, was that as the streak got longer, my pace improved....drastically. So once I hit 100 straight days of running on May 1, 2015, even though I had achieved my goal of beating my previous streak, I had no intention of stopping because I liked what it was doing to my pace.
When I started the streak, I was burnt out from racing and planned on not doing near as many races in 2015 as I had in the past. However, as my pace got faster, I found my love for running again, and although I didn't do as many races as I had in past years, I still did a fair number. I feel like I traded in quantity for quality and the higher quality gave me a new appreciation for the sport.
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| 2015 Detroit Women's Half Marathon-my current PR of 2:18:24 |
When I started, what I wasn't expecting was that this streak would lead to my best racing year since beginning to run in 2006. 2015 was, without a doubt, my best race year ever. Going into 2015, I only had 3 (out of 100) half marathons that were under 3 hours. I now have 21, and haven't seen a half over 2:44 since May 1. Prior to 2015, no matter how I tried, I was never able to break that illusive 6 hour mark in the marathon, but now I've done it 5 times, 3 of which were even under 5:30!
I think my performance has begun to plateau and I don't expect the same drastic effects in 2016 as I saw in 2015, but I'm still hoping to see some improvement as the streak continues. I have some aggressive goals that I hope to attain this year and we'll see if I am able to.
How long will I continue the streak? I don't know. I've gotten to a point where I'm afraid to break it now, so barring any injury or illness that renders me unable to, I will continue for the foreseeable future. As of mid-February last year I decided that I needed to do at least 5k (3.1 miles) everyday. As of January 1, 2016, I decided that one of my New Year's resolutions would be to up that to 4 miles everyday, and so far, I've held to that. Only time will tell how long this will last though.
NOTE: In full disclosure, not every day is an outright "run". Most days are intervals, lately those have been 60:30 (run:walk) or 45:30. Some days I just run with no walk breaks (usually 1 day per week) and some days I walk, these are my rest days (usually 1-2 days a week).
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| 2015 Chicago Triathlon Triple Challenge-Super Sprint, International, and Sprint completed in a total of 7:33:00 with both Super Sprint (0:59:47) and International (4:03:47) PRs |
By the Numbers...
Anyone that knows me knows that I can't do something like this without crunching the numbers every possible way.
First Day: January 22, 2015
Days So Far: 365
Miles: 1849.44
Average Miles/Day: 5.07
Minimum: 2.44 (Only 9 days were less than a 5k and the last one was 2/17/2015)
Maximum: 26.2
Training Miles: 1322.14
Racing Miles: 527.30
Treadmill Miles: 678.50
Road Miles: 1140.37
Trail Miles: 30.57
As of....
| 22-Jan-15 | 21-Jan-16 | Difference | |
| Streak Day # | 1 | 365 | 364 |
| 5k PR | 0:37:51 | 0:30:55 | 0:06:56 |
| 10k PR | 1:22:23 | 1:03:55 | 0:18:28 |
| 10 Mile PR | 2:33:37 | 1:52:56 | 0:40:41 |
| Half Marathons Completed | 100 | 119 | 19 |
| Half Marathon PR | 2:53:53 | 2:18:24 | 0:35:29 |
| # of Sub-3 Half Marathons | 3 | 21 | 18 |
| Marathons Completed | 50 | 55 | 5 |
| Marathon PR | 6:07:31 | 5:14:52 | 0:52:39 |
| # of Sub-6 Marathons | 0 | 5 | 5 |
