When The Normal Becomes Abnormal

It's funny how you get used to just about anything if you do it long enough. My friend, Ben sent me a link to an article about a guy who has run at least one mile every day for over 40 years:

My Last Day Without A Jog: 1941

Apparently, there's a group called the U.S. Running Streak Association that lets people register their streaks of running a mile a day. 6 people have run for streaks of 40 years or more.

I'm always looking for new challenges and in 2010, I decided to see if I could run at least one mile every day for a year. I made it through the year without missing a day but felt a little disappointed by the experience. One of the reasons I chose that challenge was that I hoped to develop a routine of getting up early and running every morning. I thought the goal of running a mile every day would inspire me to be more disciplined about my running schedule. It didn't. There were a lot of days that I was on the treadmill in the basement at 10:30 at night because I either forgot I hadn't run that day or I put it off until the last minute.

I also thought it would be more of a challenge but it turned out to be easier than I thought. I'm still proud I accomplished the streak, but it wasn't what I thought it would be. On January 1st, 2011 I intentionally didn't go for a run. I was worried that if I started into 2011 without breaking the streak, I would be tempted to keep it going. One year was enough for me.

This week, I skipped two training sessions at the same time Ben sent me this article. It felt wrong to take two unscheduled days off and it felt weird not to post updates on here those days. Writing on a blog felt odd at first and now missing two days in a row feels awkward. Like I said yesterday though, I didn't get too down on myself for skipping two workouts. I think my run-every-day experience helped me relax a little about missing scheduled runs.

Saturday
Goal For The Day: Rest.
Distance: 0.00 Miles.

Notes: Another hot one today. Glad I had the day off. The weather's supposed to break tonight and be much cooler next week. Looking forward to it!

Daily Miles: 0.00 Miles.
Blog Totals:
  Run - 252.79 Miles.
  Bike - 98.53 Miles.

  Swim - 9,050+ meters.