I managed to do 10 miles per week of running through the month of December. 5 weeks, a nice little streak. And I had even gotten myself set up so that I was only running 3 days per week, with a long run on Sunday and then two short ones during the week (Tuesday and Thursday). But last Sunday, I made a judgment call not to do any running, because I was getting over a cold, and it was raining pretty much all day.
That means I need to do my 10 miles between Tuesday and Saturday (because of course I didn’t run on Monday). Yesterday, I decided to extend my normal distance from 2-ish to 3-ish. If I do that again on Thursday, then I’ll only need to run about 4 miles on Saturday – and then, if everything goes well, 6 miles on Sunday to start week 7 of my streak.
I was going to reroute my neighborhood route to go from 2-ish to 3-ish, but I ended up not taking the time to map it out. So, I went with an old standard – the golf course run. From my front door to the place where the Greenbelt is intersected by a golf cart crossing is about 1.5 miles. It’s a nice little 3 mile out and back – a 5K if I run just a smidge farther.
Actually running it yesterday felt kind of horrible, since I have been having some tummy pain issues and I was running on not much sleep on top of that. But normally, it’s a nice short run. There weren’t too many people out and about on the Greenbelt. It didn’t feel crowded at any point, but I did see a good number of people variously walking, running and biking. Must have been the sunshine drawing them out, because it was darn cold outside.
But I got that 3 miles in, which should help me get my miles even without running on Sunday. There’s always a bump in the road for streaks, and the trick is to either get around them or practice self-forgiveness if the streak breaks and just start over. Streaks can be rebuilt.
But I’m still going to give keeping this streak a live the best chance I can.