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Streaking Into Summer

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It's not what you think. Well, probably not, at least. This summer I decided I wanted to try something new. In May I set a goal to walk or run at least 5 days a week. That goal changed after week 1. Initially my goal was to walk or run every day but life gets in the way. I was a bit too ambitious for our lifestyle. Weekends were so busy and tiring that I couldn't get it together to walk. Plus, we tend to do so much anyway that I was walking 15,000 steps without even trying most weekends so I was hitting step goals and usually logging at least 20 or more "active minutes" according to my Fitbit so I changed to 5 days a week. I didn't meet that goal though. I tried. I really did but again, life gets in the way. Walking for 25-30 minutes a day takes a big chunk of time. I ended up making it 4 days a week except for the last full week of May. I didn't do much at all that week. I don't know what happened. We were busy, I guess with Kenzie's last week of school and everything else we had going on.

I've been in a bit of a running rut lately. I can't seem to convince myself to get out the door. This time last year, I was still a fairly new runner and Steven had started himself so we were motivating each other. Now, I know I need to go for a run and I want to... but then I don't follow through. I'm tired. Life has been exhausting lately. Not necessarily because of all the extra stuff we try to fit in as a family but just as a whole. The kids keep me occupied all day and by the end of the day, I'm just so tired. I don't like running longer distances in the morning because less people tend to be out and it is often darker because I would need to go out early and long before Steven left for work to get in 3 miles or so. I just don't like to have to do that. But at the end of the day, it's so hard to motivate myself to get out the door. Plus, Steven likes to try to walk nightly to make his step goal since he sits a lot during the day at work. Don't get me wrong. Once I finish a run, I'm super happy with myself even if my run wasn't great. Happy that I got out there and put one foot in front of the other even if just for a couple of miles. Even if I didn't do it all that quickly. I was hoping that trying to walk more in May would help with that issue but I slacked off. I wondered if streaking might break me out of my rut.

I have recently been looking at people's running streaks. There are people that have run every day for years and years. That's commitment. I can't commit to that but I started reading about other run streaks and decided to try one out that Runners World (a running magazine) does every year, a couple of times a year. This one is the Summer Running Streak Challenge and is a way to keep you active in those summer months when you don't want to go out in the heat and what not. Plus, in the summer you aren't really training for races usually as the serious ones don't pick back up again until the Fall season. I found that setting a goal with walking was a lot because it took so long getting any substantial distance under my belt. Running a mile is significantly faster than walking it so in less than 15 minutes a day, I can have some time to myself and do something good for myself. I still wanted to do longer runs at least once a week but I was hoping that adding in a mile run every day might actually help condition me some and maybe speed me up. When I run now, I no longer use my intervals for the first mile plus some so I was hoping to add some speed to that mile as I trained more and more with it.

Back to the Runners World streak... This is a mile a day streak challenge from Memorial Day through July 4. 37 days. That's it. Only a mile a day. I figured that those 37 days were a good starting point. I can't do every day for a  year or anything. I just can't commit to that. I wish I could but I'm not crazy enough to think I can. Here's how the first week went down:

Week 1: I lucked out that I went for a normal run on Memorial Day because I didn't see the challenge until the next day but I already had 3 miles under my belt. Then, Tuesday started a string of possible iffy weather. I fought Mother Nature and lost that Tuesday. I got my mile in but did about .7 of it in the rain with thunder and lightning nearby. I did set a new record though for that run. My fastest mile to date at 10:35. Haha! A few days this week I had to push the stroller for my run just because I couldn't work it out to go on my own. I usually don't like to do that for a few reasons. One is that my runs are typically my "me" time and I get out on my own. And the second is that pushing a stroller (especially a non-jogging, double) is ridiculously hard. Anytime I did that, I ended up using 90:60 intervals. My runs were closer to a 13 minute average but they still got done. I also had to do one run (so far) through the parking lot at my parents' timeshare. I will be down here for a week and hope to do one longer run while I'm hear since I can maybe go in the morning and have my parents watch the kids but it involves using a lot of parking lots or running in circles. Either way. At least my mile a day will get done. Steven initially planned to join me for the streak but he already walks so much nightly usually to get his miles in and adding in a mile run was getting to be a lot. Not that he couldn't handle it but we are particular about things like the shoes we wear to walk vs run and he was adding unnecessary miles to his shoes. Plus, it was tiring him out and making it not as enjoyable. He is still doing a weekly longer 3-4 mile run a week (if not more than one a week) but he has elected to not go streaking with me this time. Maybe next time.

So that is week 1. I did pretty well. I got in one 3 mile run and one 2 mile plus the other mile runs. I kept a fairly steady pace for my miles done without kids (as well as the first mile of my 2 mile run because I run that straight) and am averaging about 10:45 per mile. That is so much faster than I started a year plus ago. When I first started c25k I was running/walking about a 14-15 minute mile. Crazy to think how far I have come.

Week 1 Total Miles: 10.5
Average Daily: 1.5
Longest Run: 3.03
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