Well hello, how the very devil are you all?
\nMe?
\nOh, I just popped down the shops for a pint of milk, as you do and suddenly two years slipped by.<\/p>\n
I have to confess I’m rather excited and proud of myself and thought I resurrect the blog to tell you about it. Today , I completed a year of streaking… no, no, not that sort of streaking, it’s not the 1970’s anymore… your minds – honestly!<\/p>\n
Streaking, or R.E.D. as it’s also known, means Running Every Day. In my case, a mile or more, although the minimum distance is completely up to you and yes, I’ve kept this up now for a whole 365 days.<\/p>\n
As you might remember, last time I was here, I was wondering what my next challenge would be. Another Marathon still seems as unlikely as it did back then. The Lands End to John O’Groats walk hasn’t happened either, although Sue and I did cross the country east to west on foot last summer, following the Hadrians Wall path. Also enjoyed a couple of weeks walking the South Downs Way with my good pal, Bungle. LEJOG remains an ambition, although those long distance walks convinced me that it wouldn’t be practical to try and complete it all in one go. I’d tried streaking before, but never got much past a month of continuous runs. This year, however, it all fell into place.<\/p>\n
First, if you will indulge me, the stats (cue fanfare!):<\/p>\n
Naturally some days are easier than others. I ran through two episodes of gout and one very tentative trot with a particularly severe case of the, ahem, trots. This was made even worse by the fact I was supposed to be running a Half Marathon that day! That’s the beauty of the mile-minimum, you really have to be poorly not be able to manage it. Even the most extreme hangovers, and there have been a couple, haven’t stopped me yet.<\/p>\n
When the snow hit and the pavements were just too dicey, I ventured over the small local dog park to do several laps a day on grass. The thinking there being if I did slip at least it’ll be a softer landing. As it happens I didn’t fall once, which was just as well given the number of owners who don’t seem to bother picking up after their pets.<\/p>\n
There were days when I had to run in my normal clothes and boots and often after a pint or two (or one day, after four in the very centre of London, urgh, never again). Some really early mornings before long Palace away trips and more than one late night dash to get done before midnight. A trip to Australia also required some chicanery with time zones to keep the streak alive.<\/p>\n
My most favorite place to run was probably in Yosemite National Park, although it must be said where we were staying was bastard-hilly!<\/p>\n
These stats and memories are all very well, but has there been any actual benefits?
\nI would say massively so. Aside from that unfortunate episode of food poisoning (I now know I’m properly allergic to oysters), my general health has been amazing. No full-on colds or coughs, in the year, not even during that really cold snap when everyone around me was suffering with something . The problem knee is no longer a problem, the daily bout of exercise has strengthened the surrounding muscles to such an extent that I’ve not had even the merest twinge for months now. I also have a very shapely pair of muscular runners legs even if I do say so myself… shame about the rest of me!<\/p>\n
If my running times are anything to go by, I’m as fit and as fast as I have ever been. In the last three months I have done my fastest mile ever and PB’d at 5K, 10K and Half Marathon. Albeit the sudden improvement in my times after nine months of daily running came as a complete shock. Perhaps the biggest surprise, is that Sue has also recently taken it up, despite saying for months that it wouldn’t work for her. I’m very proud to say, she did her 50th consecutive day today and a mile PB to boot!<\/p>\n
Come on though, there must be some downsides?
\nHonestly, at this stage they seem so minor:
\n– The unexpected return of gout – which first happened on day 8 so can’t really be said to be caused by daily running. And I have been prescribed this wonderful new drug which takes 24-48 hours to clear an attack completely. Thus, I just grit my teeth and hobble round the mile on the bad days.
\n– I haven’t really lost any weight as a result, I seem to be range-bound between 14st 5lb and 14.10, these days. Running has always made me hungry so I tend to eat more. I do wonder though, if I could get myself in gear to shift a stone whether my times would improve even more?
\n– My left glute does get a bit tender at times and my speed – such as it is – dips (indeed, this is one of those times right now). It hasn’t stopped me running yet though and if I remember to use the roller regularly, the pain does abate, for a while at least.<\/p>\n
So what now? Well, I certainly see no reason to stop just because I’ve made it to a year. There may be the odd day on our forthcoming holiday to Vietnam when it’s not possible to do a proper run, but it is certainly my intention to keep this regimen going for as long as I can. We have an autumn series of runs planned including 2 more 10Ks and 2 more Halves which we are both looking forward to, together with some ideas for 2019 races.<\/p>\n
Who knows? This time, next year I might even be back on the blog with a update.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well hello, how the very devil are you all? Me? Oh, I just popped down the shops for a pint<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-update"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runspoonsrun.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runspoonsrun.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runspoonsrun.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runspoonsrun.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runspoonsrun.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/runspoonsrun.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":619,"href":"https:\/\/runspoonsrun.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions\/619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runspoonsrun.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runspoonsrun.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runspoonsrun.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runspoonsrun.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}