works of wanderlust

I hear you. Four runs is hardly a streak. 

But every streak has gotta start somewhere, right?

I do my best training in the shoulder seasons: spring and autumn are seasons of inspirational motivation. Neither too hot nor too cold. The expectations of obligations are shifting. Races are tapering into short distances in the autumn, or ramping up as the winter snow melts. The spring and autumn feel like times of adjustment to new goals. 

I got it in my head about a week ago that when the heat seemed as though it was about to dissipate, I would plant the seeds of a running streak into a new training plan and seek some desperately needed motivation.

I admit, I’ve been slacking.

Oh, sure. You non-runners out there see me on the trails a couple times each week logging five klicks here or ten klick there and ask “what’s the problem—you’re still actually running, aren’t you?”

But there are definite degrees of training, and I have been idling in the lowest gear for the better part of a year, barely maintaining fitness let alone actually training for anything of consequence.

Part of that has been a reluctance to race. Part of that has been dealing with a respiratory health puzzle. Part of it has been raw laziness.

Now that the proper race season is over (the local marathon finished up about two weeks ago now) the pressure to train for anything substantial has waned for another year.

But there it is—that notion of seasonal motivation as we creep ever closer to autumn and the end of summer. And while the heat is still hanging about, it is not nearly as oppressive as it was even a couple weeks back. 

A running streak is nothing special or official. Ideally, casual runners should really take rest days. Running every day is the work of elite athletes with coaches who plan their training regimens around important recovery spells. But having tackled the idea of a streak many times in the past I know that one can fit in a run-every-day plan when life allows. 

Logging a minimum distance or time each day wears you out. It’s exhausting, so doing it when life is busy, the environment is not cooperating, or an event like a race is upcoming makes the effort less compatible with a healthy choice. And heck knows, this isn’t advice to anyone: know your limits and your body and your own health if you attempt your own streak—and if you don’t, talk to a professional first. 

I know I can generally and safely log a 5km minimum each day for about twenty to thirty days in a row before I need to take my feet off the gas and take a couple days of rest. 

And the fuzziness of that number is the key right there: it’s always an experiment in listening. I push myself every day until I know I’ve pushed just far enough. How many days was I able to streak this time? I never know when I start, so every day is a new and fresh milestone. Four days in a row, right now? Yeah, that’s my longest streak in over a year so it’s worth celebrating. Am I aiming for thirty? Sure. Will I be happy with twenty? Probably. Would I settle for five? I’d be sad for a day, but of course. 

The whole point of this, of course, is a kind of accelerated punch to my training. Stressing the body through daily runs—at least for me—puts me through a kind of ramped up punch towards a fitness goal. For example, I have a ten miler race at the end of October. I have been consistently running eight to ten klicks. So I need to effectively double my comfortable distance to sixteen klicks.  That’s not substantial, but also not as simple as it sounds if only because those ten klick runs have been bagging me.

Adding six means one of two things: either (a) inching the distance up incrementally over the next eight weeks and then running the race as a progressive next step or (b) firming up my base with lots and lots and lots of shorter runs at first, then adding distance in the four or five weeks leading into the race. 

The streak is an attempt at option (b)—build a firm base atop a year of slouching by running a streak, and then adding the time and distance to that as the autumn-proper kicks in. 

The two plans are only subtly different, but the latter plan puts a bit more focus on front loading that foundation-building versus spreading it out across two slow months of incremental building. I’m not a doctor so I don’t know which of or even if these are healthy approaches, but both have worked for me in the past.

The other aspect of the streak that gives this the win-win bias, tho, is the motivation factor. There is just something personally inspirational about daily run goals, making sure that each and every day I put aside at least thirty to forty minutes for a run—then logging it and counting up the days.

And right now I’m at four.

Slacking over, right?

Reminder: Blogs are not a replacement for professional advice. Please read my note on safety and safe participation.