Only 39.5 Years to Go

Today I was browsing the web to see what's been going on in the world when I stumbled across a wild running article. Take a read. It's another feature about a group of runners who are registered with whatever the streak registry is that I've mentioned here before. The ones on which this article focuses have been running at least a mile per day every day for at least 40 years. Apparently there are only 6 men in the world who have done this, which is not particularly shocking, especially when you read about all the crazy obstacles that have stood in their way.

My own streak is still alive and well, though I'm not sure if it would ever count for this. I didn't read what the definition was of a day (whether it's midnight to 11:59, or perhaps at least once every 24 hours, or maybe another hour to hour period) is. My streak means that I run at least one mile every day before I go to sleep. I discussed this with a coworker today, who didn't believe that these men have done what they claim. He thinks that, while these men have mostly run every day for however many years, it's highly unlikely that they've actually run every day. I disagree and it took everything in me not to say "SHOW SOME RESPECT" to his clear skepticism. Then I began to worry that our discussion of technicality in a streak would discourage me from continuing my own. In fact, it scared me.

If and when this streak ends, it damn well better be because something apocalyptic happened or I had a child or otherwise seriously injured myself. Does that sound crazy? Maybe a little. But the bottom line is that I do not want my streak to end simply because of mental surrender. Whatever the reason is, I better have tried my best and moved heaven and earth to make it happen. What scares me is the idea that the motivation to keep it going is like a switch in my head, and that, perhaps, that switch could simply be flipped and it would all be over because I wouldn't care or would give up. Is motivation as fleeting a phenomenon as I fear it is? I certainly hope not.

In more mundane and less frightening news, I'm back on schedule after Hurricane Irene. As I mentioned before, I got in a run right before the subways stopped running on Saturday and another one on Sunday night, after the storm was mostly over and everything had calmed down. It wasn't a long run, after all. I decided to continue with the schedule and run 17 next weekend instead of the half marathon that's on the schedule (which is likely what would have happened anyway, since the Bronx Half Marathon was supposed to be on Sunday). Maybe I'll even do one of my favorite courses, the Five Bridge run, which starts in Brooklyn crossing the Williamsburg bridge, goes from Manhattan back into Brooklyn on the Manhattan Bridge, back into Manhattan from Brooklyn on the Brooklyn bridge, up 1st avenue to 59th, where it crosses into Queens over the Queensborough Bridge, and finally over the Pulaski Bridge in Queens on the way down to Brooklyn. There's a lot of variety and it's a challenging run due to the fact that almost all of these bridges are essentially mile-long hills.

I also had another training session with Jared, in which we worked a lot with kettlebells. I was supposed to go this morning but woke up late, unfortunately. I'll be going back on Thursday and setting a few more alarms. Today's run was an easy 4-miler through the Upper East Side with a nice post-run reGen.