Streaks

I've started another streak.  I think it all has to do with consistency and habits.  I'm still struggling to find peace and comfort with where I am.  It shouldn't be too surprising that my streak revolves around running.  I ran 8 miles on Monday and Tuesday, and my coach figured it out before I did.  I would run 8 miles every day this week. Every day. This week.  I've never done that before.  I've had some big volume weeks, but those usually entailed two or three really long runs.  There would be short days, or even off days.  I ran daily for nearly a month at the beginning of last year on my journey to Kona.  But some of those days were just one or two miles of running.  This is eight.  Not four. Not five. Not six.  For me, eight miles is a very solid number.  Since my course every day is very hilly, these runs are not "easy," by any means.  Effort is involved, though I've taken great pain to not exert myself too much.  That would not only defeat the purpose, but keep me from my goal.  It's literally running at just the right pace and effort to allow me to get in my eight miles and get the benefit of the run.  Each run is just over an hour and twenty minutes.  In fact, the first one, was closer to an hour and twenty five minutes, but the next three have been right around an hour and twenty two minutes.  My coach considers an hour and a half to be a "long run."  That suggests that this time, distance, and elevation gain (nearly 600 feet), are just the right combination of stimuli to achieve the goal that I'm attempting to achieve.  Consistency of effort, mental fortitude, neuromuscular stimulus.

I start each days run with different feelings.  I end each days run feeling about the same.  I end every day tired.  Fortunately, so far, I've awakened the next morning with enough energy to feel like my eight mile run is quite doable.  Today is no exception, despite going to bed later than usual last night. I'm looking forward to todays run. That's part of the goal and part of the process.  I think that I'm hoping to replace a lot of the things in my brain with my running streak.  I used to go to bed thinking about ironman, and waking up thinking about ironman.  For the past four months, that has not been the case.  This week, I've gone to bed thinking about the next day's run.  I wake up thinking about today's run.  That's part of the idea behind the streak.  Any streak.  I haven't written in my blog for nearly a month.  Not since my birthday.  Another streak to start.  It's not that I haven't been writing.  I've been writing a ton.  It's that I haven't been writing my blog.

Consistency. Habit. Structure.  Eight miles a day for a week. I'm more than half way there.  Today will be five straight days. Forty miles.  A solid week already.  More than I've done in over a year and a half.  The goal for the week is fifty-six miles.  That would be one of the biggest volume weeks of running I've ever done.  At least in the past twenty years.  So far, my body is handling it well.  That's important.  The purpose isn't to do harm to myself or cause an injury.  The purpose is consistency. Habit. Structure. Mental fortitude. Peace.