Road Warrior Blog

1 January 2008

The Streak is Done.

Posted by Matt Stargardt under: Matt Stargardt .

I have officially ended my streak of 365 consecutive days of running at least 3 miles per day in 2007.  Yesterday I capped off my last run of the year with the Resolution Run in East GR.  The run felt good, it was a decent time for me, and I feel good about my decision to end the streak. 

Every year I try to come up with something simple to improve my life.  Some years they were very simple, like the year I decided to drink green tea instead of coffee,  or the year I decided get over my egg phobia and ate omelets every day for breakfast. 

 I think there were several factors that led to me trying to run continuously. First, it seemed like a simple enough thing to do, and by no means am I the first to do it, but I just wondered how my body would feel if I tried to run every day.  Secondly, the sad fact is that when you take a year and break it down, few people remember more than a few big events from it.  Ask me what I did in June 1991 and I have no clue.  I will never remember a single meal I ate in 2007,  I can barely remember the list of races I completed, but for the rest of my life, if anyone asks me what I did in 2007, I can say that was the year of the continuous run.   Lastly,  I have always wanted a chance to test my “gazelle theory” and this would give me my chance.

My Gazelle theory is very simple.  Never in nature does a gazelle get to take a day off.  They can’t ever look at a lion and say “dude, I ran yesterday…go chase my brother, he’s ready to go.”  Gazelles run or they are eaten…..and by doing this they are very, very fast.   I am by no means a gazelle….but if I trained like one could I fool my legs into thinking they were  ”gazelle” like? What if like the gazelle, rest was not an option?

Anyway these are some  things I have learned during 2007.

1. Once you make a run mandatory, it changes your whole approach to a run. No longer is it a matter if you feel like running or not, it is simply a matter of when you will schedule it during a day.  I don’t know how many run started bad and ended up great. Had I had a choice and not run I my legs may have spent days not feeling good. 

2. I have been a caffeine addict for years.  But now I think my body is dependant on running to feel normal.  I function so much better after a run.  We’ll see if I get withdraw headaches. 

3.  You can squeeze a run in on the busiest day, it may not be convenient, but its possible.  Finding time during my normal work schedule was easy. The hardest time for me to schedule was during vacations, holidays, and the week that we moved.  There were at least two times where I didn’t do an event (bike race) that I would have normally done, because I saw no way to squeeze a run in…I will not miss that pressure.

4.  I was surprised at how good my joints felt through out the year.  I usually get runners knee as I increase mileage for longer events, and in 2007 I had none.  I can’t explain why.  My only idea is that as we age we naturally assume we can do less.  I would have never predicted that by increasing my daily running I would have felt better. Then again I could just have abnormal knees.

5.  Getting through a year requires some luck.  2 bouts of the flu and one “tweaked calf” in mid July were about the extent of my injuries.  Both times with the flu I was able to recover by the evening to get my minimum in.  I was constantly aware that one “bad back” moment could end my streak in an instant.

6. Rest is a good thing.  Running every day definitely prolonged my recovery from big events.  I had a good two weeks to recover between the Riverbank run and Bayshore, but my legs were not fresh.  There is no doubt in my mind that a gazelle would have a better chance of outrunning a lion, if they were allowed to taper and take a few days off both before the chase and after.

7. Even after a year of running, if I were a gazelle, and I encountered a lion, I would  be eaten.

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