One For One

At the end of last month, I realized that I had a running streak going.

Uh-oh.

It started innocently enough. I didn't run on Christmas Day (what with all the driving and visiting and eating), but made up for it with plenty of running over the next few days, including a race on the 26th. I was off work that week, so it was easy to get runs in. Of course, I had to run on New Year's Day. And it seemed a shame to take a day off so early in the year, so I didn't, despite snow storms, slippery streets, bitter cold, and the usual entertainments of January.

One night I came really close to missing a day, but it was that really warm day -- the one with temperatures in the mid-50s -- so even though it was after dinner and I should have gone to bed I thought, "what self-respecting runner misses the chance to run in shorts in the middle of the winter?" So I headed out the door at 10:30 that night and got in an easy four miles.

That was it. Once you've snuck out at bedtime for a run, you've got to admit that it's no longer a matter of "Oh, look at my training log! I haven't taken a day off in several weeks... ha ha..." No, for me it was the evidence that I was now firmly in the grip of streak-mania. I finished January without taking a day off and thought to myself, "Ok, you're one for one."

I know that my month-long streak is laughably tenuous in comparison with the monster streaks some folks have going. I know Ron Hill hasn't missed a day in something like 30 years. I'm sure there are dozens of runners in the Boston area who have been running without a day off for a decade or more. But although mine is just a baby streak, I feel sure that it shares all the characteristics of the adult version. The mania is the same. I'm becoming like someone who collects string, or saves old movie tickets and playbills... Once you start, it becomes harder and harder to stop. What begins as a pleasant diversion takes on an irrational importance and value.

On the positive side, there's something to be said for the discipline that a streak brings to running. Having that little extra motivation to get out the door is sometimes a good thing. And running every day, even when I don't feel so great, gives me a little more confidence in my willpower. I'm liking this feeling of toughing out the winter, not giving in to bad days, putting in the miles no matter what.

But I worry that the streak will become an end in itself. At some point, I might start bending my training in the direction of maintaining this foolish consistency, rather than focusing on what will help me race well. Should I rest that sore hamstring? Give my tight calf muscles a rest? Yeah, probably, but...

One part of me didn't want to write about the streak, just like I wouldn't want to tell anyone if I was starting to write a novel -- I wouldn't want to jinx it. But then I thought that maybe if I wrote about it, I WOULD jinx it, and maybe that would be a good thing. And as soon as I started writing, I felt a twinge in the area of my Achilles tendon. Arghh!