Two Years of Running Everyday
Yeah, you read that right. TWO WHOLE YEARS! I’m just as shocked as you are. Last year as I sat and typed up my post for making it one year on my run streak I was in complete awe and shock that I had actually made it a whole year running every single day. This year, as I’m writing this post, I am even more amazed and excited to have been running for another year.
730 days is a long time, but that time sure does fly when you’re having fun. Over the past two years running has really made me genuinely happier and it’s amazing to look back at the difference in my outlook on life and my overall energy levels before I started running. No, I’m not one of those crazies who has loads of energy all the dang time (seriously how do some people have so much energy?), but I can at least make it through my day without getting a little foggy headed. This could continue to be a sappy post about how running changed my life, but I’m not about that so I will move on. Although I will address a few more things I’ve learned over the second year of my run streak later on.
This past year was a bit rough as I tackled 2 different injuries (oh and also the stomach flu, that was a fun one) that caused me to reduce my mileage for the majority of the year. At the end of my post last year I mentioned an ankle injury that I was told I could continue running through. Well, it turned out that it was the shoes I was running in. After running in those shoes for many months, I got fitted for some orthotics (team crazy bad over pronation) and changed shoes and my ankles stopped hurting almost immediately. I was sooooo happy to be running pain free, and yet a week after I got my new shoes my knee started to hurt. I decided I had upped my mileage too quickly after being injured and decided to take it easy for a few weeks, only to realize it was the new shoes causing the knee pain. I really couldn’t catch a break.
Finally, in November I went back to the shoes I ran in for cross country in high school, and for the first bit of my run streak: Saucony. I’ve been running in my new shoes for about 2 months now and loving them. I actually almost forgot how wonderful it is to run without any pain! Moral of the story: no running shoe (or any shoe for that matter) will work for everyone. Everyone’s feet are different and everyone’s needs are different- some people need more cushion, some less. For me, too much cushion is what caused my knee to start hurting, so I need cushioning that is somewhere in the middle.
Considering I went through a lot of trial and error and a lot of ups and downs this past year, I learned a lot more during the second year of my run streak. I definitely learned the importance of taking care of myself and not pushing myself too hard, that’s the kind of stuff that leads to permanent injuries! I also learned that it is very much OK to not run 50 miles a week and that I need to find a mileage that is best suited for me. Right now that’s sitting around 10 miles a week, and that is perfectly OK.
This year’s post isn’t nearly as long as last year’s, and I didn’t expect it to be. But I’d like to end the post with this: last year I said I learned to stop comparing myself to others, but honestly I still struggled with it. This year I finally learned to let go of what other people are doing and focus on what I’m doing. Sure, I’m not running ultra marathons, or any marathons really, but I’m pushing myself and challenging myself, and that is what really matters. I never would have thought I would be running every single day, and yet here I am 730 days later and still going strong. So what if that means I’m only running one mile everyday, that’s more than I was running before the streak, is it not? All I can do is challenge myself to be a better version of me with each and every day. After all, nobody can be me better than I can.
