Ending the Streak
It feels weird writing this post. And it’s a tough one to write, so buckle up.
Today is the first day in 820 days that I haven’t gone for a run. Yep, that means I just ended my run streak that I started back in 2015. I loved doing my run streak and it helped me learn a lot about myself, but it’s time it came to an end. This decision took me over two weeks to make and it was honestly one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had to make. I’ll go ahead and start this story back a few months.
Back in December I signed up to run the Monument Avenue 10K after finally finding the right running shoes that took away all the various aches and pains I had been experiencing for a while. I started training and slowly increasing my mileage, making sure I didn’t increase the mileage too fast and get hurt again. Two weeks before the race something didn’t feel right and I had this weird pain in my left foot, but it really didn’t hurt that bad so I backed off for just a few days and only ran my minimum one mile a day. The pain got worse for a few days before starting to feel better, but since it felt pretty good the day before the race I decided to run the 10K and just take it nice and slow.
That probably wasn’t my best decision, running 6 miles on a hurt foot, but I couldn’t just not run this race, it’s my favorite race and I always have so much fun running it. I still had a ton of fun running and my foot barely even hurt during the race, but the week after the race my foot started getting worse again and hasn’t really gotten much better since. I even went to my sports medicine and orthopedic doctor and was told to back off running for a few weeks. That was a week ago, oops.
That pretty much leads me to this past week where I cried and broke down at the thought of having to end my streak. It seems so silly that this streak means so much to me, but for me it shows how hard I’ve worked toward something and it makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something every single day, no matter how rough the rest of that day might be. After committing to the streak for over two years, it is extremely difficult to just throw that all away so quickly. I’ve thought about ending my streak for quite a while now and in the end my decision came down to if I wanted to run distance and enjoy myself or run my minimum mile in pain every day just for the sake of keeping the streak going.
I can’t see my foot getting any better or at least healing properly while continuing to run. Plus I’d much rather be able to do the things I love, like hiking, climbing, running, and spending my days at the bakery without being in constant pain than running one slow mile everyday. Considering I’ve had my foot wrapped up in bandages, icing three times per day trying to ease the pain and continue running, it doesn’t really make sense to continue. As much as I have loved this run streak and it pains me to end it, that’s my best solution. Of course I’m still going to run once my foot is healed, but I don’t see myself doing another run streak after having this injury and dealing with a few other injuries within this past year.
And so after 820 days of running every single day, I’m finally taking a rest day. Even though I’m ending my run streak I’m still going to give myself a little pat on the back for having completed an 820 day run streak and running 1,726 miles in that time. It’s still one of my biggest accomplishments and something I will always be proud of, just because it’s over doesn’t mean it wasn’t great. Here’s to taking care of yourself and not running yourself into the ground (quite literally).
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, yes it is extremely difficult not lacing up my shoes and heading out for a run. I may need to hide my running shoes from myself….