You know when you hear about a pro athlete wanting to “go out on his own terms”? You’ll see an older guy suffer a horrific injury, rehab like a madman to get back to game condition, then immediately retire. Or a player will get cut, have his agent shop him around, sign a minimum salary contract and claw his way onto a roster, and retire in the first week of the season.
I always wondered why. The end result is the same… what’s the big deal whether you got punted out or walked out of your volition? I still don’t really understand the motivation, but today in my own little way I’m living it.
As of today I’ve run each the past 218 days. Tomorrow that number will be zero. Today, I’m out.
Every day since June 1st, I’ve laced ’em up and logged a run. The shortest was 2km, the longest 30.4km. I ran in my neighbourhood along Lake Ontario. I ran on the beach along the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. I ran on an island in San Francisco Bay. I ran in Central Park on Manhattan Island. I ran a half marathon through the vast physical emptiness of Death Valley. The next day I ran a half marathon through the vast emotional emptiness of Las Vegas.
In July, during my first ever 400km month, I developed a hip injury and nearly had to DNF the Acura 10 Miler at the 12km mark. The next day I ran 10km. Just last week I suffered a nasty case of food poisoning (ceviche in the hot sun in Mexico… what could go wrong?) but kept both the streak and my goal of 3500km in 2009 alive with 18km over the next two days. Fortunately these were rare exceptions, my body almost always felt great, and running seven days a week quickly became an automatic thing that I didn’t think about very often.
218 days
247 runs
2232km
Personal Best Races at 15km (1:02:52) and half marathon (1:28:45)
But Sunday, in a completely unremarkable jog on the gym treadmill, something blew up in my calf. Literally one step felt fine and the next felt like an ax had been swung at my achilles tendon, and I had to grab the console to keep from being thrown off the belt. I could barely walk the 500m home. I’ve never been one to have calf issues, and I don’t know what caused this or how to fix it. Over the last ten years I’ve had my share of ailments and have learned where different aches and pains sit on the runthroughability scale, but this one’s got me flustered.
Which brings me back to the “going out on my own terms” point. This blow up happened on Sunday evening. I gave it a full 24 hours, wrapped it up really tight, and put in a searingly painful-yet-determined run last night. And survived. It wasn’t pretty and I have to assume I did more damage, but I ran… and if I had to I could do it again tonight. However, I’m choosing to not do so. I’ve got goals for 2010, and they all require solid training volumes and intensities in January and February. Three weeks of hobbling around would be disastrous.
A couple times in the past few months – for reasons of travel, or time management, or hangover – I’ve logged runs in wacky locations, at wacky times of day, in wacky physical or toxicological conditions just to keep the streak alive. I’ve joked to my wife that the streak ends when I say it ends.
Now I’m saying “when”. My fingers are crossed that after a couple days of rest everything will be fine, I’ll start a new streak from scratch, and I’ll wish this two or three day gap never happened. I sure hope so. *Sigh*
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you’ve got to know when to hold em’, know when to fold em’, know when to walk away, know when NOT to run.
good choice to put the streak on hiatus and give your body a bit of healing time. i’m sure your 50 year old self is saying thank you as he’s lacing up for a jog.
Well Dave, as someone who has gone 6,940 days of daily flossing, I understand the difficulty and worry of ending a streak. Your reasons to stop the streak are very solid. Your 2010 goals require your body to heal and recover from the injury. It sucks, but when you achieve your 2010 goals, you will not give the streak ending too much thought.
Had you been required to give up running in order to pursue your love of eating contests, a different response may have been required.
Sorry to hear it, David. You must be very disappointed. But emily nailed it – you’re being very smart about the whole thing.
An ax through a tendon – sounds a wee bit painful. Smart decision on your part to listen to your body. Moving on…
I hope you didn’t tear something.
Dave- I hope you’re on a the upside of the healing curve soon. Good for you for not risking making it worse.
I had plans to start a running streak, but started it while I was still recovering from my summer injury. Not a good idea. It set me back another month or so. I would like to do it one day, but fear the time when I find myself running just to maintain the streak–and risking being stupid about it again.
You’re nuts! But in a good way!
Good choice. Better postpone the short term goals to make the long term ones possible than to turn this temporary injury into a crippling handicap that will never go away.
Get better soon and hopefully the next streak will be 219 days or more.
Sorry to hear about the injury but Great Streak Dave!!
You’ve got other goals, go chase them down.
Every now and then you show signs of great wisdom. Good for you for doing the right thing. And of course for the impressive streak too. I do think that running (limping) through my knee issues while training for Boston, left me off balance for the next 2 years with recurring issues. Now get well soon. Or I’ll catch ya.