Streaking

Back in August I came up with the idea to run every day in September. I was meant for something to keep myself entertained and active as the race season was basically over. While at the time it seemed like a simple task, it turns out the body really doesn’t like running everyday and it likes rest. September passed and I even managed to fit in a duathlon during the streak which was awesome. This brings us to October and sure shit, I wanted to keep running! So, there I was running and on the slippery slope of adding another month to my streak.

I had a half marathon planned for October, the Fargo Mini. Keeping the streak alive had overtaken marathon training so the training efforts were sub par. On race day, it was day number 50, seems like a good number to stop at right? Well, here it is, Haloween and I ran again today. Right now the streak is at 61 days and the streak will stay at 61 days. Come November, I am putting 100% into my Rock n Roll Arizona marathon training efforts. I want to be able to break the 3:40 mark like crazy bad!

Fargo Mini 13.1 PR @ 1:38:38

So about that streak. For some it was a stupid idea while others were surprisingly supportive. For the 61 days of running, I racked up 229 miles of running and 94 miles of biking. With just the running miles, that is an average of 3.75 miles per day. For those famililar with running, that is running a 5k a day with an extra 1/2 mile. What did I learn while on this running streak? I learned that I have a few more screws loose in my head than initially thought! Will I do it again, most likely, just not right now. Crushing RNR Arizona is more important. I mean, there is something to this over training business, just ask someone like Frodo who had to drop out of the IRONMAN World Championship. With that, I am ready for some blood, sweat and tears with some modified training efforts to help me reach my goal in Arizona.

Fargo Mini

I’ll keep this one short. I mean having a long race report on a race called a mini just seems silly anyways! I elected drive up the morning of the race as I was on puppy watch duties which meant an early morning. To make it worse, Emie decided it was the perfect time to get sick and left me with one heck of a mess to clean up at 4am. After taking care of that and making myself some breakfast, I put the fur creature back in her kennel and took off to Fargo on a chilly morning. I think it was about 25 degrees at race start so luckily we were able to start inside but it also gave us one heck of a shock when we did get outside! I found the 1:40 pacer and stuck with that small little group till about mile 8. The plan was to follow the pacer till mile 10 and then give everything I had for the last 5k to break 1:40. As we came up a hill around mile 8, the pacer grabbed his leg and moved to the side of the trail. That was the last I saw of him and just kept running and utilized my Garmin the best I could.

I finished the race basically on empty. Sure I probably left a little out there but with the CONDITIONS and my lack of nutrition plan I happily finished in 1:38:38 which just beats out my previous half marathon PR. Yet again, I learned the importance of controlling the controllable. The weather was chilly, the pacer dropped out due to injury but I didn’t allow those to become excuses. Lastly, another well organized race by mark K. And the Fargo marathon team. Cheers to you guys!