In the past 5 days I’ve amassed 47 miles on 5 consecutive runs and I absolutely love going outside for a jog now.
Whilst in the past I’ve been dead against run streaks because of the associated injury risk, I’ve decided this time to try to keep going for as long as I can.
If I start to suspect than injury is imminent, I’m gonna cut the streak short. As it stands my body is in great shape as I’ve been taking it very easy and concentrating largely on the amount of time I’m spending on my feet.
Here are some of the benefits I’m noticing by running every day.
- I’ve structured my daily run in as part of my healthier lifestyle – Breakfast is always followed by a run. When I know that I’m going out later for a jog, I’m much less likely to have a block of cheese or a packet of Haribo for breakfast. I don’t want to tempt fate and shit myself. I can’t seem to run well with a full stomach.
- I’m building momentum with my running for the first time in a while – Whilst my pace might be modest, I can finally see my speed and endurance moving forward. This can only be positive for the future. The best aspect of my progress is that I’m having to put in much less effort to maintain my pace than even this time last week.
- My daily run means that I eat much less through the course of 24 hours – I don’t have any appetite for at least a few hours after my run. Rather than force food into my system, I now wait until about 3 or 4pm to have a light snack before having dinner. When I’ve ran this often in the past I’ve struggled severely with the runger. I’d go outside, plod 5 miles and come back in and eat an entire pack of Snickers bars as a ‘reward’ for my running. Now if I even think about ruining my progress, I threaten to reward myself with a swift fucking punch to the balls because that’s as helpful as a sugary fix.
What’s that Mr T? Get some Nuts? I’d rather fucking punt myself in the nuts you whore. If you’re gonna be a shill at least market something healthy like Guinness.
- I’m no longer frightened at having to pick up the pieces and start afresh with my running – If I go even 3 or 4 days without a run I start to panic that I won’t be able to run anymore. It’s an absolutely absurd notion that is destroyed entirely by going for a run every single day.
- My mood is much better throughout the day and I have hope in life now – I don’t know what it is about the winter, but I struggle emotionally with the shorter days. Now that I have the time to run in the early afternoon, my evenings are so much brighter and full of joy. I haven’t laughed this much in too long. I now feel like I have breathing space to sort out my problems. For the last 3 or 4 years I’ve been using junk food to block out emotional pain and it’s been the coward’s way out. Now I have less of that pain.
- I’m now running much more efficiently – By efficiently I mean that I’m running lazy with as little effort as possible. I’m conscious of putting too much strain on my body with the run streak so I need to make sure I listen to my body.
- I can try out new things on each run – For most of last year I was running on average 3 times per week. This meant that I didn’t have much room to plan speed sessions, hill workouts and long distance runs. Now I’m more adventurous. For the first time in my running life I’m dedicating some runs for speed sessions. I’ve even been bringing my marathon fuel belt along with me on shorter runs so that I can practice taking in energy on the move (that’s what I tell myself anyway. I think I’m developing a serious mental dependence on SIS GO Blackcurrant Flavour).
- The run streak reinforces the fact that I’m committed to running the 100k – This is important as it gives me a little peace of mind. At Christmas time I was experiencing guilt for not taking my training seriously enough. Now I have no room for guilt.