Good Bad & The Monkey
My minimum is 3 miles.
Yesterday was day 190. I started a streak to ensure that I would keep training towards my goal marathon. That marathon, Grandma's, went down poorly the other day. The heat blew me (and loads of others) away. I am tired, my body is tired and I need a break. Add to that the fact that I have a bad shin splint that may be a stress reaction or fracture, and that I need to be recovered for my next round of marathoning this Fall...
I am considering strongly taking some time off.
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
I fly.
I'll say it again.
I support that - you can always restart when you feel up to it!
(Plus then I move up on the list.)
Bring it on.
Sara
MM #2929
I'm with Ojo on this one. Cut it back to a mile a day for 4-5 days. If it doesnt seem to get better, then you may want to see the doctor and actually rest it.
(And unlike Jill I have no alterior (sp?) motive to get you off your streak cause I'm already ahead of you).
That is a tough call. Here's the progression I go though:
- are sneakers ok? A couple times I needed new sneakers.
- run barefoot on treadmill a couple days. This works for me, don't know why.
- run one mile a day for a couple of days. I have had to do this twice since I started my streak. First time I was delaying buying new sneakers, and the other time I slipped and fallen hard on icy roads.
- take a day off
good luck!
Books I Have Read
Last Race: Portland Maine Half Marathon October 5 2014
My guess is Trent's minimum is 3 miles...
I have been trying to raise my minimum to 2 miles lately. I'll go two weeks or so just fine and have a day where I run a mile. I'm giving it another (third) go...I figure eventually it will stick.
Trent-1st of all congratulations on your 190 days. That's amazing!
As all of you experienced runners say, listen to your body! You can start a streak again when your body is ready.
I tried to increase my minimum, but some days I just find that I need rest and the easiest way to do taht and still "streak" is to just do a mile. Other days, time constraints have had me do just a mile. I usually do more, but have no issues with putting in the token mile on a rest day.
Shoot...with the miles you put in a mile every now and then is a good thing. I am trying to up my daily minimum to two miles to increase my weekly miles some. I found I was doing the one mile run more often than I thought I should. I tend to run a little more after running the two mile minimum most days.
Professional Noob
Roads were made for journeys...
First, congrats on the marathon finish, they can't all be PRs. Second, congrats on 190.
Before I go on, I heard somewhere that your daily minimum is three miles
So, three weeks ago my body told me I had increased my mileage too much too fast and was on the verge of injury. My shins were screaming at me so I backed off significantly. Here I am feeling a lot better but have been very slow to add mileage. Moral #1, listen to your body, just like most everyone has said.
Moral #2, remember why you are streaking in the first place. Unless you have a specific goal you are trying to achieve with your current streak, stop now, heal up and come back stronger. For me I had to back off so as to not endanger my goal for this year, namely to run everyday at least a mile. If nothing else, you have built an impressive streak you can comeback and beat in the future.
Hang in there, we are all here for ya!
3 miles was always my minimum until I started streaking. Now when I can't make time for 3 miles, one will do. But having had multiple stress fractures, I'm saying take a day off...or a few!! That was my non-competitive, been there side speaking!
Thanks all.
Again, to be clear, the goal of this streak was to ensure consistency so that I could have an excellent training cycle for this marathon. No, marathons cannot all be PRs, but I am 1000% stronger than I was when I last set a PR. It is a major major downer to have 6 months of training blown away by a warm morning, something totally out of my control. But such is the fickle bitch that is the marathon, and the 27 marathons I have run over the past 4 years have made this amply clear. My next attempt will not be until October at the soonest and possibly not until December.
If I were streaking for the sake of streaking alone, I might go out and run a mile per day for the next few days. But my shin worries me a bit and I want to be sure to be ready and healthy enough to enter the next training cycle, due to start in just a few weeks...