A Streak Begins (Hopefully)

In 2007, I ran over 1200 miles. This included a full marathon (Disney in January), two half marathons, and a bunch of 5k's, 10k's, 15k's, etc.... 1200 miles, at my average (and extremely mediocre) 9 minute mile, is the equivalent of running for 7.5 days, if my math is correct, and there is a good chance it's not. Now running that much seems kind of cool,and I'm totally proud of myself, but after reading about the phenomenon of "streak running," I realized that I'm kind of a sissy when it comes to running.

Late last year, I read a story on espn.com (read the story here) about a guy in South Florida, Robert Kraft, who is going to reach his 100,000th mile ran this year. He has run at least one mile, every single day, for the past 33 years. And the crazy thing is, he doesn't even own the longest streak in the country. There are some others that have been running at least one mile every day for 37 , even 40 years.

After reading Kraft's story and researching tons of others, I decided I wanted to start my own running streak. At the time, I was in a bit of a running funk, so I decided to start the streak on January 1st, 2008. January 1st, I ran 6 miles. January 2nd, I took a bad spill on a waveboard, and hurt my back real bad. I could barely walk. My streak was already over. After like two weeks of rehabbing the back, I figured I would try to start the streak back up again. I was going real good up until February 9th, when after a hard night of birthday celebrating, I decided I was in no shape to run, thus ending my streak again.

Today, February 11th, 2008, 4 days after my 25th birthday, I said to myself - "Sean, you just turned 25. You have not done much. Get out there and do something." So I went for a 9 mile run. And on my run, I decided that today would be the day that my streak really, really begins. No more stupid excuses. No more riding waveboards and getting hurt. Just run. At least a mile every day.

So why start another blog? Well, during my run today, I was trying to think of ways to keep myself motivated to run every day. And in my warped mind, I thought to myself "Hey man start a new blog, and people will fall in love with it, and they are gonna want to read it every day, and you can only write stuff after a run." Well, there are a bunch of running blogs out there that I read all the time, and the running community is pretty tight, so maybe there will be a few other runners out there that would be interested in this blog and will keep me going. Also, while running, I tend to think more than I usually do, and I do enjoy writing, so this would be a good place to keep me going. I've had a couple of blogs in the past, like this one, but I never really kept them updated on a regular basis. So if I'm going to be logging my runs, I might as well be blogging my thoughts.

So yeah, thats that. I'm gonna do my best to get this streak really going. I've come to the conclusion that I probably won't be a famous skateboarder or rock and roll star, so maybe this will be a way to leave my mark on society. I'm not saying I'm going to be the next Robert Kraft, but hell, I also didn't think I would ever run a full marathon, or 1200 miles in a single year.

On a side note, February 12th is Abraham Lincolns Birthday. If you know me, you know that I'm a bit of an Abraham Lincoln enthusiast, so I will leave you with a few of my favorite Abe quotes that pertain to my newest endeavor.

" I say try, if we never try, we shall never succeed"

"By no means say 'if I can', say 'I will"

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important that any one thing"

"Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today"

"Live a good life, and in the end, it's not the amount of years left in the life, but life left in the years"


Miles run today: 9 Year to Date: 92