So when the good weather hit I was really excited to start running more. Running has always been my escape from reality– a time when I can unplug and just exist. Yet somewhere in my excitement to run more often, something else happened and all the sudden I was running every single day for a little over 3 months straight.
Every. Single. Day.
And oh boy, while it was a ton of fun to get out and run every day and I enjoyed each and every run, I definitely did not do myself any favors by doing this. So today, I want to talk about my 85 days running, why I stopped it, and what I learned.
Why’d I do it?
I’ve had a close friend of mine doing a run streak for almost two years straight now and she has loved every day of it. I was never planning to do it as well, but once the weather started getting nicer, I was getting out to run even more. A couple of days in a row turned into a week, which turned into two weeks, which turned into a month, which turned into two months before I knew it. Daily runs became a normal part of my morning routine and plus I was training for a half marathon anyway so it helped me pack on the miles.
I grew addicted to the running and I just had to keep doing it. I couldn’t stop. I needed to run more, hit more miles, run more days. Two months became three and I thought I was on top of the world.
Plus, I was watching my race times get so much better! I was improving in everything and I attributed a lot of that to the streak.
I didn’t do it right.
At first things were great. I finally felt like a real runner. I was putting in the miles, seeing improvement in all my times (I hit a PR in every distance this year), and I was loving the time I got to spend every day with me and my shoes on the pavement. It was absolutely great. Only, I wasn’t doing it smart.
I learned to run by just slowly working up my running. I never knew what I was doing. So when it came to my run streak, I put my shoes on, hit the pavement, and let my body decide my pace.
Turns out, you’re not supposed to do that, especially when you’re not taking recovery days. I was going too hard to often without giving myself any runs at a base pace or a recovery pace. I was also putting in too many miles way too quickly and jumped from running 15 miles a week to doubling that or more. It wasn’t smart on my part, and a lot of what comes next comes as a result to that.
Yes, I had plenty of people tell me to slow down and stop putting so much strain on my body. But I’m not good at listening, and I do regret not listening now.
I got injured. Twice.
My first injury was super minor. I very slightly sprained by ankle and daily physical therapy made it super manageable. My second injury, was not so nice and it is what ultimately ended by streak because I knew if I kept trying to work through that injury I was going to break something and I was likely never going to run again.
I hurt my hip.
I don’t know how or what happened, but slowly the nagging pain in my hip got worse and worse until I was visiting the chiropractor often and stretching alone wasn’t making the pain go away. At that point I knew that even though I didn’t WANT to end my streak, I had to because if I couldn’t pull the band aid off 85 days in, how was I ever going to do it after 100 or more days? So I stopped.
I needed to allow myself that time I needed to heal. And yeah, I was freaked out by ending my streak, because I’m OCD and obsessed with numbers (and because of what I’ll discuss below) but guess who noticed I ended my streak? Me, my parents who track my runs to make sure I don’t get kidnapped, and my best guy friend who is the only person I let follow my strava account and who I told I was ending it.
There were two other people in my life who actually cared I ended my streak and it was because they had been encouraging me to do so– my chiropractor and my therapist. And they couldn’t have been more pleased when I took that first rest day. In fact, it was chiropractor who really impacted this decision, pointing out that my exercise habits were an addiction, and like most addictions, it was doing more harm to me than it was doing good.
So was it really that big of a deal? No. Is my healing process more important? Yes. 100% and I needed to face the reality that I had to honor that. I had to focus on low impact exercise, physical therapy, and stretching to get me to a point where I could run again.
I’m still healing, so expect some blog posts about my process in the future, but I’m confident I am going to be okay.
During my streak, I fell back into the horrible place of comparison
If you have never fallen into the online running community, I forewarn you not to. Stay away from it. Not because the people are terrible (okay but some of them absolutely are and I really just cannot stand it), but because if you are like me and fall into the area of comparison easily, watching people post their mileage, pace, or streak day number is really triggering. I had to keep going. I had to keep up. I had to prove that I too belonged in that community.
What the actual h***.
If that isn’t toxic A.F. what is?
It isn’t their fault. They aren’t responsible for MY mental health and how I take their adventures, but wow, the fact that I let myself endure that for over 60 days is so insane and it took such awful tolls on my mental wellbeing that it was actually ridiculous.
I treated my run streak as more of a trophy than I did as a thing I was doing for myself anymore. I was trying to make people proud of me or to show off, but in reality no one was paying any attention to me and the only thing I ended up doing was hurting myself physically and mentally. I became so afraid that I wasn’t going to get a good workout without running or afraid that if I didn’t run I was going to lose my progress.
Rest days are important.
I know this.
Yet I let myself overlook it because I was determined to do something impressive when no one was actually impressed. At some point I had to come to realize that. Pulling off the band aid was hard, but it was so so necessary. I had an addiction to the high I got from running and the high I got from being so impressive, but it could have hurt me forever an I just can’t do that anymore.
So what did I do?
I’m taking some time off of running right now, completely. Right now, I have to focus on physical therapy and stretching. I still do my regular strength training and add in low impact cardio when I want to, but for right now it’s a lot of rest and stretching. Plus, several chiropractor visits a week just to make sure my bones stay in line (my hips weren’t even when this thing started).
Will I ever streak again? Maybe. But I’ll make sure to add in 2 or 3 recovery runs a week and I’m definitely not going to be posting about it online. If I streak again, it’s only for my knowledge and I don’t need to post about it, compare myself to what other runners are doing, and I can still have value as a runner if I do that. And if I do streak again, I don’t think it will be more than a week or so at a time. I’ve been reminded how important recovery days and low impact can help with recovery.
I’m almost 30 and I need to keep taking care of my body if I still want to be doing this when I’m 70 (and I do!)
So here I am, telling you not to make my mistakes, give yourself the rest you need, and please don’t be too hard on yourself. Taking care of yourself and your body comes first.
Do you want to hear more about my healing process throughout this injury? Let me know in the comments below.
Until next time,
Kat
We’ve all heard of the term break day when it comes to a work out regime. And we’ve all been told that we need to take at least one day out of the week to have a rest day. But do you know why we need to have break days? What’s the importance of giving ourselves a rest at a random point in the week? Does it really make a difference or is it just an excuse we make so we don’t have to drag ourselves to the gym every day of the week? You might be surprised to find out that break days might actually make a huge difference in your goal towards fitness.
Kat Classics 