On top of that my father became seriously ill early December, family should always come first so, training took a big back seat over the rest of the month.
Over Christmas however, I made the decision that I had to get some normality back to life & training for January, so challenged myself to a run streak, starting on 1st Jan, this REALLY helped focus me, the challenge is to run every day (minimum run is 5k or 3.1 miles), and see how far I can go, back in October 2012 when I Ran The Date, see blog post http://philbinch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/run-date-run-october-2012.html I ran 31 consecutive days,, this time it would be a little easier, no distance pressures and the three or four 5k runs I planned a week would be slow recovery/ rest day runs.
I wasn't going to make it an easy run streak though, there definitely had to be some long & very long runs in there to test me.
The run streak started off well with 28 miles in the first 5 days of January with 3 shorter runs & 2 8/9 mile runs back to back, I felt great and decided to really push hard. The next 2 weeks were real tough 4 "double digit" runs a week, 3 of them back to back, I loved it.
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| January Run Streak - miles run |
I had planned to continue the 4 "double digit" runs for another week, unfortunately fate stepped in, when my father's illness took a turn for the worse and sadly he passed away on 22nd January.
Dad has encouraged me to chase my ambitions & goals all my life whether these were work, family or life related, we'd had a number of emotional chats over the last few weeks, and although he was keen to see me, was also determined that I should continue my training & focus on the year ahead.
I kept the run streak going which involved some very late runs, it also meant cutting down the distance as time between family, work, hospital, parents house & travelling didn't leave much for training.
However, the run streak continued and I'm really thankful to my family and proud of myself that I kept at it, the Run Streak Challenge certainly played it's part to, as without it, there would have been quite a few days towards the end of January that I just would not have trained.
Last night, day 35 of Run Streak was a close call, the day after dad's funeral, a tough day at work, stopped at Mum's on the way home, so didn't get home till gone 8pm, I just couldn't get motivated, I sat on the sofa trying to chill out till 10pm, and had more or less decided that I was having a day off.
Somehow I dragged myself into the garage to the treadmill and started jogging, after a mile I still wasn't in the mood and was close to stopping, I carried on another half mile, then I started to feel better, I was half way there to 5k already, so I just kept running & thinking, pace was slow but I was getting closer to 5k, before I knew it the deed was done, shower, chill & bed .....
So now on Day 36, I feel reinvigorated and I'm ready for a long run, I've only done two "double digit" runs in the last 16 days, so looking forward to tonight. So pleased I didn't stop yesterday.
On the bike & swim front, I've started back swimming after nearly 4 months off, took a couple of session to get swim fit and I'm nearly enjoying it now, the plan going forward is 2 x 60-90 minute swims a week for a month, then pick it up. Biking, only managed about 100 miles on the road/ rollers, so need to get some focus here ............... Bike Streak anyone !!!!
Tip 1:
Don't try to train through sickness, take a few days off totally and get back on it when your better.
Tip 2:
Through difficult times, a little extra motivation always helps, set yourself a challenge that will force you out to train, it can be tough some days but once your out there training, you'll be glad you made the effort
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