I Started a Running Challenge to Hold Myself Accountable
Do you know which month you are likely to get the least amount of sleep in? February. Do you know why? There are only 28 days, while every other month has at least 30.
February also happens to be a month in which running races are least likely to occur. The weather is cold, training is just kicking up a notch, and people aren’t ready to race outdoors yet.
For one of my challenges this year, I am doing the Des Linden running challenge that she did a year back. As a twist on Des’ insane challenge, where she ran a mile for every day of the month (1 mile on March 1st, 31 miles on March 31), I will be running a different kilometer on each day of the week. It will be one of the hardest months of training I have done in recent years and I’m only doing kilometers!
Why am I doing kilometers? 2 reasons: For starters, I can not run 28 miles in a day. (I’m not even sure I can run 28 kilometers in a day, so there’s that!). I’m not a fan of that idea and my body — and family — completely agree. Secondly, my brain can’t quickly do the math on what “running 9 kilometers” is, so it’s a challenge within a challenge just figuring out how far I have to run on a given day. For those two reasons, kilometers is the better option for me.
In this post, I’ll be updating throughout the month and filling everyone in on how it’s going. Stay tuned, because I plan on learning a lot about myself and what I’m willing to do to cover each and every kilometer 1–28 in the month of February.
8 days into the February Mileage Challenge
February 8th
I am not a morning person, but after a decent night of sleep and only running around 2 miles yesterday, I had some fresh legs. I got up a smidge earlier than normal and was out the door by 5:47. 4 miles with the dog (hence the slow pace) then another 3k or so by myself. 9k done in the morning!
February 7th
Holy moly, my legs are tired! After a really long weekend, the last thing I wanted was to wake up early and run in the misty cold muck we had. But 3k is done and I will hopefully have a restful 24 hours to recover!
Week 1 Stats:
36.09 miles (in 6 days)
5 hours, 13 minutes, 18 seconds of running
Average pace — 8:43
February 6th
After a subpar mileage day yesterday, I needed a big day today. A morning 5k with my dog and a decent pre-dinner 10k has me feeling better about the weekend. After 12k yesterday and 15k today, this is the most I’ve run in a while.
February 5th
Really cold out and truly not feeling well. I wish I was able to have run more — a second run or even more mileage on this one run would have me feeling better about it, but that’s not the case. 12k done.
February 4th
I should have run more in the afternoon as I only ran 6k in the morning. It was nice out and that helped, but it got nasty out in the afternoon and I bagged the idea of running twice.
February 3rd
This was a really decent run — it was warm out and slightly drizzling. It helped that I was running with a co-worker. That always makes the miles go by faster. 8k done!
February 2nd
Not off to a good start. When I planned this out, I was hoping Wednesday would be a big mileage day. So far, that is definitely not going to happen. I went to bed not feeling good, so I didn’t run in the morning.
After work, I got an easy 5k run done before picking up my daughter from the bus, then had to wait a few minutes getting her ready before another 5k with her in the stroller. I definitely lost steam and had to walk a bit. But 10k is done!
February 1st
The first day of a challenge is always a bit exciting and nervous all wrapped into one. At the last minute, my plans to run after work turned into needing to run before work. Since these morning runs will be longer than my typical morning jog, I had to get up a few minutes earlier. 5:25 up, 5:58 out the door.
7 kilometers — a little more than 4.5 miles — through the neighborhood and then 10 minutes of strength training before heading to work.
Originally published at http://trainwithmarc.com on February 9, 2022.
