The End of a Streak

I stopped running last Friday.

After 1564 days, I reached a point where it didn’t work in my life. I was on vacation with the family, we’d skied all day, it was late, kids were hungry, and I needed to cook some dinner. I was thinking to take 20 minutes out of the late afternoon and run, but the hotel where we had booked a week didn’t have a exercise room. It was icy outside, which felt too dangerous to me for a run there.

I  could have driven over to a local health club, but interrupting every afternoon, especially when I’d worked hard on the mountain, just didn’t seem worth it. Delaying dinner was even a worse idea, to me. So I made the decision to stop, and move on with life. I knew this streak would end in 2013 with a week long scout trip on a sailboat, so I was prepared.

Putting aside my streak, I went to the store, bought groceries, cooked dinner and called it an easy night with the family.

And I was OK with it. It felt a little weird not to run, but I was tired from skiing and my body didn’t miss the exertion. The rest of the week I skiied hard, not worrying about saving anything for a run and enjoyed the time off. As of today, it’s been 6 days since I’ve run, though I’ll run today.

I was 234 on the active streak list that day, and ending at 1564 puts me at #114 on the retired list. I sent in my note today that I was done.

I may start another one, but not right now. I do want to aim for exercise every day, but I’d like to try a few new things. My wife has wanted to try hot yoga, and I’d like to give that a go. I am aiming for some swimming, more weight lifting, and perhaps even back into martial arts along with the skiing, baseball, volleyball, and of course, running.