100 days and #dailymission

I started posting today's daily mission in  Dailymile, when I realized that I was writing my fitness story. So I thought this would be the perfect first post on this blog as today is my 100th day of my running streak... read on: 

 #Dailymission  If you didn't grow up fit, what was the tipping point that brought you into a life a running/biking/swimming/moving?

I did not grow unfit, but gradually lost fitness and gained weight. I tried so many sports growing up. I played basketball in elementary school and was a member of the school team until I was sidelined for a year in 6th grade with a torn ACL from the vault at gymnastics. I got into javelin in secondary school. I addition, I played soccer all those years. I joined a local amateur soccer league in college and I also became a gym rat and I lifted weights, a lot of weights, 6-days-a-week. Lou Ferrigno and Arnold were my idols. I got back into basketball pick-up games and mini-football (soccer 7-a-side) after college and eventually joined a bowling league.  The problem with bowling was that our league was a Pub-league so there was a lot of drinking.

I was finally inspired by my brother and I got involved into running. I loved big races but hated training. After volunteering for 2 years for the Virginia Beach Rock N Roll Half Marathon and Shamrock, I decided to sign up for races. For the next three years I ran the VB RnR Half, Shamrock 8k and Monument Avenue 10K ...did I say that I liked big races? I didn’t see the point of training or running small races. I just liked the party atmosphere.

... and then it happened. I was in Richmond in the spring 2010 for the Monument Avenue 10K and my brother  Chris coerced me into signing up for the full Richmond Marathon. He then said that a full marathon is a big deal and I needed to train, thus I needed a Dailymile account. I set-up my DM account that day and started training the following Monday. At first it was the gym and 30 minute TM sessions until I had my first training run outside. It was a 9.32-miler  and it wasn't particularly hard. I was committed to the cause. I trained hard for a couple of months until I sprained my left MCL and was sidelined. I kept my endurance up with long rides on the bike. I took PT and came back and was ready for a 4:30-4:45 marathon. It did not happen. I went out too fast with a PR at the half with 2:23, but then had to crawl to finish the second half in 3:02 for a 5:25 finish. Not a big deal, I was already signed up for 2 more marathons in 2011, Shamrock and Richmond.

2011 started on a sour note as I broke my toe on January 1st when I slipped down the stairs at home and was sidelined for several weeks. I managed to come back by March and was able to run the Shamrock marathon with a little modification in my running shoe. The toe never healed completely but the pain was gone and I was able to run. The summer of 2011 was great and I did a few races with my daughter who was here for summer vacation from her university studies in Dundee Scotland. I finished 2011 with 30  races, but I only ran 850 miles for the year... didn’t I say that I prefer racing from running? Those 30 races included 3 marathons (Shamrock, Medoc Mountain Trail and Richmond), 2 half marathons, several other shorter races and my first ultra marathon, a 50K in December,

Which brings us to my running streak. It started right before Thanksgiving when I saw an article in Runners World about attempting a running streak between Thanksgiving and New Year’s day.  My job has an annual challenge during the holidays called “Maintain Don’t Gain” with the goal to maintain your weight and not gain anything between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. So I saw it as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Running every day and not gain any weight. And it started… and it carried on… I was planning to quit it on January 1st but I didn’t. I then thought that I could take it to January 7th to include the Armenian and Russian Christmas and probably stop at 50 days… but I continued..  not sure why… and today I hit 100 days… and I don’t know when will I stop.  It may be tomorrow, or next week or after Shamrock or after Knoxville since I am running a second full marathon 2 weeks after Shamrock… I just don’t know… But there is one think I know for sure: I will not run every day for the rest of my life! Ha! Ha!

Here are some statistics from the streak:

• 100 days of running
• 428 miles, 30 miles per week, 4.28 miles per day
• 689 KM, 48K per week, 6.88K per day
• 8 races: 5K, 5K, 10K, 10M, 20K, 25K, 30K, 50K
• 100 racing miles or 161 racing kilometers