Running: 50 days and 50 nights

Actually that title should be 50 days or 50 nights. For the last 50 days I’ve run at least 2 miles each day, and up to 6 on more ambitious days. Some of those have occurred with the sun up, some in the evening, and at least once I started after 11 p.m.

This bad habit started on a lark after reading an article about a guy who’s run at least a mile daily, for 40 years. That kind of achievement takes a certain obsession. As one of the handful of folks in the 40 year club puts it, “What we’re doing is not a mark of intelligence.”

Run #50 was a 5k run on the course where my son had just finished his cross country season. I ran and won the self-declared “open race” at the end of the day. No one else got the message, which is why I won (I led “wire to wire”). Unfortunately I fell 6 seconds short of my target, finishing in 25:05. Now I can spend a long time agonizing about how I could have picked up a few seconds here and there.

Here’s a short photo-highlights of my running journey, as seen through the eyes of my shoes. The runs usually start with this rather sharp uphill, which I always walk.

Once that’s over, the run begins. The number of routes available keeps increasing. But most of them take me past a retirement home, which posts daily advertisements. Another sign boasts that this place (off to the right of the photo) has the best food in town. Well, among retirement homes.

Sometimes I treat myself to the Lake Hills Connector — currently the longest uphill on any of my routes. The location in the next picture occurs after a steady uphill, which turns to this despairing view. But don’t worry, around the corner to the right up at the top … is more uphill! The upside, of course, is that what goes up gets to then run down. For the survivors.

Finally, here’s another fun hill on a different route. In addition to the rough terrain on the narrow path, there is that barrier to avoid bumping into while working around the occasional creeping blackberry plant crossing the path. And the sudden drop-offs that open up occasionally, a couple feet to the left of the path. There’s a major cross-country freeway just off to the right of the photo.

Well, every day on this streak is a new personal world record for those of us who set easy-to-achieve personal records and then make them sound dramatic. I don’t know if I can handle much more of that drama. Maybe 50 is enough?

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