repost from my blog at www.icanrunaminute.com
Yesterday morning my weekly Thursday weigh-in put me at 241.6 which I believe might be the lowest weight I've recorded since I started taking measurements in January of 2014. For the record I've uploaded all three of my weekly weigh-ins to my About Dr Scott tab, all of 2014, the first half of 2015 and what I have so far of the second half of 2015.
My average weight for this month is now standing at 243 which represents a good change from the previous month's average of 248. I'm not sure if I've talked about this too much but I see getting overly emotional about the scale changes as more of a symptom of a problem. Hitting my final two weigh-ins of July in the 240s will be a good success and a final average in the low 240s or under 245 will be another success.
about 18 1/2 hours from now I'll be embarking upon another marathon. It's about a 5 1/2 drive to get to this marathon so I'll be leaving home within the next 5 hours or so. I will have to get some sleep in before midnight tonight otherwise I'll find myself in mile 20+ of a marathon 24 hours from now after being awake for 24 hours straight.
I'm in a Running Group on facebook called July Fun Pick One 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100?. It's a name that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue and the name of the month switches with every month but it's been extremely helpful with my running. The premise of the group is simple, everybody picks a mileage amount at the beginning of the month they want to hit for that month then post their runs everyday along with how they are progressing towards their monthly goal.
for me, it's 62/100 which means I've gotten in 62 out of 100 miles for the month of July. It's probably the most inspirational group I've ever been a part of.
I've learned about Run Streaks from that group, simply running every day. There is an organization called the United States Running Streak Association (USRSA) (http://www.runeveryday.com/) and they maintain an active (and retired) list of everybody's run streak on on their Official USA Active Running Streak List. The top two people on that list have run every day for the past 45+ years. There are 106 people on that list who have been running daily for over 20 years.
We have one guy in our facebook group, Marvin, who is on a quest for 1,000 days straight and another really nice guy from Arkansas who will be on his 199th day straight today. I decided to try a run streak for the month of July so I'm at a 16 day streak right now and, I have to say, I've been getting some pretty favorable results. It only takes a run of any pace, of at least 1 mile to maintain a run streak. I've been noting my Streak with an extra notation on my Instagram post with RSD16 which stands for Run Streak Day 16.
Partly, it's a mental game. The time required to cover a mile isn't much - scarcely over 1% of a person's day even for the slowest of people.
Hitting the road and running or walking for even an hour is only about 4% of a person's day but, I prefer to look at it as having 96% of my day SuperCharged. Giving myself 96% of a day that is going to be more productive and happy. There's no guarantee everything is going to be great throughout a day of life given a run but I do believe there is an enhanced propensity for things in life to be better, to see things through a clearer lens and, should things be bad, to help lessen and soften those blows and allow a person to be able to better handle tough times.
This Run Streak notion also goes back to a book I read through in high school called Red Gold - that Soviet Training book and it mentioned doing something everyday regardless of what it is - I've given the example they gave in the book of touching a light bulb everyday so, it can be something innocuous. Some of the best attempts I had with this type of psychological training has been with games in the past. Last year, I had a 152 day streak with a website called duolingo.com which I used to help study the German language. Sometime in August that website is slated to have Russian available which I'm also interested in so I may start another streak with that language.
A running streak though... now we're getting into something abundantly useful and pragmatic.
Speaking of streaks - there is something called VEDA coming up which stands for VLOG Everyday in August and VEDA is also used for April as well. I've created a new channel on YouTube called i can run a minute to use for this new VLOGging venture. I still want to beef up the teaching videos I have on my regular YouTube page but, it does take a certain skill set to put up a video and I have been learning a lot lately.
The administrator of the Slow Runner's Club on facebook is a guy that goes by the name of Zen Runner and he is hosting a group of us in yet another group called ZENVEDA. He's expanded the VEDA concept to also include blogging and podcast as well as VLOGs.
Well, it's time to focus and take control of this brain of mine. A few hours of work and last minute prep, as well as a quick one mile run to keep my run streak alive is all that's between me and a quick trip to Livingston, Tennessee.