Streaking with Strangers
I’ve never been a streaker before. Even back in the 1970’s when it seemed lots of people were doing it. So when I heard about a group of people planning to streak in May I decided to join them. We’re all quarantined at home during this pandemic so streaking was a good reason to get outside.
Usually I only run five or six days a week so doing a running streak of 31 days seemed like a good goal. And doing it virtually with a few thousand strangers made it more fun. The Head Goat 50k in May streak was a well organized, friendly, supportive, novel event.
As you read in an earlier post, I’m not a fan of virtual events. But maybe I’m changing my mind about that a little. This group was very active and engaged on its private Facebook page for us streakers. The Head Goat set a theme for each day like crazy hat day, oldest race shirt day, spirit week and more. Although I didn’t participate in most of those it was fun to see and comment on posts from others.
A Personal Goal for the Month
I didn’t set a personal goal other than to complete the streak and run all 31 days in May. A minimum of a mile a day, which is what I did on my rest days. The other days I did my typical schedule of easy days, tempo, speed work and a weekly long run.
My weekly mileage had been about 20-25 miles before this streak but I used the challenge as a reason to increase my weekly mileage to about 30-35 with a high of 39. So, after a 31 day running streak I was pleased to see that I’d run just shy of 160 miles this month.
For some people in this Head Goat group 160 miles is a low monthly total and others haven’t run that much in a year. But that’s one of the fun things about this running streak event, it wasn’t a competition against other runners. It was a personal challenge that each runner set for themselves. I don’t need motivation to run like some people do. I’ll run even when not training for a specific event, but this streak and group got me more engaged and pushed me more than I would have pushed myself. And it gave us all a chance to meet some strangers and become virtual friends for a month while we challenged ourselves and each other.