Hitting Pause

A little over 300 miles into this year's #5keveryday running streak I made the hard decision to hit pause for a few days to heal a sudden ankle injury; thereby tossing aside my consecutive run streak at 92 days.

What a bummer.

Pro: I was smart enough to listen to my body – actually, I didn't even need to “listen” per se, the slight tear of my left medial soleus muscle showed up immediately as a bruise below my medial malleolus – in other words, I had some blood pooling under my ‘ankle bone' that wasn't from an impact, rather a pull/sprain. Basically, I rolled my ankle as I was pushing/pulling our ADV.FIT warped wall for a Ninja Kid's Camp and spent 2 days hobbling around while my mobility lessened and pain worsened.

Con: After running at least 3.1 miles every day for 3 months, it totally sucks to not run every day – it felt like my schedule was out of whack, I was a bit more anxious than usual while feeling rather blah and unmotivated.

Running Rome

A few of the most memorable runs of my life happened during month 3 of #5keveryday; running around Rome was awe-inspiring, dozens of loops around the jogging track on Disney Magic as we sailed along the French Riviera, and I even became fond of the treadmills that were perched right in the front of the ship giving a “king of the world” Titanic-like feel to each run. Aside from a pair of Oofos flip-flops, the only running shoes I brought were Inov8 RoadClaw 275, and they were the perfect pair for 10-12 miles of walking and sightseeing in Rome, Amalfi, Nice, Monaco, Barcelona and a couple more ports during the trip while still logging a 5k later each night. While I'm sure it was a bit annoying to my family and travel companions to modify all our plans for a mandatory half-hour run, I was rather thrilled to make it through the vacation and keep the streak alive… I didn't realize how soon afterward I'd be forced to break it.

Round 2 (or 3?)

Today, just 5 days after breaking the streak, I was able to lace up my go-to RoadClaws, and knock out a comfortable (read-as “slow”) 5k loop around the neighborhood with no ankle pain. My knees didn't seem all that thrilled to be back in action after a 4-day holiday weekend, but they stopped feeling like cement mixers by mile 2.

My ‘Streak', My Rules

Although the first 90 days of my #5keveryday no longer ‘count' toward a consecutive running streak, those 309 miles still count toward my goal of 1200 miles from 4/1/19 to 3/31/20, and I'm planning to slowly make up for the 15 miles I lost while recovering and catch back up to 100 miles for July without overdoing it.

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