a streak happily broken

With the Runner's World Holiday Run Streak currently underway, runners all across the country are making the pledge to run at least one mile every day between Thanksgiving and New Year's; I myself am among those attempting the 35 day challenge. I've gone on a streak a few times in my running career, and every time I've done one, whether long or short, I've always found it exciting to feel the tensions mount as the desire to not break the streak grows stronger with each passing day. Despite the benefits and the fun challenge that a running streak can provide though, there is one streak that I was very happy to break at this year's turkey trot on Thanksgiving morning.

As I mentioned before, I have run the same turkey trot around Rockland Lake near my hometown in New York for the past six years, and due to some combination of failing to properly train and requiring more effort to experience fitness gains these days, my finishing time has gotten slower each year. I knew that I was better prepared for the distance than I had been in the past few years though, but I had been running my training runs slowly and I wasn't feeling very confident in being able to post a faster time. I was fully prepared to just cruise through the race and celebrate the fact that I would be able to complete the distance without injuring myself, but as my friend and I were standing at the starting line, I told him about the downward trend in our times and he became committed to ending the streak right then and there.

We ran the first mile fairly slowly to warm up, but from there, my overly determined running buddy began pulling me along and steadily increasing the pace. We were running each mile faster than the one before it, and by the final mile I was really struggling to keep up. The pace was becoming more and more unsustainable, and just when I wanted to slow down most, we rounded the corner into the final stretch. The seconds on the clock ticked by, but I knew if I just held on a little bit longer the streak would be broken.

We ended up completing the 5 mile course and triumphantly crossing the finish line in 48:11, just about three minutes faster than our time from the previous year. With the streak of slower finishes finally meeting its demise, it seems only logical that the goal be to flip the trend. I'm sure a streak in which I get faster each year won't last nearly as long as the one where I got slower, but here's to a faster trot in 2014.