It’s unlikely that you’ve been following any of the specific news emerging from my little corner of the world, but as of midnight tonight we go into yet another wave of increased pandemic restrictions.
My region is considered one of the world’s COVID hotspots because … um, human stubbornness.
I had spent last week trying to rebuild some of the stamina I’d lost over the last fourteen months.
I find when the yardstick by which I measure these things, my ability to keep up with my running crewmates, measures up short there are a couple efforts I can make to quantitatively improve.
One of those efforts is a running streak: run every day for a set number of days. Daily running pushes the body in mysterious ways to react and adapt, and somewhere in between burning oneself out and a string of epic training runs there is a gradual increase in endurance.
So I ran a streak last week.
I ran seven days in a row, running every day no matter the weather or how I was feeling, and somewhere between exhausted burnout and that epic feeling of accomplishing something, I think I moved my stamina a wee bit.
Tho those runs were mostly solo. Alone. Because not everyone wants to run a streak.
This morning I had that chance to again compare myself to my yardstick as the crew and I (all vaccinated) ran a casual ten kilometers through the river valley. Just five of us. Trails. Sunshine. Fresh air. And a hot coffee at the end.
Yet like a finish line, it is the end … at least for a few more weeks.
No more meet ups.
No more group runs.
No more running crew.
That streak training improved my speed but what I think I might have really been training for was solo running again, this time for three weeks or until this third wave washes by and we can run together again.
Deep breath. Here we go.