Amy Lu's View

I’m smack in the middle of “40 Days of Awesome.” For a variety of reasons (perhaps for a later post) I’m feeling much less than awesome right now, but the 20^th Day of Awesome still requires a blog post.

“40 Days of Awesome” is a running challenge issued by Runner’s World to run at least a mile for 40 days from Thanksgiving 2017 through New Year’s Day 2018 (https://www.runnersworld.com/rwrunstreak). I’m not sure what the significance of 40 is (beside Lenten associations) but it’s pretty cool that this year it happens to be 40 days from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. And today, the half-way point, is the start of Hanukkah. Whoa, that’s a lot of cosmic calendar celebratory convergence action going on there.

I’m happy to say that I have successfully completed the first half of the challenge, and have run at least a mile every day for 20 days. In fact, I’ve run 106.9 miles over the last 20 days, which is an average of 5.34 miles per day.

Running a mile every day for 40 days isn’t actually that hard in light of all the running I’ve been doing, except that it’s pretty challenging given the weather at this time of year. I got off to a great start, as Thanksgiving weekend was perfect for running and I ran just over 21 miles over the 4 day weekend. But in general, I suck at winter weather running. Not only am I not a fan of cold weather, I’m scared of falling when it’s icy (and dark).

Luckily, indoor running also counts for the challenge, so it’s been off to the gym for me. Ugh. Running on the track or the treadmill is SO boring.

I’ve never run on a treadmill much. I did 10 miles a couple of years ago before my first 10 mile race and it almost killed me. But I decided to give the “dreadmill” another chance, and I can confidently say I still think it’s worse than track running. Perhaps it’s because I have to pay enough attention to not fall off.

This is also a good time of year for running on the track, because the gym is usually quiet enough that I don’t have to worry about running around, in my opinion, totally clueless and rude walkers who are walking three abreast. Yeah, I may suffer a tiny big from track rage. The upside is at least being irritated is mildly entertaining.

Indoor running is so tedious that some days I can only handle a couple of miles (supplemented by working out on an elliptical or other machine). At one point I harbored the fantasy that I could complete 200 miles in 40 days, but that means I would still have to run 4.65 miles a day and I just don’t think I have that mental fortitude. Plus, unless the weather really cooperates, running is going to be really tough over Christmas when we’re visiting relatives.

So, I’ve done a lot of bitching about this 40 day challenge and made it sound anything but awesome. Then why am I doing it? It’s probably mostly because of ego, and I like having a goal. And I got to join a Facebook group. I also really like tracking and counting things and holidays. I even figured out that if I did 48 Days of Awesome for my 48^th birthday, it would start on Martin Luther King Day.

I think I’m also better at challenges that involve doing things rather than giving up things. I don’t see myself participating in a Dry January any time soon. Although I’ve yet to successfully complete a 30 Days of Gratitude. It’s not that I’m not grateful…in fact I get overwhelmed by what to pick each day (that doesn’t involve eating or drinking). Maybe I like the 40 Days of Awesome because it has such set parameters. Perhaps next year I should try 30 Days of Gratitude but limit it to eating and drinking.

Or maybe I like 40 Days of Awesome because I’m a child of the 70’s and this challenge is being cleverly marketed as “streaking.” I’m pretty sure this running challenge is as close to a streaking as I’ll ever get.