we're going streaking

it's been a helluva run - literally

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A bit of housekeeping. You may have noticed this newsletter hits your inbox on Mondays now.  We believe that Mondays are best as they are the proper start to the week.  And just like kathekon means “proper function”, we felt that we should reflect that in the timing of this newsletter.  Properly.

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When I set out to write this week’s newsletter, the intent was for it to be about an active one-or-more-miles-per-day run streak that was to hit 600 last Thursday and what it continues to teach me with runs 601, 602, etc. Alas, that is no longer the case. This is about a streak that is no more and how I’ve learned even more about commitment, encouragement, accountability and foolishness as a result. 

I’ve been known to dabble in streaks in the past.  I mentioned in my last newsletter that I spent a whole month where my only alcoholic beverage I allowed myself to imbibe was Brooklyn Lager. I went vegan for four years (and told everyone about it).  And as a way to combine doing something and not doing something, a half dozen or so years ago, I created a Do/Not Do challenge.  On the first of the month pick something to do everyday, and something not to do, and do/not do it every day for the entire month. At first it was 100 push-ups a day/no alcohol (again, with the alcohol). Then it was read every night/no Starbucks. And on the third, and final month, it was run everyday/no taxis. 

And it kind of worked. I stretched the run streak to 40 days including an attempt to run around the perimeter of Manhattan (got lost in Harlem, somehow ran the same hill twice, and bonked after 27 miles) and learned that I could go without alcohol for a solid stretch.  But in reality, the do/not do challenge approach was not a success.  I had a few ideas as to what went wrong, but I wasn’t invested in solving it at the time, so my streaking days - other than the occasional Dry January (I made it to March 18th once, capped off with a Pliny the Elder) - went into hibernation (which when you think about it, is a streak of sorts).

But that changed after a casual conversation with a colleague.  Let’s call him Mr. 665-and-counting-if-he-got-a-run-in-today.  At the time, he was known as Mr. 56-and-counting, having started a run streak almost two months prior and he mentioned it to me.  For those who don’t know the official run streak rules, it really has just two steps:

• Day 1: Run 1+ mile(s). 

• Day 2+: Repeat day one.

With Labor Day coming up, I committed to starting a run streak of my own on September 2nd with the goal of getting to triple digits. As it turned out, I went to OrangeTheory on September 1st where we ran more than a mile.  When I set out that Monday, I was already a day ahead of schedule.

When one intends to start a streak (or habit, for that matter) - to go from not doing something consistently to doing something everyday - that first day is held up to a higher standard. I’ll start eating right...tomorrow.  I’ll stop drinking...tomorrow.  I’ll start writing in my journal...tomorrow. It’s brutal. I beat the system without realizing it. By starting on day two, it didn’t carry the mental weight we normally give the start of a new streak. So when thinking of a streak, I found the key was to fuck tomorrow, fuck today, start your streak yesterday. Sure it may be cheating, but I bet if you looked at your yesterday, you’d find a few things that if you did today, you’d be happier that tomorrow would be day three if you did it again. 

As I started checking off the boxes that first week, I noticed something. If day two represented ½ of my run streak to that point, day three, ⅓. day four, ¼, it stood to reason that each day was ½, ⅓, ¼, as hard to maintain the streak as the day before.  Today’s run would always be 1/nth as hard as yesterday. Momentum is huge when it comes to maintaining streaks. And while, as a math major, I can admit to some faulty logic here, the mental boost this gave me was necessary and significant. It felt like running downhill.

Now when I said “checking off the boxes” I didn’t mean that literally - at least not technically. What I should have said was “blacking out the boxes” as that’s exactly what I did in my Bullet Journal as part of my monthly habit tracker. I started using the Bullet Journal Method in 2017 after reading about the open-source productivity approach pioneered by Ryder Carroll. While a future newsletter will dive deeper into how it’s been nothing short of life-altering, the simple act of filling in the boxes, everyday, served as an accountability mirror projecting back my progress in simple shades of Blackwing 602 grays and off-white grids in my Leuchtturm1917.

My Accountability Mirror - June 2020

Continuing the importance of accountability, I cannot underestimate the power of community that kept my streak alive. Community was found in following Mr. 665-and-counting on Strava, encouraging his progress as he encouraged mine.  I was never going to catch him, but that was part of the magic of trailing in his wake.  If he could make it to day 100, maybe I could, too. I found community in my fellow I.D.I.O.T.S.¹ group chat, who checked in to see how the streak was coming along and fostered camaraderie in our fitness pursuits. 

I also found community in a local running group, NewRo Runners, about a month before the streak started.  Despite having run cross country and track in high school, and the power of those social connections forged, I became a solo-running zealot who refused to join a running group through most of my thirties.  To rephrase Mikey in Goonies, out there it was my time. But that changed when I remembered singing Bohemian Rhapsody during a team fartlek - Swedish for “speed play” - from senior year in high school. Humans are social creatures and my running would no longer be an exception to that.  That is until COVID-19 hit.

I started running alone again. Without the commute to work, I was able to rack up morning mileage.  The daily 3-4 miles quickly increased to 8-10 mile trail runs before homeschooling kids (note to teachers: you are vastly underpaid); 30 mile weeks turned to 40, and I peaked in May 2020 with 221.2 miles, the most I ever ran in a month. But like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun as I experienced my first niggle: a sore Achilles (pardon the mixed Greek references). June 2020 started with one-mile runs: long enough to keep the streak alive, short enough to slowly recover.  And it worked.  My mileage crept back up. Months of 150 miles became the norm again. I started training for a winter 5k time trial as additional motivation. I found a fellow runner on the track who was using the same training plan.  I started running two-a-days, was getting stronger and faster and still felt great.

And wouldn’t you know, Murphy’s Law struck: I twisted my right ankle walking the kids home from the school bus. The streak had become so much of my identity that my literal first thought was:

Oh fuck - my streak.

Walking gingerly back home, I cursed myself for being distracted by my phone when I should have been watching where I was going, or at least engaged in a conversation with my kids.  But I knew the way back: compression, ice, and the bare minimum mile.  And it worked, again. The mileage crept back up, I ran the 5k time trial at the local track only 20 seconds slower than my goal, and I found more community with a running group who ran the trails at Rockefeller State Preserve.  I truly felt like nothing was going to prevent me from getting that comma (1,000 days in a row) - a body in motion stays in motion. 

That is, until it doesn’t.  

My streak ended with a whoosh, a whimper, and a whisper. A whoosh: bombing down a hill in Rockefeller State Preserve at a sub-6:00 mile, a smile on my face the day before my right shin pain started - pain I hadn’t had since high school. A whimper: two weeks of the bare minimum hoping it would lower the mileage enough to keep the streak alive and heal up - it didn’t this time. A whisper: my body telling me to take some rest and doing so - after not listening to the twisted right ankle that likely led to that same shin working harder, and getting hurt in the process.

My run streak lasted for 599 days - 4% of my life. Sure, it led to the best blood work of my life, provided me with identity, reminded me of the power of community, taught me to push through the tough moments, and allowed me cover the most mileage in my life. But I became mindlessly wedded to continuing the streak.  In Self-Reliance², Emerson said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, philosophers and divines.” I was foolishly consistent to tacking on another day to the streak at the expense of my overall health.

A good run. Or 599.

So what’s next?  First, I may take the injury as a sign to cross-train more: to start riding my bike, to swim, now that the weather is nice.  Second, I will always be a streaker³.  It’s in my nature.  With that, I plan on focusing more on my daily yoga practice, and continuing my 40+ words a day, every day, both born on January 1, and I will continue my daily meditation practice which is approaching a year - but with a more deliberate, intentional, and mindful approach. And running wasn’t even my longest streak: my HR/HRV data streak is approaching 700 days and I don’t plan to stop that anytime soon (though admittedly, my only part in that is making sure my WHOOP is charged every few days).  But who would have guessed that the streak I’m most proud of is one that involves not doing something everyday, and that streak stands at 573 as of yesterday. But more on that later.

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Let’s be Frank (the Tank). It’s your turn to go streaking (to the quad).

What is one streak that you’ve always wanted to start, which you can start today? Even better, what streak did you start yesterday that you can continue today? Tell us about your new streak in the comments.

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We’re building a community, connection by connection, and we need your help bringing this project to others.  

1. More in a future article, but in the mean time, please reach out if interested in joining us.

2. As an affiliate of Bookshop.org (read: they are not Amazon), project kathekon will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. You’ll also help a local independent bookstore in your community.

3. In some ways, my streak really didn’t end. My streak lives on in its father: watching Mr. 665-by-now-and-counting’s pursuit of his comma. And its progeny lives on as I watch my fellow RivertownRunner, Mike, go for a full year, when he can officially count himself as a “streaker”