100 Days of Stupid: Day 1-8

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business"

-T.S. Eliot

"Try not. Do or do not. There is no try."

-Yoda

Blatantly ripping off an idea from Inspired by an old PCHS classmate's goal of practicing her musical art for 100 straight days, last week I decided to attempt the goal of 100 straight days of workouts.

In part I do this because I don't plan on doing any other major races this year; the Wildman will likely have been it for me this year. Now I don't race to win, there are plenty of people faster, younger, and/or more motivated than myself, plus I am fundamentally too lazy to train enough to win anything. I race because it forces me to prepare to race and preparing to race injects some healthy struggle into life -- If you think struggle is all bad then I weep for you. I'm doing it for other reasons too, some pragmatic some quasi-spiritual, but to talk about those would be either boring or would exceed my daily allotment of philosophical mumbo-jumbo.

So I'm trying to engage in a moderately hard physical activity each day for 100 days in a row. What's a "moderately hard*" activity? For me it would be:

• A road run over 5k
  

• Any track workout totaling 5 miles or more

• A trail run or hike equal to or better than my regular 2.56 mile 1000' vertical climb up Pack Monadnock

• Any mountain bike ride over 15 miles

• Any road ride over 20 miles

• 30 minutes or more of the Ashtanga primary series

* Please, spare me tales of "some guy you know" who has only one leg and ran the Obscurity 200 Nightime Ultra Marathon in January while juggling flaming chainsaws. Unless you are Dean Karnazes, Lance Armstrong, or Chris Sharma, then stuff it, because there is always somebody doing something harder than you :-) If you on the other hand are doing something, then let's hear it!

I'm fairly confident I won't pull this off without some luck and an unhealthy doses or self-deception since I face at least four daunting obstacles:

1. Injury (both my Achilles are creaky these days)
   
2. Vacation (a week at the beach in two weeks...in the middle of which is the Bride's opening)
3. Work (busy as always)
4. Going to the Kingdom Trails this weekend for a long Saturday day ride *and* a night ride. Sunday looks grim.

~~~~~

I had to get several days into this before I wrote about it (in case I fell in a hole on day 2). I've been at it eight days and so far, so good:

Day 1 - 6:

Starting last Monday August 17th I ran my regular run up the Marion Davis trail on Pack Monadnock and then down the access road. The heat and humidity here have been off the charts, with 90F/90% not being uncommon. Still it was pretty easy as I've been doing this regularly for a couple years now. I even managed my third fastest ascent this year on Thursday when the heat wasn't that bad. I'm already feeling cocky, this is going to be too easy!

Day 7:

I was pressed for time so went right out the front door for a 3.5 mile road run. Again the humidity was crushing, but it was easy motivation-wise because I don't want to deal with the self-loathing that ending the streak so early would entail. How long till that well runs dry and I simply don't give a shit?

Day 8: Nicest day so far, so why did I have the hardest time getting out? Somebody said this was going to be easy right? Couldn't face another trip up Pack so I went to the track and warmed up for 2 miles, then ran a hard 3 mile @ 6:32 pace. Sadly it really felt faster, but clearly I am getting old. The brain perceives pain consistent with 6:10 pace, but the legs can't deliver that.