Well, its about time I wrap up a summary to my 30 day runnning challenge. It ended almost a week ago, and now that I have had some time to reflect, here is what I accomplished, what I struggled at, and my end results.
Out of the 30 days of planned running, I completed 22 days to my satisfaction.
My endurance level increased quite a bit, although not to the expectations I had wanted.
I really wanted to get into a better attitude about running, and while I am not there 100%, I do feel that my exercise habit and negativity has greatly diminished. My desire to exercise is becoming more of a need rather then a chore. Its definitely not a habit I would call instilled, but it is progressing that way.
I ran into two very large problems in this challenge that caused my shortfall of days completed. I started off great, with 11 solid days of 100% success. Then I ran into my first problem, chronic headaches. I believe this was caused by my running ‘form’ (or lack there of), possibly causing neck/shoulder strain which was leading to tension headaches. I missed one day to hopefully recover, then had 5 days straight success again.
Even with some modifications to my running, the headaches persisted. I decided to take it easy one day, and skip another to prepare for a large workout one Saturday. I completed the super three hour workout, and then spent almost a week recovering, another obstacle for my challenge completion. Now that I look back, the amount of satisfaction and energy I drew from completing that long workout, probably exceeded what I would have gained through the 4 days of running missed, and another 4-5 days of limited performance.
All in all, even with only 22 out of 30 days truly marked as completed, I feel that this challenge was a success all the same. My attitude towards exercise is improving, and I have made large gains in strength and endurance. Within running itself, I started to find the zone more, and learn to enjoy running for that even if those moments are still fleeting. I also learned some of my limits, best practices, and will be applying those to the next go round. This is still not a well established habit, so I will keep working on consistancy progress in my next 30 day.
