The Extra Mile

What was I thinking? 

A Streak?

Forty-one days of consecutive running? One hundred miles in a month? Injury-prone me with the lingering specter of vice-grip hips?

I didn't think. I just did it.

I told myself it didn't matter. I could stop at any time.

Of course, it didn't matter that All My Friends were doing it. However, I didn't need the hard sell or peer pressure to sign on. I only needed one mile a day at any speed I could muster.

One mile is a tiny investment. 

It is a walk to the Post Office and back.

Four circles of the High School's track. 

Two times around the block and only 10 to 12 minutes of my time, depending on a typical average of variables. For instance, previous day distances are divided by today's index of heat and humidity and multiplied by the desire to be somewhere else ... for a little while.

It becomes a habit, similar to brushing your teeth or feeding your dog or tidying up the kitchen. 

Only it's not like a chore ... it's just a thing you do ... because.

Except, unlike brushing teeth or feeding fido, you can get out of this game at any time. 

But it's not a game; it's a matrix.

You take your mile up a hill and back down.

You sprint from fire hydrants to telephone poles and jog three or four mailboxes.

You may add on a little, here and there.

Or you may subtract when your knees start to creak or groan.

Soon you find yourself watching numbers tick past you on a spreadsheet, showing you how you got to where you are right now: 10 miles on Sunday, one mile on Monday, two-mile Tuesdays, 3, 4, 7, 5, 9, 3, 2, 1, 5, 8, 3, 7, 2, 1, 1, 1 ...

"I could keep this up forever," I start to think over-confidently. Telling myself that listening to my body will keep me from overusing it.

Then the 42nd day comes. Goal reached: Memorial Day until the Fourth of July. One-hundred-forty-eight miles in total.

Do I really need to continue?

Haven't I noticed that familiar (but unwelcome) guest, Pain poking around?

Did Heat and Humidity invite him to his party? It feels like four-thousand degrees.

I can be done.

"You can't be done," said my daughter in horror. "How can you be done?"

You'd think I'd told her I was quitting my job and letting all her dishes pile up in the sink.

"I think I am done," I typed into the ether.

"You could be done," a friend typed back by way of reply. "Or you could take 37 laps around your pool and keep the streak going one more day." 

"Just Do IT," yelled my youngest, treading water in the center of the deep end.

So I did: In 11 minutes and 12 seconds, I ran the mile while the kids showered me in encouragement (mostly with Super Soakers), ringing cowbells and hollering "Go, Runner!"

It may have taken 54 laps, but this was the best mile so far.

Maybe tomorrow I'll quit going that extra mile.