Reflections on Completing 100+ Miles in 31 days

The company I work with, InterTrend, did an initiative called “Every Step Counts,” where we every mile accumulated was a dollar donated to a charity. I took this as a challenge and decided to see how many miles I could rack up over the course of the month. If you asked me when I started, I would not have said over 100 miles.

Consistency has always been something I’ve strived for but also struggled with at times. I felt this would be a good challenge to practice consistency. One thing I’ve learned is consistent effort, over time, can make a big difference. What I thought consistency looked like was always the same outputs every single time. Same mileage every day. In reality it was consistent effort that moved the needle. There were some days I was not feeling like running at all. I still laced up my shoes and went for a run. It was after I stepped out the door that was all I needed to get the run done. There were days were I channeled my inner Forest Gump and ran all over town. Key takeaway: consistent effort. This is what my results look like, starting from the first day of the challenge, May 4th.

 

Running had a big impact on my sleep quality and my mental health. After runs I’d be sore and sleep like a baby. Also giving me a sense of achievement after each session, I’d usually treat myself to a donut. It helped me iron out ideas and work through trivial challenges. It was in the act of running and over the course of the month, I’ve had some reflections and ideas.

 

I mentioned this earlier and I think it’s worth noting again. Small wins add up over time. Consistent effort compounds. As you can see with my results, I wasn’t doing anything crazy but I made sure to move every single day. This amounted up to over 100 miles. Some days were phenomenal running days and others were doing the best I could for that day. But I made sure to make progress - every single day.

I tracked my miles everyday and it was a good tangible representation of my effort and helped see how close I was to each benchmark. The first was 50 miles, then 75, and once I saw that 100 was in reach, it made me push harder. It helped me stay motivated.

We had a leaderboard via slack and I loved that the office had a tracking system for logging mileage. It was fun to see everyones progress alongside mine and the growth together. It was good conversation and rooting everyone on. Seeing the progress of everyone also motivated me to stay the course. Seeing the numbers some of my coworkers were putting up was inspiring. And being competitive it also pushed me to go further on some runs. A couple of the weeks I ran with a local running group, Downtown Long Beach Runners who run every Wednesday. They have two routes, 5k or 5 miles. Running can sometimes be a solitary activity and being part of a running community provides a strong support system and accountability. I remember running with Dave and we paced the whole 5 mile run.

This was a great source of stress relief and great time for myself to reflect. There were mental benefits to embarking on each run and looked forward to it. There was a sense of achievement and I noticed my mood improved. Running allowed me to ground myself in the present moment, get in tune with my body, and connect with my environment. There were moments of bliss and meditative moments. Finding the rhythm of my breath, the beauty of my surroundings (the beach path, city skyline, beautiful homes in neighborhoods), it encouraged this sense of mindfulness.

I often thought I didn’t have the time to run but carving out 30 minutes here, 45 minutes there, or even a 15 minute jog was enough to get going. For someone whose had ACL surgery and a couple major car accidents, I was worried that it would destroy my knees and back. Other than the normal soreness, it was not too bad.

Here are a few things that helped me: