I just ended a 704 day running streak.
Congratulations? Well, not really. But not for the reason you’re thinking.
I shouldn’t have let the streak go that long. That’s the biggest lesson from this streak.
Just like last time I had a long (even longer actually) streak, I’m going to share what I learned from this. The list of what I learned might be even shorter than last time, just as the streak was.
I don’t like Garmin’s relatively new “streak” metric
I believe some time late last year, Garmin Connect started telling me how long my streak was. Bad idea. I think that helped the streak get to my head. I wish Garmin would remove this or at least give us the option to remove this.
If you’ve noticed this, try ignoring it. If you haven’t, don’t go looking for it.
Even if you don’t think of yourself as a streaker, it gets in your head
This is a big lesson for me and one I intend to guard against in the future. I should have taken some time off a month or so before I finally ended up doing so. While I deep down knew that was the right thing, I had Garmin telling me I’m close to 700 days. I’m sure there was some subconscious “just get to 700” push there. I don’t know if I would have taken a few days off when I should have without that streak on my mind but I think it would have been more likely.
I still dislike the idea of planned days off without a need
If you have a track record of needing days off, this is a different story. However, some of us have proven ourselves durable enough that we don’t need them as a part of the plan.
I have more appreciation for planned days off, though
Maybe, as I get older, I do need days off. Maybe not. I’m going to experiment a bit and find out. However, if taking at least a very occasional day off prevents that streak from getting in my head, that would be worth it.
No matter how much you know what you “should” do, it can be hard to actually do it
One of my daughter’s friends made me realize what I was doing when I was informed that she told her dad I wasn’t following my own advice. As I talked with her about this, I realized how ridiculous my arguments for not taking a day off were. This is when I realized I needed to take some time off. I can’t thank her enough for calling me out and for her dad telling me that she did. They saved me from myself.
The moral of the story here is that advice that can be easy to give can be much harder to follow. This is human nature and it’s obviously something I need to work on. I know I’m not alone in needing to work on this. If you tend to not always follow your own advice, look hard at what you’re doing and why.