Last year, I ran a mile every day from Thanksgiving until New Years. You can read about it here. This was challenging adventure and something I am planning on undertaking again this year.
The biggest thing to note before you start is that this is hard. The first two days or so are fun. Maybe even the third day. By day five you're kicking yourself (except not really because your legs hurt). What I found more interesting about the challenge was how different I felt about it each day. Some days I loved running. Some days I hated it. But because I refused to give myself an out, it didn't matter how I felt. I had to run anyway. It was a good experience because I was pretty no-excuses about the whole thing.
Perhaps the best part though was how good I felt on January 1st. It's not like I dropped a bunch of weight over those six weeks. It's not like I gained a ton of muscle. But I got outside and moved around every day and I felt like I was able to start 2012 with a clear head and an established habit for being active. My schedule has been all over the place this fall, and so I am looking forward to getting a similar feeling at the start of next year.
So consider this your invitation. It's not fancy and it's not formal. Just sign up for the challenge mentally and embrace it fully. (Or pick a different staying active challenge that works better for your body and your own schedule.) I will be documenting my progress on Instagram again this season with the hashtag #mileaday. Taking those photos of my feet in different spots was probably the most fun part of the whole thing, so it makes sense (for me) to do it that way again. Please feel free to use the hashtag and document it the same way if that works for you.
Happy running.
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