Lucky 13 Challenge

Early last month I was thinking over some of my running challenges and thought, "I have yet to run 13 half marathons in 13 consecutive days". Moreover, if I was to do that and start on the first of a month, I would finish on the 13th of that month and if that day was a Friday - Friday the Thirteenth - I could call it the "Lucky 13 Challenge". Then I thought, what's the next time we get a Friday the Thirteenth ... and then I realized, it was this December - 3 weeks away. So much for training ...

So on December 1, 2024, I started - 13.1 miles. Then on the second, I ran 13.1 miles. Then on the third, I ran 13.1 miles. And on, and on ...

I had no doubt I would complete 3 to 4 days, I had done that back-to-back volume in previous challenges. I also thought if I could finish the first week - 7 days, more than halfway through - I could gut out the rest barring an unforeseen injury. And as expected, days 1 through 4 added compounding soreness to my legs.

What I didn't expect was that finishing day 4 and through the rest of the challenge, the soreness disapated and I was feeling no soreness or stiffness just hours after finishing each day's run. The body adapted to this new normal. Running every day (since 2016) was normal, this volume wasn't, but it quickly became so.

And my times got quicker. I wasn't running any personal bests here; this was slow zone-2 pace, but consistently quicker. There were some challenges: snow one day, and a bomb-cyclone on the 11th caused some slow downs and re-routing; but all-in-all, this was a lot easier than I had anticipated.

What's next?