I’m not especially proud of it. I’d hoped to continue my streak, but the week of November 9 I had a hell of time. First of all, the weather was beyond tolerable. I actually ran on November 10 - or started to, at least - but the wind that day was 70mph. Seventy miles per hour! This is England, isn’t it? After five minutes of basically running on the spot I turned around and went back home.

I’d planned to try again later that same day but found myself instead spending several hours with my bank manager trying to track down my lost salary cheque. I was beyond broke at this stage and when the cheque was finally located and cleared it was after 5pm. The wind had not ceased.

I figured losing one day wasn’t the end of the world; sure, the streak was over, but it was pretty much unavoidable on that day. I’d just pick myself up the next day and start over.

This was also my birthday week. Whilst out celebrating with my brother - and any sentence that starts that way never ends well - I took a nasty tumble whilst not paying much attention to my feet (somewhat ironically) and ended up smashing my face up pretty badly. This left me somewhat dazed for 48 hours or so. Running was not advisable.

So: my streak came to a crashing end at 161 days and 627.41 miles.

I can make all the excuses in the world: I didn’t get it done. All things considered, I didn’t run 365.

It’s still a pretty good effort. A good innings, if you will. But it’s also a disappointment, inasmuch as when I began this all those months ago I assumed at the time it was a done deal. That simply because I had started I would finish.

What I hadn’t factored in was the Great British Weather, which on my return from the USA just got worse and worse each week.

And I also hadn’t given any consideration to the fact that having to run each and every day would eventually cause me to start to loathe running. It became a chore: an irritant. Pretty much every day in the last 3-4 weeks was a miserable experience, often compounded by the bad weather. It was like a job you hated. You knew you had to do it, and that made it worse.

I  haven’t ran since day 161. And to be honest, it’s been pretty great. A massive relief. It had become, as said, work. I’d gone from absolutely loving my runs to absolutely hating them.

I wouldn’t advise anybody to do this, but maybe someone will go out there and document a year-long streak. It’s something that I think needs to be done. Just not by me. Many fellow runners warned me off from attempting such a challenge. Turns out they were right!

Will I run again? Definitely. Will it be anytime soon? Probably not. I might get out there from time to time but I’m in no rush. It’s back to the gym for me, I think, and the cosy confines of the treadmill, four walls and a roof. Sure, it’s a pretty dull workout, but there’s only so many days in a row you can come home freezing cold and soaked to the skin before you start to question your own sanity.

I’d like to give a big thank you to all the people who supported me over the last five months or so, and for all your great comments and ideas.

I wish you the best of luck with your own endeavours. I won’t be posting on this blog again (outside of the comments area where appropriate), but will leave it open for the foreseeable future. I didn’t get the job done -while I hate saying stuff like this, I failed - but I gave it a pretty good go.

All the best,

Sheamus

Still, that’s 160 days in the bag now. When I look at the numbers it’s an incentive to keep going, and thus far I’ve still managed to wear shorts for each and every run. That won’t last for much longer, though.

The last week’s splits (days 154 through 160):

I’ve continued to be a minimalist runner, often out of time restraints but mostly because the weather is pretty awful. It’s consistently in the low 40s now, often with icy rain, and the wind has been as much as 35mph, which makes for a really unpleasant workout. I’m getting slightly concerned about what I’m going to do if I wake up one day to a severe frost, or even snow. I think almost inevitably I’m going to have to finish some of this on a treadmill.

Still, it’s been enough to get me past the 600 mile point!

Sunday, October 26 through Saturday, November 1

Sunday, October 19 through Saturday, October 25 *

* There’s some overlap here with my previous update but rest assured I haven’t added the mileage to my total twice.

Since then, however, the weather has taken a turn for the worse and while it’s not winter yet - the temperate has typically been in the mid-to-low 50s each day - the wind has once again returned in force. Thursday’s forecast suggests it’s going to reach 35mph - wonderful!

I’ve also been having some problems with my Garmin watch - my laptop crashed on October 14 and I completely lost the data for that day. I knew approximately what I had done but there’s no official split there, which is quite irritating as I’ve got every day covered so far. I guess these things happen, but still: annoying. Since then, the connection between my Garmin and the antenna that links it to the laptop has been extremely flaky, refusing to work most days without endless reboots and stopping and re-starting of the software. I’m not sure what’s happened, to be honest.

Here are my splits since last time:

Today:

Yesterday:

Sunday, October 12 through Saturday, October 18:

Saturday, October 11:

Conversely, when the sun is very much with hat on, a 3-4 mile run becomes something to look forward to, as opposed to just another obstacle in your day.

Splits:

I also finally remembered to update my online running log.

Don’t worry, though - I’ve still been running every day. I just haven’t been blogging every day. I’ll be aiming to rectify that as soon as I get more settled. Right now, I’m finding myself somewhere between excitement and uncertainty over my new career venture, as there are still a few wrinkles there (some of them more like Grand Canyons) that need to be ironed out.

I’ve still been keeping my runs in the 20-30 minute window. Partly because of time restraints, partly because the weather has been, for the most part, really, really hideous in the UK of late, and partly because I’m still not ‘there’ mentally yet. Back there, that is. My motivation is better than it was 10 days ago, say - although when it was pouring with rain constantly last week I did struggle - but still a long way short of where it was in the middle of the summer. I’m confident it will eventually return, although I must admit that I’m not looking forward to taking on the winter weather. Unless it’s very mild - and my gut feeling says we have 3-4 months of wind and rain on the cards, so that seems unlikely - there’s a good chance I’ll end up doing a high percentage of my winter workouts on a treadmill.

Anyway, here are my splits for the past seven days:

Today (Thursday, October 9)

Yesterday (Wednesday, October 8 )

Tuesday, October 7

Monday, October 6

Sunday, October 5

Saturday, October 4

Friday, October 3

So, I decided to tackle some hills.

I don’t run many inclines, which is odd as it’s something I neither mind nor do I find enormously difficult. My biomechanics seem to adapt well to running uphill in particular. I’m less comfortable, perhaps oddly to non-runners, going down, certainly anything steep - it really can mash-up your quadriceps.

The hills in my hometown are notoriously steep and, indeed, plentiful - you’re really quite lucky to be finding yourself on any flat roads outside of the beachfront (which, naturally, is why it’s the running haunt of choice for most athletes) - so for probably 80% of my run I was going either up or down, usually on inclines or declines that were pretty severe. Still, it felt good and was one of the better runs I’ve had in recent times.

Splits:

This week is going to see my lowest mileage probably since my first week, but that’s okay - I definitely, absolutely and totally, without a shadow of a doubt, needed to take my foot off of the accelerator.

Don’t worry - I’ve been running every day, albeit in a very minimalist sense. My enthusiasm is yet to return, a circumstance not aided by some pretty nasty weather here in the UK. It’s sunny most days but the wind is getting up to the levels I had to endure a few weeks ago, and it’s all decidedly unpleasant.

I’m going to keep sticking to all doing these 20-30 minute runs until I feel motivated to push a bit further. Right now, anything much beyond that just doesn’t appeal. I’m usually squeezing my runs into my day as it is and while it’s always better when I get them done early, that isn’t always possible.

Anyway, here are the last four days worth of splits:

Today:

Yesterday (Tuesday, September 30)

Monday (September 29)

Sunday (September 28)

Well, I did just over three miles today, but that number became pretty important, as it moved me over the 500-mile total since all this began. That’s right - five hundred miles have now been logged in 118 days of running. That’s not too bad at all - it’s pretty quick, for starters, and all things being equal puts me above the 1500-mile mark when the full 365 days are complete.

My average for that 500, incidentally, is 8:04. It also means I’ve logged 400 miles or so with my Saucony trainers and they’ve definitely not got the support they had way back when.

It’s a nice slice of sunshine on an otherwise pretty miserable week.

Cheers for all your positive comments and well-wishes guys - means a lot. I’ll bounce back, because that’s what I do. But as a few of you have said, I definitely burnt myself out. In an ideal world, as Blaine suggested, I would take a day or two off, but that isn’t really going to work here. So it’s simply a question of getting back to basics and learning to enjoy my runs again. It’s definitely been better the last couple of days - getting out earlier has helped there a lot, but I’m going to think about some alternative run routes, too.

Today’s splits:

And running earlier in the day - even if it was still as late as 11:30am - gets it all done and dusted and stops life getting in the way from that point forward. From now on, wherever possible, I’m always going to try and get my run done as early as I can.

Splits: