Wednesday, December 1, 2010

#PushMike Anniversary

This was a strangely special anniversary in my running life.

A year ago there was a challenge going 'round on dailymile: Run 110 miles in the month of December. Anne M. (Munkwitz and/or @bananza) sent me the invite. Was I up to this task?! Probably not, but on December 1, 2009 I headed out the door on a cold morning and ran 4 miles. I remember it was 4 because I was proud to have "banked" about an extra half mile that day [I think it had to average 3.5 miles per day to get to 110].

After a few days of running I thought, how can I make this more fun and more motivating? I came up with the #PushMike idea - if my friends stayed on me and pushed me, when I reached 110 miles, I would buy $110 of beer and soda (well, mostly beer) and throw a party. [Read the text of the original post here: http://tosabeat.blogspot.com/2009/12/free-beer.html See pictures from the bash here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mrcollins58/PushMikePartyPictures?authkey=Gv1sRgCICfy9Oim-q-XA&feat=directlink].

Well I got to 110 and we had the party, and oh what a party it was. I think I undid all the healthy running that I did in December in just one night, but it sure was fun getting to that point. The #PushMike concept worked perfectly and it was fun to get daily motivation from my Twitter and Dailymile friends. A year later, I still love see the hashtag #PushAnne #PushAmy #PushSanchez or #PushAnybody.

Thanks to super-duper human bean Anne Munkwitz for being the instigator of this fun challenge. Anne, 'til we run together again... your pal, Mike :)

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