Tuesday, 2/26

It's not official yet, but I think it's pretty safe to say that “The Streak” is about to come to an end.

You may remember "The Streak", that strange little thing where every time I'm running and it's above freezing I wear shorts. It's been going on for 47 months now, since March of 2015, through Decembers and Januarys and even a few Februarys, to boot. Who knew it would take the snowy February of 2019 to finally kill it?

The amazing thing about “The Streak” coming to an end isn't that it was killed by an abnormally cold month; as far as I know, the one way in which February's been average is in temperatures. It hasn't been really cold, but because of the way the systems have been coming in it hasn't been especially warm, either. In fact, it's only been above zero for a few hours this month, and that was this past Friday afternoon when I was at work and couldn't ruin even if I wanted to. And since temps aren't supposed to get anywhere near 20 the next few days, I've come to terms with the fact that “The Streak” is over.

I mean, it's not like it was anything important anyway, right? For whatever bizarre reason temperatures just happen to rise above a certain number on those exact days that I needed them to. If I ran on different days of the week, or if temperatures the one day this past January when it was above zero hadn't happened, we wouldn't even be talking about this. It's almost like one of those streaks a gambler gets on—the cards keep falling your way and keep falling your way and you think you're invincible. Then you bet it all on one hand and you lose it all on one hand.

So my streak was kind of like that, except there was no money involved and a big guy named Guido was standing around waiting for me to pay up.

Because I'm an optimist at heart I fully expect “The Streak” to start again next month. And I'll ride it again as long as I can. I have no idea if it'll go 47 months again. I mean, with the way the climate keeps changing it could go on a lot longer. Or, given the way that climate change seems to be hitting us in the weirdest way possible, may it won't go on at all. I have no idea. I'll just start it again and see where it takes me.

It just won't be THIS streak. So RIP, Streak of 2015-2019. Ye shall be missed.

(jim@wmqt.com), dork