Last Saturday I ran the third leg of my four race summer tour. It went well. I got a trophy. The event also served as the start date of my latest challenge: running every day in August.

That’s right. I’m strapping on my Asics and hitting the pavement on each of August’s thirty-one glorious days. The plan is pretty basic: run at least one mile every day. On the weekends, I’ll run more. The lone wrinkle to my streak is that I’m counting my Thursday night indoor soccer match as my daily outing since I log at least a mile every time I scamper around the plastic pitch with the other old men.

Why am I putting myself through this experience that is certain to be a long and torturous one? Beats me.

This unfortunate idea came to me few weeks ago as I was thinking about the absurdity of running races on four consecutive weekends. I wasn’t consciously trying to come up with ways to destroy my legs during the hottest month of the year, but that seems to be where I ended up. I tried to shake the notion like it was a bee fluttering around my head. But instead of losing it and leisurely easing into the last month of summer, the idea of streaking persisted and its buzz only grew louder.

My wife did a running streak years ago (between Thanksgiving and New Year’s) and I must confess I thought it was a bit ridiculous. I mean, what’s the point? Who’s going to care if I run ten days in a month or twenty days in a month or every day of the month? Why kill yourself trying to log miles every single day? It’s not like you a get a finisher’s medal or a cool tech shirt for doing it. Hell, you don’t even get free bananas.

In addition to its pointless nature, a running streak just seemed impractical and unrealistic. How could I possibly get in a run each day with all the working and commuting and parenting and beer drinking that’s already taking up my time?

However, as I thought about it more, it occurred to me that while my schedule doesn’t really jive with this kind of stunt running, August was the one month when I might be able to pull it off. Days are warmer, dryer and longer, I’m not training for a half marathons (and therefore not desperate for rest), and, most importantly, the football season has yet to start.

So now that I’ve fully committed to this challenge (i.e. blogged about it) I’m going to focus on the positives in order to see it through. After all, running 31 days in a row will:

• Help me burn off the last of the 8 pounds I gained during my east coast trip in June.
• Be a good lead-in to my fall half marathon training.
• Make the people around me feel like lazy, slothful piles of goo.
• Allow me to rationalize eating lots of brats and deep dish during my Labor Day weekend trip to Chicago.

Will I complete this streak?
Probably.

Will it change my life?
Unlikely.

Will my 41-year-old legs be uncomfortably fatigued until September?
Absolutely.

Wish me luck.