Lessons learned from seven years of run-streaking

eat your heart out, Haruki Murakami

In the Rocky Mountains, four days before the run streak began. Just a fun-loving, carefree dad with no idea he was going to soon be running every single day for seven years.

I’ve gone on a run every day since July 30, 2019. The shortest runs have been one mile—the days three of my children were born, days I had Covid or the stomach bug and hobbled, hunched over, around the block. The longest was thirty-one miles, or maybe thirty-two, because I don’t think my GPS was picking up all the little turns on the trail I ran that day.

There’s a website for streakers like me to upload their information. I think you probably have to pay a due to be on there. I haven’t. But perusing the list, if I did, I’d be a bit higher than number two thousand. (I’m sure there are many streakers like me who are not included on that list as well.) Big props to Jim Pearson of Marysville, Washington, number one on the list with a 56 year streak, and my fellow Minnesotan, Steve DeBoer of Rochester, number two with 55 years. I’ve clearly got a ways to go.

I should know how many miles I’ve run in that time, but any estimate is a pretty rough figure. Still, I’d ballpark it around 7,000-9,000 miles (I know, that’s a pretty big range, but I told you, I haven’t kept great track). In all that time spent running, I’ve thought a lot, written some songs and scenes and stories, listened to music and books, read a lot of names on gravestones, crossed paths with a bear, a couple coyotes, foxes, many deer, a couple skunks, an owl, lots and lots of roadkill, looked at the same neighborhood streets and black squirrels and houses and cars many many times.

A few thoughts accumulated over those two thousand, five hundred and fifty seven runs.

• You can (almost) always make time for something if it’s important to you. Four in the morning, ten thirty at night, a sprinted mile before heading to the delivery room, a couple miles around a hotel block in sandals because I forgot to pack shoes. I try to keep this regular with prayer—I don’t think I’ve altogether missed a day of prayer in this stretch either—but there aren’t many things I’ve done this regularly. The point is, if you want to do something enough, you’ll make the time to do it, even if it’s not convenient.

• It helps to have other people—even if it’s just one other person—to hold you accountable to something you want to get done. The streak started out as four of us on a $20 bet. Within a few months, there were three of us, then two of us less than a year (I think?) in. The two of us are still in it, and at this point, if he drops out, I think I’ll keep going, but I don’t know. Keeping up with David means a lot to me.

• Audiobooks are great.

• There are ups and downs. This is life. I didn’t actually need to run every day for seven years to learn this, but I have felt it in a physically real way. I’ve gone through stretches of running two miles a day and scraping by, and I’ve gone through seasons of putting up big miles training for big races. I’ve run well and I’ve run poorly. I’ve worn out a lot of shoes.

• Stretching is important.

• Related to the above: getting older is rough. I trained for a marathon this spring and I’ve never had to baby and nurse my legs so much in all my life. It gets hard to take care of an aging body. But it’s important.

• See also: I should have listened to advice about stretching and taking care of myself when I was a lot younger. The rose-hued hubris of youth.

• Running with a friend helps. A lot. Those runs are easier, faster, longer, more enjoyable. When you can do it, find a friend and run together. And you’ll be closer friends because of it.

• I’m sure I have much more to learn, and hope to keep learning it over the next stretch of years, as long as the good Lord and my good wife allow me to keep running.