RunKeeper user, Kevin Tofel, has logged a run every day for the past two hundred days!
Every year, like so many others, I make New Year’s resolutions. This is the first year, however, that I’ve kept mine, even though I actually didn’t make the resolution until late in the day on January 1. Each calendar day this year, I’ve run a minimum of one mile in order to maintain a running streak. By the time you read this, I’ll have passed day 200, and will still be going strong. Call me a ‘fitness freak,’ a running fool, or whatever else you want, but I’ve found a daily goal that has helped me tremendously this year, both physically and mentally.
So why a minimum of one mile? I didn’t realize this until several weeks into my streak, but It turns out that there’s an official organization for streakers. No, not *that* kind of streaker; the kind that runs each day! The United States Running Streak Association, founded in 2000, was established to track the running streaks for individuals in this country. Anyone can join the group, but only active streaks of a year or more qualify for listing, based on this definition:
“The official definition of a running streak, as adopted by the United States Running Streak Association, Inc., is to run at least one continuous mile within each calendar day under one’s own body power (without the utilization of any type of health or mechanical aid other than prosthetic devices). Running under one’s own body power can occur on either the roads, a track, over hill and dale, or on a treadmill. Running cannot occur through the use of canes, crutches or banisters, or reliance on pools or aquatic devices to create artificial buoyancy.”
As 2011 becomes 2012, I’ll qualify to be listed alongside some amazing and inspirational people. At the time of this writing, a scant 278 Americans have an officially listed running streak of one mile or more per day, so I’ll be joining an elite club if I keep on running. And nearly 100 of those streakers have been running every day for 20 years or more. The top five runners have streaks exceeding 40 years–which is phenomenal. In fact, the top streaker started a year before I was born. Simply astounding!
No matter how long it lasts, my running streak won’t get me fame or fortune; that’s not why I’m doing this. There are several reasons why I chose to start up a streak earlier this year and why continue to run each day to maintain the streak.
For starters, I’ve had several ‘running careers’ in my life, but always felt that I left something on the table with each one. In 1986, as a high school junior, I was able to run a half mile in 2:01, but never cracked the two-minute barrier as a senior and I stopped running . After taking 12 years off, I half-heartedly trained for a marathon on just 2 or 3 days a week of light running, hoping to crack 3:30 for the 26.2 miles. I ended up running a 3:19 Chicago Marathon in 1999, missing the chance to quality for the prestigious Boston Marathon by 9 minutes. And again, I stopped running.
I did train on and off from 2004 to 2010, but it was always haphazard: I never planned a serious training strategy. And in 2011, this began to show in my races. I usually kick off the year with a New Year’s Day 5k where I grew up. This year, I drove 1.5 hours to the race like I always do and ended up running the slowest 5k in my life at 24:20. While that may sound fast to some, it pales in comparison to when I was breaking 19 minutes a decade prior, and was also more than 2 minutes slower than my time from a year ago. From a racing perspective it was a wake-up call to begin my third comeback as a competitive runner. At age 42, I know I won’t ever be as fast as I was 25 years ago, but I know I’m capable of holding my own within my age group. So as I returned home from my New Year’s Day race, I set a goal to run every day and leave nothing on the table this time around.
The timing of this choice was actually perfect from another perspective as well. In April of 2009, I lost my father suddenly. He was my biggest running supporter, always leaving work to attend all of my track meets and races in high school. In the late 1990’s, he would come to the road races and cheer me on as well. But his untimely passing hit me hard and I came to realize in late 2010 that I was starting to show signs of depression; a full 1.5 years after we lost him.
The obvious course of action was to seek out medical help: either counseling, medication or both. I decided to try a non-obvious approach with my running streak and promised my family that I’d go to the doctor if the daily running wasn’t doing the trick. More than 200 days later, I can safely say it is doing the trick as it provides purpose and exercise for my mind and body.
I log my running streak either manually or automatically in RunKeeper and always share the daily activity on Facebook. This gives me a training log, thanks to the comments I leave, but it also has helped motivate others, which is a fantastic side benefit. I don’t anticipate legions of people starting their own running streak because of me, but if helps get people to exercise, then I’ll call it a win.
It may sound like the streak is simply a part of daily routine and therefore, easy to maintain. On most days, it is. But it has seen its share of challenges too. In January, I was in Las Vegas to cover the Consumer Electronics Show. I had to pass up the many party invites extended to press and hit the sack early. Plus the hotel’s fitness center was closed for repairs. Instead of running on a treadmill, I had to tackle the 45-degree evenings in fleece sleep pants and run a mile or two on the famous Las Vegas Strip at night. If you saw someone in pajamas, dodging people there in January, that was me.
I’ve also had to deal with injuries, and those are the days where I run just an easy mile on my treadmill for the sake of the streak. Healing while still running takes time. And one night, I had a severe headache that was sure to jeopardize the streak. I took some aspirin, went to bed right after dinner and set an alarm for 11:30pm. Eight minutes after waking up, I had my mile run completed and the streak was intact. Oddly, that’s the only time this calendar year I’ve really been sick at all; an unexpected benefit of running every day.
Aside from the mental and overall health benefits, my ‘third career’ as a runner is off to a super solid start after the lackluster 5k performance on January 1. I built up my training miles and ran a half-marathon in March, posting a 1:44:40 time, or just barely under 8 minute miles. Early May brought the well known Broad Street Run 10 miler to Philadelphia, which I cranked through in 1:15:20; a pace of 7:30 per mile. And just last week, I tested my speed on the roads in a 5k and ran my best time in recent memory: 21:22 for a pace of 6:52 per mile. That’s in addition to a return to the track where I took the bronze medal in the half mile for my age group at a USA Track & Field regional Masters meet in late May.
The times, medals and ribbons are all secondary though. Ultimately, the daily running streak holds more importance because it signifies a commitment to myself and my family. And it has helped me meet (at least virtually) many other streakers, thanks to a Facebook group set up for the USA Running Streak Association. But most importantly, for the first time ever in all of my running years, I’m showing a commitment and lack of excuses that I know my father would be proud of.
If he were here and was told I was called a ‘fitness freak,’ he’d probably laugh and say, “It’s about time. Why’d you wait so long?” He’d be right. I don’t know the streak will end, but a co-worker recently asked me how long I plan to keep it going. I told him that at some point, there will come a day when I physically can’t run a mile. My goal is to run one more day after that one.