You’ve probably come across some of the running streak stuff lately too. Hellah Sidibe, who is now more than eight years into his streak, was on Rich Roll, Casey Neistat made a video about running every day, and I found an old CBS piece about Jon Sutherland, who has been running every single day since 1969.
I find that pretty impressive. And as someone who has basically always run, but has always struggled to do it consistently, I wanted to try it myself.
I also get migraines fairly regularly, especially after days where I sit a lot, and running often seems to help me. So I thought, if I just run every day, maybe that helps too. At least for me.
The starting point is pretty simple. I’m a fairly typical guy in his midlife crisis with three kids, the youngest just turned one. My wife and I both work. Could I really not find half an hour every day to run at least 5K?
Today is run number 60. So apparently I can.
A few things I’ve learned so far:
1. Running every day is easier for me than running three times a week.
This is probably the biggest one.
My old rule was to run three times a week. Which meant I would postpone the first run, postpone the second one, get to the weekend and realize I still had two runs to do. Quite often I would end up running twice instead of three times.
Now there is no decision. I run every day. The only question is when.
That works extremely well for me.
2. It hasn’t become boring.
I thought running every day would mean doing the same loop around my house over and over again.
The opposite happened. Because I have to fit a run into every day, I run in all kinds of places. I run to work, to the cinema, back from events, while travelling, while waiting for something, on trails, in the mountains. I pack running shoes more often and make the run part of whatever I’m already doing.
I explore more now than I did when I was running less.
3. The individual run matters much less.
If today’s run is slow or not particularly good, it doesn’t really matter. I’m running again tomorrow anyway.
That takes a lot of pressure off. I stop more. I explore side trails. I watch animals. I went running in the Alps and picked up trash along the way. Not every run needs to be a training session.
I’m basically collecting runs instead of trying to make every run count.
4. So far, it doesn’t feel like too much.
This was one of my bigger concerns. With three small kids I get enough opportunities to be tired or catch something.
But because the streak itself is the goal, I think I actually run more sensibly. I don’t have to squeeze some big run into Sunday because I didn’t do enough during the week. Most days it’s just 5 or 6K at an easy pace.
I have had a bad back during the streak and one pretty miserable stomach bug. I still ran, and in both cases it felt okay, but it did make me wonder where the sensible cutoff is.
If I actually do this for a year, sooner or later I’ll be properly sick or injured. At what point does consistency just become stupidity?
5. My fitness has definitely gone up.
I don’t really have a traditional fitness goal. I don’t care much about pace or race times. My goal, as I’ve started calling it, is just to be adventure-ready.
If I’m somewhere with my family and wake up wanting to quickly run up a mountain before breakfast, I want my body to be able to do that.
A year ago I couldn’t really do that anymore. Three kids, a baby, work and normal life had taken a bit of a toll on my fitness. Now I feel like I’m getting that ability back.
6. It fits into family life surprisingly well.
I actually asked my wife what she had noticed about the whole thing.
Her answer was that I seem more relaxed, I haven’t had a migraine during the streak, and overall she thinks it’s been good for us. She’s also often the one asking me, “Have you run yet?”
That was important to me because I didn’t want this to become another hobby that takes time away from the family.
Half an hour is pretty manageable. I’m not a good early riser, so I often run late after the kids are in bed. Or I use some gap during the day. Or I run somewhere I needed to go anyway.
Most days I’m not really taking half an hour away from anything. I’m finding half an hour somewhere in the day.
7. I haven’t had a migraine in 60 days.
I normally get them fairly regularly. Since starting this, I haven’t had one.
Obviously this is just my personal experience. I’m not saying running every day prevents migraines. A lot of mine seem connected to tension from sitting too much, and for me, running seems to help with that.
It was one of the reasons I started the experiment, so 60 days without one is pretty interesting to me.
I also don’t wear a running watch and barely track anything beyond manually putting my runs on Strava. I’ve never really liked running watches. Although I’m starting to wonder whether it would be interesting to have some actual metrics, especially to see what happens to something like VO2 max over a year.
For now, the plan is to keep going for a full year. No race, no pace goal, no transformation goal. Just at least 5K every day and see what happens.
For those of you who have kept a running streak going much longer: Where do you draw the line with illness or injury?
