On August 7th, 2012, Barack Obama was still in his first term as President. The Avengers was playing in movie theaters. Bitcoin was trading under $10. And I went for a 1.1 mile run.
Ten years ago, my wife and I were training for our first half marathon. We had been running sporadically over the years (her more than me) in the lead up to a local mud run, but nothing remotely close to consistently. We were out for a hike and somehow the discussion of run streaks came up. We had each independently stumbled upon articles about them recently and thought it sounded like something fun to try. The goal was to make it a month. I ran in the mornings, her in the afternoons. After 30 days, my wife decided that was enough for her. I thought, maybe I can make it 2 straight months. . .
Well, I haven’t stopped since.
This is the part where I downplay my accomplishment and mention my runs aren’t anything to write home about (internet, sure). They haven’t all been quick runs. Some have been shuffles. And most days will have short walk breaks tossed in even if I’m only doing a mile. It’s probably more accurate to call this a movement streak than a run streak.
My total mileage over ten years comes to 20,539 miles or 5.6 miles per day. I typically do the bare minimum of 1.1 miles at least twice a week as a “rest” day. I’ll up this to three or four days if I’m tapering into or recovering from a race. My highest mileage weeks will still have at least one rest day. Heck, the last time I went seven straight days without a one miler was October 2020. I credit the length of my run streak mostly to my liberal use of 1 milers in my training. Less for the physical aspects as the mental ones. At this point, my body can readily handle 3-4 miles a day at an easy pace. Mentally though there’s a big difference between a 40 minutes per day commitment and 10 minute one. These little breaks let me get out the door every morning without ever having to stress about continuing my streak. At this point, it’s just a part of my life.
I have no idea how long I will be able to maintain the streak. I’m locked in and really enjoy my daily run so the end point will probably be an injury. I don’t do a lot of hard workouts, but you never know when something will just pop. Or I fall down and hurt myself. Random stuff just happens after all. Hopefully, I’ve got another 10 years left in me.