I’ve Run Every Day for Five Years (A Study in Momentum)

by Jason Patera
November 24, 2021

[update: I broke my streak on February 15, 2022, after 1,910 consecutive days of running, to have brain surgery.]

[update #2: After 51 days away from The Run, I’m back at it. Thursday, April 7, 2022 was Day #1 of a new streak.]

[update #3: Still at it — New Year’s Eve 2024 will be Day 1,000.]

On November 23, 2016, my friend Kristan posed a challenge to the athletes she was coaching: run every day from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. I responded the way I typically do when my friends propose some ill-advised yet epic-sounding feat of endurance: “I’m in.” (To be fair, when Kristan isn’t around, *I* am usually the idiot friend hatching dumb plans.)

I had been fascinated with the idea of streaks since training my piano students to practice every day in the early 2000’s, usually with phenomenal results. And when a local hero told our run club about her own years-long running streak, I knew it was only a matter of time before I tried to start my own.

The first 10 days were the hardest. I had never run more than three or four days in a row, and the novelty wore off a single cold mile into Day Two. I’m not a good runner, and anyone who sees my form wonders out loud how I’ve never been injured, or how I could possibly enjoy something I’m clearly so bad at. But I ground my way through those first ten days, and then the next ten, and then the next ten.

Eliminating the question “will I run today?” neutralizes the seductive power of the couch, and after a month or so, getting out the door no longer required willpower. By New Year’s Day 2017, I had run 39 straight days, and I never considered stopping. I made some rules* and just kept running.

Tuesday, November 23, 2021, was Day 1,826 — five straight years. Like those of my piano students, my streak has taken on a life of its own.

On some days the Streak has been an accomplishment I’m proud of: a reminder to myself that I can do hard things, or that I don’t need to “feel like it” in order to get something done. It’s a ritual, and a celebration of discipline, of fitness, and consistency. 

On some days, the Run is a meditation: an hour (or afternoon) without screens, a communing with nature, or a visit with a city that I love so much. It’s a time to think about work, or life, or about nothing at all.

Some days the Run is a social event: ticking off miles with people I love deeply, talking about bikes (or books or band names or fuzzy cats or sharks), how this ice is definitely not dangerous, and how we’re absolutely not running all the way to Damen. (We ran all the way to Damen.) On other days, it’s all about glorious solitude.

There have been times I’ve tried to use the Streak as a punishment, or self flagellation. I often look in the mirror and hate how I look (or on really dark days, who I am), and I’ve sometimes laced up with the intention to hurt myself, to make myself suffer. It rarely works out that way, though: the Run usually ends up making hard times more bearable. (The Run’s mood-regulating forces work both ways: on days when my ego embarrassingly outsizes even the most generous appraisal of my accomplishments, the Run is a ruthlessly effective humbling force.)

Looking back, a handful of memories from the Streak come to mind:

1.
I almost missed Day 554. It was the night before my first 100-mile ultramarathon, and I almost just… forgot. Work that day had been brutal, and by the time Ben Dicke and I got to the hotel in Wisconsin, the Streak was the farthest thing from my mind. I was already in bed when I remembered, and I accidentally woke up Ben on my way out the door at midnight. “Uh, sorry man. I, uh, just gotta go do something real quick.”

I’ve often wondered if that little stunt contributed to the meltdown I had in my race the next day.

2.
During the streak, I’ve completed two 100-milers, my sixth Ironman, and a bunch of marathons and half-Ironmans. But some of the best runs were DIY quests: looking for artwork in Pilsen, to the top of Mount Hunger in VT, over the Ravenel Bridge (and back again) in SC, an abandoned smallpox hospital in NYC, and several long runs in questionable conditions right here at home.

3.
WGN News once cruelly called me “Chicago’s Forrest Gump.” Todd told me that there are worse movie characters I could be compared to. “Oh yeah?” I said. “Name one.” He couldn’t.

While I’m faking my annoyance with that news anchor, my emotions about hecklers (usually drunk assholes on Randolph or Michigan) are real. I’ve rarely been strong enough to just “let it go” and not let them ruin my night, and I’ve not been shy about turning around and confronting jerks.

4.
The most extreme temperatures came within six months of each other: -22º (-49º wind chill) on 1/30/19, and 97º (108º heat index) on 7/20/19. (That -22º day didn’t feel nearly as cold as the torrential rain at the Live Grit “Grit and Run It 5k” in December 2018, and every July day in Charleston feels like it’s 100º.)

5.
There have been plenty of “garbage miles” on the Streak, but two really bad days come to mind: the day after my first 100-miler, and the day that I ate some bad chicken at Whole Foods. I came pretty close to puking in Mary Bartelme Park both of those days.

6.
Some of the best days have been when I joined friends on their own epic adventures: at the Chicago Kids’ Triathlon (helping kids cross symbolic finish lines that are far more important than any literal ones); up and down the lakefront; through the trails of Palos Woods; through the streets of Kenosha, Miami, Columbus, Indianapolis, Benton Harbor, and Madison; raising money for people without homes by racking up treadmill miles; on repeated 10k out-and-backs in Crystal Lake; in the mountains of Colorado; on the hills and beaches (and “stairs”) of San Francisco Bay; and along the coast of Panama City Beach.

I often say that “the novelty of achievement wears off shockingly fast.” That is certainly the case here. Over the years, I have discovered that the Run is not an achievement, but a process; it’s not a goal, but a system. The Streak is not a destination — it’s a journey. Always. I’ll be ready for Day 1,827 tomorrow.

The numbers:

  • 1,826 days

  • 6,907 miles (averaging ~3.8 miles per day)

  • 23 pairs of shoes (including 20 pairs of Brooks Adrenalines)

*After a few weeks, the rules began to fall into place:

  • Stopping the Streak requires at least one day of advance planning: the decision to stop the Streak cannot be made day-of.

  • The minimum distance is 1 mile (though in some months it’s been as much as 3.1, was 2 miles in 2020, and was 2.25 miles in 2021).

  • I ran at least 100 miles a month for the first 50 months. I broke that streak in February 2021.

  • After the first few months of the streak, I decided that all runs must be outside.

  • The Run doesn’t have to happen before midnight, but it must happen before I go to bed. (I’m a night owl, and I’ve done plenty of 2am runs.)

  • If I stay up all night (something I tend to several times a year, if not more), the Run has to be complete before sunrise.

  • I’m allowed to walk during a run if I need to, but a walk for its own sake (as in walking to work) doesn’t count.