When the Good Outweighs the Bad: Highs and Lows of Almost 6 Years of Running Every Day

Running every day for almost 6 years provided me with a lot of opportunities for highlights and lowlights. But to be honest, the vast majority of the days were just a simple run around my neighborhood in the early morning. Usually done before 8am, showered and starting work shortly after. The routine nature of so many of the days, while enjoyable in their own way, made the special days just that – special.

I’ve talked a lot about specific highlights and lowlights in past blog posts. Those are days that I will never forget, whether for good or bad reasons.

In this post, though, I want to focus on more general highlights and lowlights of my running streak.

Highlights:

Improving in EverY Distance

Before my streak started, I had run 5 marathons and several half marathons. And I was satisfied enough with the times that I had run up until that point. But after seeing and feeling the progress that I was making after the first few months of running every day, I decided that I wanted to start taking part in some races again.

My first race after starting my running streak was about 6 months into it. I ran the 2018 San Francisco half marathon in 1:28:37, which was 13 minutes faster than my previous best half marathon time. But more important than the time was the confidence boost that it provided. It was proof that everything I had been doing was working. And it gave me the impetus to keep going on the same path.

Then, in 2019, after another year plus of running every day, it felt like a good time to take on the marathon again. After my last marathon in 2009, I was more than happy with my time of 4:11 and honestly thought I was done with marathons for good. But the confidence of feeling stronger and faster than I ever had, gave me the feeling that I should try the marathon again and see what I could do.

So, back I went to the West Coast. Seattle this time – for the 2019 Rock ‘n’ Roll Seattle Marathon. I finished in a time of 3:29:25, cutting more than 40 minutes off my previous best time. And left there feeling that I could still do even better – doing just that in Munich later that year (3:25:51) and again in Philadelphia in 2021 (3:21:11) after 2 race-cancelled years.

Over the course of my streak, I achieved a new personal best time in every distance from 5k to marathon. From a purely numbers standpoint, this is probably the aspect of my running streak that I’m most proud of.

Running in Faraway Places

And if my personal best times weren’t highlight enough, I achieved most of them during trips that I built around the races. As I mentioned, I went to San Francisco, Seattle and Munich, but during the streak I also went to Copenhagen, Utah, Arizona, England and Scotland to run in some great events/races. While the races were all mostly great, just as good were the days surrounding race day. On the day or days before the race, I would run a shakeout run and imagine what it would feel like on race day. Then, the day after the race, while on my run (sometimes re-running the last mile or miles of the race route), I would replay what went right or wrong the day before.

In some cases, these are the days that I remember even more fondly then the races themselves because there was no glitz or glamour (or medal or t-shirt) around them – just me and my running shoes (and maybe a running friend) running in a new or different place.

Meeting New People

As someone who was and is exclusively a solo runner, this might seem like a strange highlight. I grew up playing team sports, but once I started running I was perfectly happy to do it by myself. Between connecting with so many people on Instagram and through this blog, I had the opportunity to meet and run with runners both near and far.

Yes, this could have been done even if I wasn’t on a running streak, but I don’t think I would have been as active on Instagram or started this blog without the streak because I wouldn’t have felt like I had anything valuable to share.

Meeting new people has probably been the overall highlight of my streak. 

I count many of the people I met and ran with during my streak among my best friends and can’t wait to link up again for some more running!

Now that my running streak is over, I’m still hoping to have more and more experiences like these.

But as you know, with the good sometimes comes the bad…

Lowlights

Self-inflicted guilt or stress

The guilty feeling or putting too much pressure on myself if I didn’t have a good run or didn’t feel like I ran enough on a given day. Since my approach was very much a day-to-day approach, I didn’t give myself much, if any, leeway when it came to distance or effort that I put into a run. I think this might have caused a few periods of mental burnout and/or cumulative fatigue that affected recovery and my ability to be 100% at times.

This was probably at it’s worst during Covid ‘lockdown’ when I intentionally tried to increase the distances I was running since there were no races to train for.

Impending Doom

As I mentioned in my last post, the only way the streak could have ended was through something medical or health related. After a few hundred days of the streak, I knew in my mind that I could never make the decision on my own to just end it. Knowing that it would be something medical sometimes filled me with dread of what might happen to cause me not to run. Or if I felt an ache or a pain, I sometimes thought ‘is this what will end my streak?’

Fortunately, when I ended the streak because of my kidney stone, it was over relatively quick and I was able to start running again right after!

Performance Plateau

Maybe this one was inevitable. You might be reading this thinking ‘of course – this was bound to happen.’ But in the bubble of running every day, I think sometimes I struggled to see that starting in year 4, everything started to level off. I still ran some great races in times that I will always be proud of, but over the last 2 years or so, I don’t think I was making noticeable improvements over time. 

Honestly, it’s easier for me to see that now, but living in the moment I stubbornly thought that I could continue to run every day and continue to take minutes off my personal best race times.

Having taken the time now to look back at all of the highlights and lowlights, I don’t think that I would change anything about my running streak though.

The good far outweighed the bad and I think that’s how I will always remember it.

Keep a look out for the 3rd and final part of my Streak End blog posts, where I will share what I learned over the course of my streak – about running and about myself. I’ll also close it out with a list of my favorite running things from during the streak.

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Previous Posts referenced in today’s post:

• Unexpectedly Expected
• RunPatRun Race Series – Part 3: Favorite Race – Rock ‘n’ Roll San Francisco 1/2 Marathon
• RunPatRun Race Series – Part 10: 2019 Munich Marathon
• Streaking Highlights
• For Streak’s Sake: 1,700 Days and Counting
• Streaking: Why It’s Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be (Sometimes)
• Streaking Struggles