9+ Years of Daily Running

As another summer draws to a close, I complete another year of running every day .. 9 years now. That's over 100 months, over 3,300 days, and conservatively estimating .. over 10,000 miles.

During that time, I've:

• run in the morning
• run at night
• run in the midday sun
• run by the light of the moon

I've literally run every hour of the day, completing a "run 1 mile every hour on the hour for 24 hours" challenge; starting at 4am on a Friday and finishing around 3:15am Saturday morning.

I've run in some weather:

• a blizzard (or two)
• a hurricane (or two: Elsa, Henri)
• 100+ degrees F
• -10 degree F wind chills
• +30 degree F temperature swings with 90+% humidity .. in the same day! (Wapack and Back 2014)

I've been met on the side of the road while running in a flood-gate-open downpour and asked if I wanted a ride home. My response: "No thanks, I won't have to shower when I get home."

I've never used a treadmill or run inside during this run streak:

• running at crazy early hours before travel flights
• running midday in a small town in some mid-Atlantic state while my family had lunch on a car ride to Florida
• running laps on the promenade deck of a cruise ship during days at sea on the way to / from Bermuda

I've completed some challenges:

• 5K for 5 days in a row
• 10K for 10 days in a row, actually, I did a full month of 10Ks (300km in a month)
• Lucky 13: 13 half marathons in 13 days ending on Friday the 13th
• a half month of half marathons
• Multi-day Marathon Mayhem (which distance-wise covers the Disney Goofy and Dopey challenges)
• Goggins Challenge

And a few other distance and ultra-distance events during these years.

I've run border-to-border across a few states:

• Rhode Island
• New Hampshire

I've seen some wildlife:

• all sorts of woodland creatures from chipmunk and squirrel to fox, skunk and woodchuck
• face-to-face with a deer in Massasoit State Park and countless other whitetails in the surrounding woods
• a lone coyote, and a group of 3 on separate occasions
• a black bear in Vermont

I consider myself a dog person and dogs generally like me, but I've been bitten by three separate dogs on three separate occasions during this run streak.

I've run injured:

• twisted ankles (usually from trail mishaps)
• cuts, scrapes, gashes and bruises (usually from trail mishaps)
• a broken hand, in a cast, in December (I elastic-banded a wool hat over the cast as a glove)
• run on the same day as having the stomach bug (a painfully slow mile between retching guts)
• run on the day after minor surgery
• run with COVID, twice

I even ran everyday through a month-long battle with "walking" pneumonia, which I thought was pretty ironic.

I've run through a lot of clothes and shoes:

• mostly Asics at the beginning
• sometimes barefoot
• lately, and currently, Hokas
• rarely with long leg pants - always shorts, even in winter

Though I still have and use my 2005 Reach the Beach Relay shirt.

I've run through a lot of foreign places:

• Rome
• Curacao
• Iceland
• Paris
• Barcelona
• Niagara Falls

And that's just within the last year.

I think it's safe to say I enjoy running. I learned at least with this endeavor to enjoy the journey. I'm still trying to practice that in other aspects of my life.

Here's to another year .. 10 is a nice round number.