What I learned from running 100 days straight

What I Learned From
Running 100 Days in a Row

If you follow me on Strava, you may have seen I recently passed 100 days of running at least 1 mile per day

A fun challenge I started for myself inspired by a couple of Evanston Running Club members who have run streaks of >1,800 days (almost 5 years straight!)

I recently got to 100 and I’ve learned a few things:

1. There is always time to run
Running 1 mile can, at most, take 15 minutes. Most of us can run much faster than that. The run streak showed me that there is ALWAYS time to run. Finding 10 minutes is easy. When people say they don’t have time to run or workout, it’s likely because they’re thinking they have to do something relatively grand. It doesn’t have to be. You can literally run 1 mile in 10 minutes and give yourself the win for the day.

2. MORE running doesn’t help with any pain felt while running
Not having a rest day in between runs makes it so that any pain that gets worse with running, doesn’t get a chance to calm down. It’s like trying to put out a fire by adding more wood. It has the opposite effect. I was struggling with shin splints that weren’t bad enough for me to have to stop, but they definitely prevented me from racking up more mileage. As a PT, I know that the only true way to heal any bone stress reactions is rest. As a stubborn man, I was trying to find a way around it. There isn’t. Rest is best.

3. Consistently running makes running feel easy
Somewhere around day 60, running 1 mile felt absolutely effortless. As soon as I picked up into a jog, I was in the zone. Mentally focused and physically in the groove as if I was in the 4th mile of a 10 mile run. The consistency of running every day, made it feel, in some ways, like I was always running. Beginning my run for the day felt like I was just resuming my run from the day before. It felt comfortable and familiar. 

4. Running on a treadmill is easier on the body than running outside
This is actually very obvious and goes without saying. As I was battling the shin splints, on a particularly painful day, I would do my run on the treadmill. Keeping the streak going with my minimum 1 mile. Doing the minimum distance, at a mild intensity, on a treadmill made the continuation of the streak manageable. Totally manageable. Running 1 mile on a treadmill was so easy it almost felt like cheating. But it counts. On my 100th day, when I ran relatively long and intensely the day before, that treadmill mile kept it going. I initially thought that I would do some spectacular run on the 100th day, but the irony was that the treadmill 1 mile was a common occurrence throughout the entirety of my streak and symbolic on my 100th day.

I initially wanted to reach 365 days to say I completed a whole year. But with my shins limiting me, I have been getting bored of running the bare minimum 1 mile on the treadmill in efforts to allow my shins to calm down. So I’m going to stop here at day 104.

I’m looking forward to a strong and productive off season and feel the run streak will actually limit my ability to get the most out of my training.

I greatly admire those who’ve been running, and running hard, for hundreds and thousands of days

Happy runnin

Michael