Fast Running Blog

The link will take you to an article on Ron Hill who this week will hit 43 years or 15,696 days in a row of running at least 1 mile. He will also go over 150,000 miles of running in his career this week. So he has averaged 9.55 miles a day for the last 43 years without missing a single day. A pretty good read and amazing that he has run every day when you read some of the things that almost ended his running streak along the way. I guess after awhile it became such a long streak that he could not just let it end. I think the only thing that will stop him is his passing one day and it won't be a surprise if it comes during a run at that.

http://sport.independent.co.uk/general/article3255631.ece (http://sport.independent.co.uk/general/article3255631.ece)

That is amazing. I've stopped keeping track of my streaks. One of my first "bad" injuries came from trying to keep a streak alive. I had that I had to run a minimum of 4-miles per day. The best was I went to Australia during that time. I had to run immediately before going to the airport and then within an hour of landing to get the runs in to both of the days... However, about a month after I returned (I think day 320) my foot started hurting. I made it another 20 days before I gave up on the year go. What other crazy stuff have fellow bloggers done to keep a streak alive?

I strongly agree in rest days and taking a recovery week every 3-4 weeks so I think this is insane.

I hope that guy doesn't end up a cripple.  His muscles have to be pure scar tissue and calcium deposits.  Sasha might beat those miles in 20 years. 

How about longest voluntary streak without running (since becoming a runner)? My PB is somewhere around 50 days (2001).

If you don't count missions (2 years), I once had ~4 months.  6 months without any regular training, but 3-4 months with no runs.

Voluntary? Only two-weeks. But since the injury in 2000, I now agree that breaks are good.

See know thats impressive, I think this take more self discipline than the other.

Josse, As with running too much, taking too much time off could also be "bad." It depends what the motivation is. I agree, not running is the harder of the two for a runner. However, it has to be for the right reason (mental break, physical break, other priorities in life at that point). I think regular time off is key to training, be that once a week to observe the Sabbath or 2-wks off after each key race, to each their own. The addiction that is running is often a scary aspect of it. As in running a mile a day even if you are near death just to say you ran a mile. I was once trapped in that, but now run to stay healthy and get faster. So if my body tells me to take a day off I will. If it tells me to take a week off I will. If it tells me to take a month off, I'll have to have a serious talk with it  :)

Yes Adam I agree my whole point was time off is a good thing and we need to listen to our bodies :)

In 2000 I didn't run one step for 5 months (151 days), with no injury.  That was right after I ran my PRs in the 5K and 10K.  Somebody beat that!

James - you ought to be ashamed instead of proud! :o ::) :P :)

I have no shame! 

Did you actually keep track that is was 151 days?  A true "non-running streak" would have a somewhat fuzzy length.

I looked in my old log after you and Paul mentioned it and counted the days.

I'll take the cake on this one. After the 2000-01 year running at UVSC I had been a very active runner. Then I got married in the summer of 2001 and ran here and there that summer. Then from September 2001 to Feb 2005 I didn't run another step. In that time I gained over 40lbs and the only workouts I  got in that time frame was when I walked when I went golfing and wrestling with the kids at practice.
When I started running again in Feb '05 I couldn't break a 10 min/mile..... I know this is a sorry story.

Superfly, it sounds like you caught obesity there  ;). I'm glad you are on the mend. Marriage or the birth of a child are two things that weaken the immune system and leave one susceptible to this horrible disease  :(. See below for more info on this. (Exert from The Onion)...

The Onion VOLUME 40 ISSUE 2814 JULY 2004   

CHICAGO, IL—In spite of billions of dollars spent and decades of research, scientists at the University of Chicago said Monday that the scientific community is no closer to finding a cure for the potentially fatal disease of obesity.
 
"The obesity epidemic in this country has public-health authorities panicking, and with good reason," said Dr. Seong-Hun Kim, a research associate at the university's department of neurobiology, pharmacology, and physiology. "According to the latest government statistics, 30.6 percent of the adult population and 16.5 percent of children under 19 are obese. As researchers, we feel the same sort of helplessness that many victims of obesity feel."

"Basically, the clock continues to tick as we search for that golden key that will give every American a chance at a healthy, normal life," Kim added.

Many obesity sufferers have expressed frustration over the medical community's inability to cure them.
"I came down with obesity two years after I got married," 41-year-old Oklahoma City resident Fran Torley said. "I know it was hard for my husband to watch me suffer from this disease. When he caught obesity a year later, he got so depressed, he couldn't do anything but sit on the couch. Some days, we sit and watch television from dawn till dusk, hoping for news of a breakthrough."

Kim said he sees no cure on the horizon.
"Each year that we don't have a cure for this dreaded condition, another 300,000 Americans die of obesity-related health problems—hypertension, stroke, heart attack, diabetes," Kim said. "I wish to God there were something I could give these people that would make the obesity go away, but so far, there is no pill that can do that safely and effectively."

Kim said the prescription drugs currently indicated in the treatment of obesity, as well as a host of over-the-counter products, have been shown to produce limited results.

"Even when individuals find success with a certain drug or plan, it often fails to work in the long term," Kim said. "Sometimes, a treatment plan that works for a handful of people will fail to help anyone else. It's very frustrating. As evinced by the widespread nature of the problem, scientists aren't doing enough for these poor overweight people."

Kim's research group has tried to pinpoint the genetic, environmental, and psychological factors that might indicate a susceptibility to obesity.

Above (picture): Obesity sufferer Tammy Bledsoe shops at an Atlanta, GA grocery store.
"For example, we know that obesity tends to run in families," Kim said. "But we have yet to pinpoint exactly what it is that causes, say, the Smith family to splash about their backyard pool blissfully unaffected while, just over the fence, the Jones family languishes 30 percent overweight on their barbecue deck."

Marge Hampton is an obese American who has responded to the epidemic by trying to raise awareness and money for obesity research. In May, Hampton coordinated the Obesity Awareness Five-Mile Fun Ride, which led participants on a motor tour of Chicago's waterfront parks, and she orchestrated an obesity-awareness bake sale last month.

"We used to think obesity was a condition that only affected people with glandular problems, but health officials are now seeing just how widespread the epidemic is," Hampton said. "There's a myth that obese people don't want to change. They do—they just lack the information about how to do it quickly and easily."

Kim's research team has explored preventative measures.
"It would be wonderful if we could find some way to prevent individuals from getting this horrible condition in the first place, perhaps with something akin to a vaccine or a flu shot," Kim said. "We've pursued every avenue—pills, topical creams, nutritional shakes, even holistic cures like vitamin regimens and massage—but nothing has worked."

While others might have been discouraged by failure, Kim has intensified his efforts.
"I'm in the lab day and night," Kim said. "The other researchers will say 'Come have dinner with us,' but I'm so busy that I have to just grab some yogurt from the vending machine. I'm just too busy running over to the research facility on the west side of campus or carrying samples to the lab up on the fourth floor. I've lost 20 pounds since starting this project in January."

Even though he expressed concern about his recent weight loss, Kim said he will continue his work unabated.
"I can't worry about me right now; finding a cure for obesity is far too important," Kim said. "And, honestly, I feel better than I've felt in years. My work, although difficult, is energizing. I can't turn my back on my research while, all around me, Americans are dropping like enormous flies."

Longest voluntary streak of no running since I started (October of 1984) is one skipped day. Longest involuntary streak is 3 days, and that would have been only two if my mother had not told me that if I was too sick to go to school I was too sick to run. However, the entire time I never went for a run just to keep the numbers going. Running became a habit, like eating. Nothing wrong with that. Just like a squirrel, a healthy human should crave regular exercise just like he craves food and water. When you feel tired, you run less and slower if you can, cross-train otherwise.

While it does take discipline to hold your horses when you are not quite ready to train as hard as you would like, it takes no discipline to stop training. Bad habits are easy to get, but hard to live with. Good habits are hard to get, but easy to live with. The habit of regular training is a good habit, do not let anybody confuse you about it.

P.S. I love it how science, or rather media around science, creates correlations at times. Clearly, the negative change in eating and exercise habits is the driver of obesity, not marriage and the birth of children. Otherwise, Sarah and I would be very very fat! My other pet peeve is the overpopulation of the earth due to high birth rate. Clearly, it is the failure to raise a population capable of supporting itself that is the issue, not the size of it.

Clyde,
You do take the cake.  I at least would run about two months out of the summer and get so I could make a marathon in 2:50, during my 4 years off.  I put on weight to, but alot of it was muscle because I lifted weights a lot. 

Adam,
If Clyde put on 40 pounds I don't think you could consider it obesity.  He probably only weighed 185lbs.!

Sasha- for all your talk about wanting to improve your structural flaws, I find it absolutely amazing that you have been running for so long and have never had to take time off for an injury.  I would dare say that you may be the only high-mileage runner on the blog who has never had to take off weeks or even months for injury.  You should consider yourself very lucky.

Sasha, I have to second Jon's comments. It is truly amazing that you have not been injured. I too was steady like that but have done some stupid things in my past. Total in the last 11 years of running I have been out for injury for a three 2-3 month stretches. The first when I tried to run every day in the year (stupid, but it taught me not to do that), second when I was in a car accident and had bruised ribs, and third when I moved here and decided to give "running" a shot. The quote I posted elsewhere sums it up.
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.”
-T.S. Elliot
For about 6-years my running had stayed about the same maybe PRing by a few seconds in a 10K or a minute or two in the marathon but nothing huge. Then when I got here I started doing some killer workouts with Lion and Demetrio’s group. I also unfortunately decided to run a 100 mile week. Those two combined proved to be too much at once and I was broken again. However, I had breakthroughs in the half-marathon that I don't think would have been possible without trying some of the stuff I did. I know this is a little off topic of "longest streak" but I think it speaks to the fact that every now and again just giving it your all to see if you can break through the wall to the next big goal...
Finally, the Onion is all satire. It wasn't blaming marriage or children per say. More so just making fun of the numbers of excuses people make up to explain their problems in life. When all they really need to do is focus that energy they are using in making the excuses into fixing the problem themselves...

I did not notice it was from Onion. It did look like something you could see in a newspaper. Those Onion guys are getting very good :-)

My structural issues are not any worse than those of somebody who runs 2:40 off less consistent training. They are definitely better than those of any distance-inclined runner that cannot break 17:00 in a 5 K off consistent 40 miles a week. While it is rare for somebody to have as few injuries in their career as I have, it is also rare to find somebody who has trained as consistently, and has watched his diet as consistently as well.

Ted, It's not 150,000 miles, but yesterday I did break 20,000 miles (since Nov 1997). Which puts things in perspective. At the current rate I'll only have about half that guys mileage in 40 years!