Run Every Day in 2013 -- I Dare you.

 

Some running websites and blogs (if you’re reading them besides this one, I’ll forgive you) are trumpeting the goal of running at least a mile a day from Thanksgiving until the end of this year.  If you’re in the midst of that streak, congratulations, good luck, and all that stuff. 

But . . . yawn . . . don’t you think . . . yawn . . . that’s a bit . . . yawn . . . ordinary?  Dare I say wimpy?  I just wonder what Mark Covert would say about someone running every day for just 38 measly days?

Whaddya mean you don’t know who Mark Covert is?  Mark Covert is none other than the king of American running streakers, having run at least a mile every day since he was 18.  How old is he now?  Sixty-one.  Wait, let me do the math for you.  That’s . . .44 years . . . or  . . . carry the one . . . 16,060 days!  I mean, there have been eight U.S. presidents since then and at least three or four wars (I lose count).

So what can you and me and rest of us wimpy runners do?  Try running every day for an entire year is what we do!  365 days, 12 months, 52 . . . ok Einstein, you get the idea.  But who keeps track of such things, you ask?  You do . . . and something called the United States Running Streak Association.

Yep, there may not be a Santa Claus, but there is such a thing called the United States Running Streak Association, or USRSA for short. 

According to them, the official definition of a running streak is:

“To run at least one continuous mile within each calendar day under one's own body power (without the utilization of any type of health or mechanical aid other than prosthetic devices).  Running under one's own body power can occur on either the roads, a track, over hill and dale, or on a treadmill. Running cannot occur through the use of canes, crutches or banisters, or reliance on pools or aquatic devices to create artificial buoyancy”.

Once your streak reaches a year, you can apply for USRSA membership and they will put you on their official list for, well, forever!  Something to tell the grandkids.  Something to tell that girl who dumped you.  Something to tell that cocky hotshot runner from high school you saw at the reunion who used to smoke you on the track, but who now smokes 3 packs a day, has 2 ex-wives, and a gut that stretches out to here.

So who’s with me on this?  You heard that right.  I’m going for it.  I’m going to try and get my USRA membership listing at the end of 2013 . . .and you can too. 

And it will something I’ll definitely tell the grandkids some day.  Of course, I’ll first have to have kids of my own before I get grandkids . . . at least I think that’s how it works.    

Comments

[Mark Varley]

Started on the first of January. I have been running for 6 years but taking a day off between runs - have run a marathon and 3 half marathons. My concern is that I am 49 and I worry about recovery from one run to the next.

Good luck to all

Mark V