Be brave! Be strong! Be fearless! Once you have taken up the spiritual life, fight as long as there is any life in you. Even though you know you are going to be killed, fight till you ‘are killed.’ Don’t die of fright. Die fighting. Don’t go down till you are knocked down. –Swami Vivekananda
The Story…
The Streak began September 2, 2002. I was 16 years old, a junior in high school and just recently joined the cross country team that fall. I was the only girl on the team and decided, against my friend’s judgements, to try cross country that year instead of sitting the bench at soccer games. I just wanted to be good at something and running seemed consistent, something I could do without relying on other people and it was a good way to get in shape.
Come October 2002, I looked back on training and realized that I had run everyday for a whole month! I decided to run everyday for one whole year, never miss. Why? I thought, “if I want to be good at something, why waste a day without training?” Plus I was learning to love running and enjoyed the discipline. And so, I began to run everyday.
Flash forward to 2022, I still have not missed a single day of running. Since 2002 I have logged over 30,000 miles. My minimum has been 1.5 miles and the most I have ran was 27 miles. In 2010 I logged over 3,000 miles for the year. The daily average is a little over four miles. My minimum became two miles in 2018 as I was working twelve hour days and had to run on my lunch break, but recently in January 2021 my minimum has become three miles reaching 100 miles every month.
There have been many adventures, hard times, injuries, illnesses and victories throughout this streak and after 18 years, I have decided that it is time to share these stories with the intention of inspiring others to live a more focused, disciplined and meaningful life.
Below I have outlined a timetable of each year for references. I have learned many life lessons by committing to running everyday and this discipline has helped me understand myself and the world around me that much more. At some point what you see below will become formulated into a book.