Confessions of a Former Streaker

Nope.  Not the type of streaker made popular in the 70s and 80s.

I must admit, there have been periods in my running life when I challenged myself to achieve a running streak.  I’ve run too many damaging consecutive days, probably too long in a particular pair of shoes.  Sniff.    My most noteworthy (to me) running streak was running for about 3 years while only taking off one day per week.  But I’ve come to my senses, and my streaking days are over.

My extended running pales compared to the top streakers.  How do I know?  Because there is the United States Running Streak Association, which is organized to recognize the hard corest of steakers.   The USRSA defines a streak.    

• A running streak is defined by USRSA as running 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 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.
• Ownership of a running streak, either active or retired, entitles you to a USRSA membership.  Once that streak reaches a year in duration, you then qualify for USRSA listing of your streak.

A few highlights from the prestigious list of streakers are:

Mark Covert, the current holder of the longest running streak.   Covert, 56, as of June 1st, 2007, has been running 14,193 days, which for curious math gurus is 38 years, 313 days.

Margaret Blackstock, 62, owns the longest streak for women, at 10,128 days (27 years 266 days).  She is 41st on the all-time list.

One of the top streakers, #19, is from our community.  John Liepa, 62, and a professor at a local community college, has been running every day since January 02, 1977.  That’s 11,108 days  or 30 years 151 days! 

There are new streakers on the horizon too.   Adam Lentz started his streak on April 20, 2007 and has his sites set on a streak.  We wonder how he’s coming along?

There are also niche streakers. Perry Romanowski, from Chicago, an endurance joggler (a juggler-runner), who has been joggling marathons since 1996.   He’s on a quest to joggle 44 marathons.  I’ve seen Perry joggle several times while running the Chicago Marathon, and he makes the rest of us non-juggling marathoners wonder how.

It's great to see all this running going on, and record keeping, and documenting, and submitting, and certifying.  Whew!  It's tiring just thinking about it.

So now I'm beginning to wonder what other types of running streaks some are chasing? 

Are you a streaker?

Photo on Flickr by seattletim