40 year running streak - today

Fat Boy wrote:

Sounds like a guy who wasted a good portion of his life. You have to keep things in perspective people. It's only running!

You wasted most of your life alone in your parents basement. Tool, go back to dyestat.

I'm calling BS. Since 1978 you have never been sick where it would have benefited your body to take at least a day off? I love how some of you streakers try to downplay what you do and make it seem normal. Admit it: It is a compulsion, with no correlation to performance at all.

I take one day off per week and I look forward to it. I can't imagine 40 years w/o missing... my god. How regimented a life do you have to live?

It's obsessive and serves no real purpose. I've known plenty of runners working on streaks. You can admire it all you want but it's still meaningless. This kind of thing ends up running you not you running it. I guess I raced him a few times back in the 70s and he was a good runner but he's either a bit simple or feels this streak is about the streak, not running. I've known many of these streak runners, all the ones I've known are controlled by their streaks not the other way round. Take a break. If he's still recording his runs, he has a problem.

His 40 year streak strikes me as his least impressive accomplishment. I assume that he's had the flu, or some other severe illness with fever and requiring bed rest, at least a couple of times in those four decades. Any fool can climb out of bed and suffer through a three-mile jog that does him absolutely no good; part of being a hero is knowing how to tell the difference between heroic persistence and ill-advised stubbornness. I have more respect for the guy who knew how to train himself well--and Covert clearly did--than the guy (also Covert) who was willing to abuse his body for the sake of something so silly. Unwise attachment to mere form. Spirit deserves better.

sounds like an amazing dude. I am impressed.

To those who aren't impressed with his streak. Okay. We get it that this may have not pushed him to greater PRs. But it may have given him a purpose to get up some mornings and get outside rather sit inside and watch Oprah or redtube. I bet by getting outside everyday he has and will continue to live a full life.

who cares ... why bother

just wondering 'why' you posted ... if you didn't care. must have hit a funny bone some where. Mark's streak does not define him. He would tell you his passion is his wife and kids, and they would say that they know that. Pretty good stuff in my book.

His 'obsession' with it ended long ago - now its just something he does. Kinda like some people who just post on the internet about things they don't care about.

kudzurunner wrote:

His 40 year streak strikes me as his least impressive accomplishment. I assume that he's had the flu, or some other severe illness with fever and requiring bed rest, at least a couple of times in those four decades. Any fool can climb out of bed and suffer through a three-mile jog that does him absolutely no good; part of being a hero is knowing how to tell the difference between heroic persistence and ill-advised stubbornness. I have more respect for the guy who knew how to train himself well--and Covert clearly did--than the guy (also Covert) who was willing to abuse his body for the sake of something so silly. Unwise attachment to mere form. Spirit deserves better.

This streak is no better or worse than anything else he could have been doing with his time. A million years from now, all your wisely spent time, his poorly spent time, etc, won't matter much. If it's fun for him to have a streak, and talk about it with his running buddies, and for us to discuss its pros and cons on a message board, then it seems as worthy an activity as anything else. Keeping the streak alive on a difficult day probably provides an anecdote, and if there's anything more valuable than an anecdote, I have yet to stumble across it.

If all goes well in the next six weeks I'll hit the 21 year mark for my streak. It's not a big deal and it really doesn't run my life. It takes maybe 15-25 minutes to get in a 2-3 mile run.

I once had an 11 year streak that I broke. In the two years between streaks I found that it took longer to get over things like the flu when I didn't run than when I did and I never really liked the idea of a day when I didn't run at least a little bit.

The first one was sort of a gimmick to make sure I trained consistently. The current one is really just something that I like doing. I wouldn't recommend that everyone do it but I also don't understand people who are bothered by streak runners.

Congratualtions to Mark and here's to another forty years.

I know at one time Ron Hill hadn't missed a day since 1964. But haven't heard about him in a number of years so don't know it that streak is still going or not.

rock cliff wrote:

I know at one time Ron Hill hadn't missed a day since 1964. But haven't heard about him in a number of years so don't know it that streak is still going or not.

It is. He has a blog and mentions it occasionally.

to the best of my (limited) knowledge about R Hill's streak - some have questioned different things about it - there is some speculation (?) that he hobbled around a track - either with of without crutches for a short distance (short = ??) ... but I don't know that it really matters anyway.

kudzurunner wrote:

His 40 year streak strikes me as his least impressive accomplishment. I assume that he's had the flu, or some other severe illness with fever and requiring bed rest, at least a couple of times in those four decades. Any fool can climb out of bed and suffer through a three-mile jog that does him absolutely no good; part of being a hero is knowing how to tell the difference between heroic persistence and ill-advised stubbornness. I have more respect for the guy who knew how to train himself well--and Covert clearly did--than the guy (also Covert) who was willing to abuse his body for the sake of something so silly. Unwise attachment to mere form. Spirit deserves better.

This is what I was getting at, albeit much more eloquently than I could ever put it. IF your goal in your athletic career is to run as fast as possible, listen to kudzurunner here. "Running streaks" belong in the same bucket as "number of marathons ran while dressed as Elvis."

Amazing!! Congrats!! This is my 10th year, so your 4 times as experienced as I.

Covert's 'streak' was always peripheral. What most critics here have apparently missed is that he had a stellar running career. An extremely abbreviated synopsis of that was offered in the original post.

Something about forrest and trees methinks. And no, not 'any fool' can climb out of bed etc. Mark is not the only 'fool' engaged in a streak of some sort. Many distance runners, if not most (and in some camps 'all') regardless of peripherals are pretty silly don't ya think.

I have a streak myself which some may find amazing...

I have been running for more than 30 years and my longest streak of running continuous days in that time has been 26 days (when I was training for a marathon back in the 1970's).

My longest streak in 2008 is 12 days.

Congrats to Mark on his incredible streak. What is most impressive is that he didn't just hobble around doing one mile runs because of injury to keep his streak alive. If I remember right he has averaged over 10mi a day over the last 40 years.

I unintentionally have put together 3 months or so without a day off but unlike people like Mark I usually break down after 1-2 months without an occasional day off and end up getting quite sick or injured.

For those of you who call Mark stupid and idiototic for running 40 years without a day off you aren't the first. Mark will be the first to say that. It is amazing that he has had very few injuries or days of illness. Mark was the motivating factor for a lot of good Burbank runners over the years as well as the for the kids he coaches.

I guess its time again for all the streak runners to come out and say what an awesome thing it is, while everyone else marvels at the uselessness.