Hello, my name’s Nancy, and on June 5th, 2025, I started running every day. This was the 3rd time I attempted to run every day for a year, and I guess the third time was the charm? Here are the top 5 things I learned from my running streak journey and why I’m able to keep it going.
1) Listen to your body
If there is one thing I want you to take away from this, it is: listen to your body. As the blog title says, I’ve run 500 days in a row, and the only way I could do that was by listening to my body. In the beginning of my running streak, I planned on running 30 minutes a day every day, and I pushed myself to run as much as I could continuously. It’s like I was coming out of the gates at full speed and not slowly building myself up for it. Going from being a couch potato to a half-marathoner, and never having a daily exercise routine or habit in my life, to 30 minutes EVERY day was a shock to the system.
I wasn’t listening to my body when it said “your calves are getting too tight” or “you’re not getting enough recovery from yesterday’s run,” and one day, when I was running a 10k pushing myself to run the whole thing, trying for a personal record, my calf seized up, and everything in me said, “STOP!” I hobbled back home and ran only easy miles for a week straight. I almost lost my running streak early on because I wasn’t listening to my body and not getting the recovery time I needed after sprints/aenerobic runs or threshold runs.
2) Don’t underestimate the mile
So that leads me to the mile. The only reason I’ve been able to keep my streak is because of the mile. On days where it’s super hard to fit running in my schedule, I can run a mile. On days where I need extra recovery, I can run a mile. On days where I’m just struggling to get out the door or find the motivation to run, I can run a mile.
A small amount of time is easier to talk yourself into vs. a long run. On days my inner toddler is throwing a tantrum saying “I DON’T WANNA!” I remind myself, “It’s only 10 minutes,” and shortly after that I’m out the door.
By having a set minimum run for active recovery or just to get my body moving, I can find the motivation to put on my running shoes and get out the door.
3) It’s about the lifestyle, not the race
I run every day because I needed to change my lifestyle. My body was made to move (dare I say, born to run?), and between working a desk job, video games on the couch, writing, and yarn crafts. I sit…a lot. Before I started running, I was gaining weight little by little every year. Next thing I knew, my doctor said things needed to change because my health was declining due to inactivity and weight gain.
I started running after being a couch potato for 38 years. I couldn’t run 5 seconds without wheezing and my heart feeling like it was going to explode. I started running so I could be healthy and live as long as I could, to be there for my then 2-year-old daughter.
In November 2023, I got my Garmin 255S watch and started getting serious about my running. I looked up a “Couch to 5k” training program, and after a week or so, I noticed the “Half-Marathon Prediction Time” on my Garmin and thought, “wait…what if I ran the Half-Marathon?” I signed up for the Newport Half-Marathon in 2024, and guess what? I got injury after injury because I was pushing too hard (not listening to my body), and come race day, I had a calf injury.
I remember being on the phone with a friend, and he said, “You should push through and tough it out anyway.”
I didn’t run the race that year because I didn’t want to risk running the half-marathon for a participation medal and absolutely shredding my calves and never running again, vs. missing the race and coming back next year.
I started running to be active and healthy, not to get a medal for that one race.
And you know what? I ran 2 half marathons in Lincoln City between then and the official Newport Half-Marathon race I ran in 2025.
4) Don’t listen to your watch (they’re guidelines, not law)
On that note, my watch has “Suggested Workouts” for the day, and at the start of my running streak, I was following them as if they were law. But I was getting more and more fatigued, and my runs were getting harder and harder.
My watch may say I’m fully recovered from a run, but it didn’t know my emotional state, mental state, how my legs felt, or how exhausted I was because I woke up at 2 am and couldn’t get back to sleep.
So, instead of following every single suggested workout, I’ll take a look at my watch when I queue up the running activity and take it into account as a guideline.
Sometimes I do the run, sometimes I don’t.
If my watch says to do a threshold run, for instance, but I know I just did sprint intervals the day before, I may be like, “You crazy, watch!” and I might run an easy 20-minute recovery run instead.
5) You are stronger than you think.
4 days after my Newport Half-Marathon in 2025, I started my running streak with the goal of “run every day for a maximum of 30 minutes a day, for a year.” On day 365, as a celebratory run, I ran a half-marathon in town. No crowd cheering me on. No medal for me at the finish line, but you know what? I cried when I finished that run because I was dang proud of myself.
I wasn’t training for anything. I’ve just had one goal in mind for my streak: “run every day for a minimum of a mile and up to 30 minutes every day.” I was running my celebratory half-marathon as an easy long run, and I didn’t care about the time. I was celebrating my running journey. And you know what? I shaved 12 minutes off my personal record!
You are stronger than you think.
If you run every day, at least 10 minutes a day, you will improve.
You will get stronger.
If you’ve seen the movie “What About Bob?” then you know what I mean when I say, “Baby Steps.” That is one of my mantras when I’m struggling during a run. “Baby steps to the end of the sidewalk,” “baby steps up the hill,” “baby steps to day 365,” and “baby steps to day 500.” After enough baby steps, you’ll look back and realize how far you’ve come.
When I look at my stats on my watch from when I first started my running streak, I’ve improved my average running pace for an easy base run by 2 whole minutes. But because my improvement has been so slow and gradual, I didn’t realize how far I’ve come.
By listening to my body, running at least a mile a day, remembering the big picture that I was running to be healthy and active (not for race medals), and using suggested workouts as guidelines (not law), I grew stronger without even realizing it.
I was the little turtle crawling up the hill little by little every day, but you know what? I conquered that hill, and if you want to conquer that hill, you can too!
That’s why I’ll continue my running streak.
