Running 100+ Days in a Row & Turning Data into Insights
In April, my friend Jordan Utley challenged a group of us to run a 5K every day for 30 days.
I made it through the first 30, then kept going. The final streak ended at 102 straight days, with at least a 5K every day and 362 total miles. I started on April 12 and hit day 100 on July 20.
The running was the main thing. But I also wanted a scoreboard.
So I wrote some Google Apps Script to pull my Strava stats into Google Sheets and pushed the results into Looker Studio. The dashboard tracked distance, pace, weather, the streak count, and my all-time / 2023 totals.
What stuck
- Daily reps change the size of the problem. A 5K is not easy every day, but it becomes less negotiable when the habit is already moving.
- Personal data helps. Seeing the streak, mileage, and pace in one place made it harder to pretend I had not made progress.
- Automation removed the chore. Once the dashboard updated itself, I could spend less time copying numbers and more time running.
- Some days were ugly. I had days where I hurt, wanted to quit, and had to drag myself through it anyway. That is probably the part I am most proud of.
I got faster, built more distance than I expected, dropped 20 pounds, and gave myself a better base for the rest of the year.