I thought some of you would enjoy reading about a friend of mine, who has not missed a single day of running in 33 years! (the following article was written in 2000):
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[censored] has a unique way of dealing with those times when you're totally fatigued and on the verge of athletic flameout - go out and blast it harder than ever. I used to do that occasionally back in my running days, and sometimes it actually seemed to work. Under [censored]'s influence, back in the 80s I had a running streak for over three years. Keeping the streak intact necessitated some bizarre measures: running around and around the rooftop of an L.A. hotel; running up and down the stairwells of various hotels; running while ill; running through Central Park at night, on the theory that the thugs couldn't catch me; running around and around rocky little campsites during a canoe trek in the Canadian north woods; running up and down a Costa Rican mountain during a pitch black night and almost getting run down by a bicyclist flying down the mountain blind; running a rattlesnake-infested hiking trail in upstate New York; running in 103 degree heat and -10 degree cold; and running while suffering severe food poisoning in Mexico. And that was just to keep a streak going for only three years!
(The streak ended one miserable northern winter when I had a bad flu for over a week, during which time I tried to run through it. But instead of helping, like it usually did, running seemed to make me sicker. Finally, one afternoon I awoke from a feverish nap and realized that I needed to get the run in before it got darker and colder. It was also raining out. I was sitting on my bed, slowly pulling on my running clothes, when I glanced up and saw myself in the mirror. And what I saw staring back was a stupid ass who was about to put himself into the hospital. And that was the end of the streak.)