Okay, okay. I'm not going to try to come up with 365 lessons from a year of running. The would be tedious at best and miserable for all of us at worst.

But, I do feel like I learned some things along the way that are valuable to share. Some are running specific. Some translate to life in general. Some are practical. Some are philosophical.

All are genuine. And I hope all are worth sharing.

The power of every day. I believe, for me, it was easier to run every day than it would have been to set out to run 5 days a week. I realize this might not be the smartest way to run. It might not be the healthiest or the most effective. But every day has a symmetry to it that 5 times a week doesn’t. There is no thinking back, wondering “did I or didn’t I.” It’s simply a matter of, “Did I run today?” If not, then I had to. If so, I didn’t have to worry about it again.

Streaks get easier to maintain the longer they go. By the end of the year there was no question of “if” I was going to run that day. Running was just what I did. It was a gradual flip from running every day being a chore to being normal. But one of the things that helped was having all the days of running behind me. Quitting at 100 days seemed a lot harder than quitting at 50 days. By 200 I had very little doubt I would make it to 365. At 365 I figure I’ll just keep going.

Habits can be intentionally made. Not only that, but things that might be hard or uncomfortable at first become easy and normal when they become habit. Running every day was not easy last January. Today it is almost something I take for granted. It is just a part of what I do.

There is a difference between training and running. My race times from the past year tell me that running every day is not a magic bullet. I ran my best times when I was training, not just running. When I had a plan, did workouts, increased my mileage, and raced more frequently was when I raced the best. When I went into a race thinking I should run faster than I did last year because I was in better shape since I was running every day, I came away disappointed.

There is always a way. There were several days where running was particularly hard. Along the way I dealt with blister issues, soreness and fatigue, and lack of desire. But the hardest days were the ones when I was super busy. The 3 days of the state track meet started on the bus by 5am. Each day after the meet we came home and went out to dinner as coaches. I had to find time to get in my mile between getting home and going out, even though I was exhausted. I also went to Atlanta for a business convention. A couple of the days there were 18 hours of non-stop going. I had to plan in advance, but found a way. It may be hard, but being busy is definitely not an acceptable excuse in my mind any more.

Start small, take baby steps, set minimums--anything to get you started! The one mile a day minimum helped so much. If I had set out to run 3 miles the streak wouldn’t have happened. But, if I had just set out to “run” every day, without defining what it meant to run, I would have faked it by bounding up the stairs before going to bed and calling it good. Also, I started out with the goal of running daily in January. I think a goal of running every day for a year right off the bat would have been pretty daunting. But running daily for a month seemed doable. From there I just took it one month at a time until it was normal.

Tell people about it. It is easy to give up on a goal that is just in your head but that no one else knows about. Tell people what you are setting out to do! The more the better. If they think you are a little crazy, or that you can’t do it, use that as fuel to prove them wrong. If they are supportive, then use their strength when your own falters.

Have people to help you and make things easier along the way. Make it fun. For me, running with friends, family, clubs, groups, and in races made things easier. The weeks when I had 5 days of running mapped out with other people there was little to no doubt I would run every day that week. I like routine, but finding new places and people to run with was part of the adventure of running every day.

My body still has handled everything I have thrown at it. Knock on wood, here. Leading into my streak of running every day I wrote a series of blog posts about my “Crazy Running Experiments.” Running daily can certainly go into that category. The crux was that I have thrown some crazy stuff at my body, and my body has seemed to handle all of it. I have been about as smart as one can be while doing those crazy things, but they are still arguably crazy. And I have still been able to do them. I don’t think I am Superman, invincible, or injury-proof. But the last year has reinforced the notion that I need to be grateful because I have been blessed with some combination of physiological factors that, while not making me the fastest runner out there, have enabled me to do things that most runners wouldn’t dream of.