Show HN: Ten years of running every day, visualized
125 comments
·July 10, 2025lbrito
>I've run through stress fractures, heart procedures, flus and other physical ailments. I've run in frigid sub zero weather and in sweltering heat.
Respectfully, that sounds awful. Being sick sucks enough, the last thing I'd want or benefit from doing is physical activity during a flu.
friggeri
Having experienced them, those runs were surprisingly not awful. In such cases I’ll jog a very slow mile, paying really close attention to what my body tells me (if I can walk, I can shuffle a mile or so). If anything, the act of getting out of the house and accomplishing something has more than once given me a morale and energy boost while sick.
The actually awful runs I’ve had are more of the "type 2 fun" kind (running in the desert, grueling trail runs), or the occasional hungover run before I quit drinking.
WA
Did you have the flu (influenza) or a cold? Because I had influenza once and couldn’t even walk from bed to the kitchen.
I’m asking, because in German, many people call a regular cold a flu here.
But the chance to catch real influenza is like once every 20 years or so.
What avoid COVID-19?
Imme_Play_5550
There is definitely such a thing as overtraining. I got my free testosterone down to 15 (reference range=35-155 pg/mL) and my total testosterone down to 96 (ref=250-1100 ng/dL). From histograms from various studies, I hit the 1-percentile of low testosterone as a 35yo male. That's... uh... not good.
This was due to a number of factors: excessive running (the equivalent of ~50-70mi/week), calorie restriction, and possibly carbohydrate restriction. Thankfully symptoms of low T (namely morning erections) resolved ~1month after ameliorating those 3 factors. (For anyone interested, look up "Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport".)
Mileage isn't my goal. Health is.
OP states "I've... invested into my own health", but I'm not convinced.
vl
But how would you loose weight without calorie restriction?
Maybe this amount of running was excessive, but how did you even run such distances with T so low? (Ie how did you recover?)
BadOakOx
I'm no expert on this, but I also read about this as I also tried calorie restriction.
You still have to keep your macros (and micros) in balance while on calorie deficit, which is even harder. Your body needs various things, you just need to optimize your food. Also, I think the main contributor for OPs issues was the fat deficit, which is very easy to fall into while you think you eat healthy a lean food. Fat is important for your hormone production.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26843151/
https://shilpidietclinic.com/low-fat-diet-and-hormonal-imbal...
busymom0
If someone is running everyday like this, do they actually even need to lose weight? Aren't they already very fit?
Also, testosterone also gets impacted by fatigue. Running is more fatiguing than lets say stationary biking or elliptical. So maybe try other forms of cardio to burn calories too instead of only running?
mobiledev2014
The site is cool but as a runner this is not admirable and not something others should emulate. Interesting how few comments call that out but perhaps not surprising if your audience admires The Hustle
andyst
I (still!) have an uncle who had a similar mindset, broke his leg half way through a race and only realised when he stopped at the end, that he couldnt walk any further
finally when they had to (successfully) defib him during a race, that shook him into assessing his health not running for the sake of running
There's a mindset with distance runners that I have seen over and over, just sometimes way too much of a generally good thing
noah_buddy
Respectfully, if this guy has been doing it for ten years, it’s obviously not so bad as you make it out to be. It’s not a grind set mentality, it’s just one guys choice to exercise in a certain manner.
I am a runner. I train at what is probably the 80th percentile for longer distances, so I am by no means an expert. But I do understand that if you are running 7 miles a week, most of the time, your body isn’t going to be that beat up, especially if you are taking it slow.
RHSman2
Read it out loud ‘7 miles a week’
Most people sit at a desk for 40 hrs a week. That is way more damaging to your health.
afterburner
Ten years might not be long enough for long term damage to make itself known. In fact, most of the time, it's nowhere near long enough.
However, the cardio should help. With overall health that is, not whatever blown knee or hip or whatever he'll have to deal with later.
fifilura
It is only a mile and you can run really, really slow.
I am also a run-streaker (3 years by now). I am not proud of running when i have the flu. But I run really slow and only the required amount.
Effort comparable to going to the store to buy food and aspirin.
Imme_Play_5550
Just gonna say, as a fellow excessive exerciser... exercise doesn't make you stronger. It's the recovery afterwards and the resulting growth/adaptation that makes you better.
Don't let rest feel like weakness. It’s where the real progress happens.
fifilura
You have to appreciate how short a mile run is.
And either way, yeah runstreak is probably not optimal for improving your stamina. I am sure there are more rigorous programs for that.
jmye
Rest doesn’t preclude running. Most high end runners run every day. It’s very easy to run at recovery pace and feel better than if you’d done nothing at all.
I find the tendency of very amateur runners having very strong opinions about running, odd. There are literally decades of research, and while the particulars change over time, the macros tend not to.
pinkmuffinere
I don’t feel strongly on either side, but I do want to point out that “I am not proud of running when I have the flu” immediately suggests a course of action that could make you more proud. It seems that not-running when sick would make you happier? Is it really worth doing just for the completionism?
Elixir6419
i am not sure about the OP or the motivation and I am not a Streak runner/mover myself, but I do see the appeal of it, that will keep someone moving and exercise more or less consistently. Overall maybe the bad it is doing on bad days, is compensated with the good it is doing on good/average days. It is a long term motivator. For me now that i was cycling about 2-300km per week last year, going to nearly 0 this year so far because life and stuff, makes it pretty hard mentally to get back into the saddle, because of reduced performance, fatigue and just the general feeling of what it felt like to be in a faster group ride that I would get dropped from and i need to work my way back up there in performance and endurance. Having a streak going might have helped with this.
fifilura
Then I would loose my streak and the magic would disappear.
I am not a pro athlete. I think there are many days where athletes go beyond what they should to win some gold medal in some competition.
This is for me only and I am fine with it.
Can you tell me what you think you'd do?
jimbokun
I was more surprised the doctors even let him run after a heart procedure.
afterburner
Did he ask them?
mrbonner
Yeah I was in the camp of " tough it out" when I was younger. Now, I understand how and when to listen to my body and lrt it rest is as important as working out with it. When my body is under stress from illness there is no need to put more stress on it.
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llmthrow103
Looks fantastic! I run somewhat regularly and enjoy it, but would never make it my primary form of exercise due to the high impact stress on the body and relatively high injury rate compared to other solo forms of exercise. What made you decide to make it your primary form of exercise, and to do it every day?
yihong0618
Hi I record my running for almost 15 years
you can check https://yihong.run/
and also a repo: https://github.com/yihong0618/running_page
can16358p
Impressive.
A nice addition would be adding a switch for converting to non-American units though
reactordev
Having lived in Denver for a decade, I can say it’s definitely a run city. So many run groups. A guy I used to work with did ultra marathons of 100mi+. Insane. Good for you! I saw the flat irons green mountain run and immediately said “Hey, I know that place!!!”
I’m not going to run it but I’ve hiked up in there a bunch of times.
nasmorn
Impressive. I did streak running for 6 months nice and it was some of the most productive running in my life. Interestingly I have much higher yearly averages than you do but still consider daily streak running quite hard. Not being a morning runner myself might contribute since I get into a lot of close calls that way. My streak literally ended when my daughter went into the hospital and I couldn’t well just fuck off for a run any longer.
zparky
just wanted to say the site looks awesome! I love the minimal black+white/grayscale and the fonts are just lovely. vis looks great too, I enjoyed poking around nearly all of the unique runs to look at the map and paces.
natnatenathan
I came to say this as well. I really like the design and all the fun statistics.
zug_zug
I'd be curious to see long-term improvements, like resting heartrate over time, or heartrate @ 10 min mile over time.
NoPicklez
This is brilliant!
I'd like to see your average HR per pace marker to see how your running zones have changed at the same pace over time.
The average HR for a 10k you did at 5,50 per km did 6 years ago compared to now at the same pace.
patrickhogan1
This really inspired me. I think I will do one on basketball.
Great work on data collection for 10 years. Quantified self tracking into a universal format is still really hard.
What tracking sensors do you use that input into Strava? (e.g. Garmin, Apple Watch, built in iphone, etc)?
friggeri
It’s changed over time: I first used MapMyRun with my iPhone, then switched to Strava on the iPhone, then got a garmin, and nowadays an Apple Watch. I’m super grateful for Strava to exist, if only as a repo of all my workouts.
DevX101
Do you have longitudinal resting heart rate data? Would love to see how it changed over the years.
friggeri
I haven’t aggregated the trend over time, but my resting HR has definitely decreased, I’m roughly around 40bpm at the moment, down from ~60bpm 10 years ago.
blackbear_
Congrats! How are your knees doing if I may ask and how did you take care of them?
I've only been running for a couple of years and already feeling troubles brewing in.
ultrarunner
The idea that running leads to knee damage is a pervasive myth.
Helmut10001
I agree, and I've heard the same. In my experience, knee problems always disappeared with moderate running. Of course, you have to allow yourself time to recover after running. But as far as I know, the science is that joint lubrication in your knees needs activity to function properly.
shepherdjerred
How so?
noah_buddy
Old people often have bad knees. Runners often become old people. People make an association that’s not born out in statistics. Most of the body is “use it or lose it” and running improves blood flow and development of muscles and structures of/around the knee.
friggeri
I’ve been lucky to never have any real knee issues. The only period I ended up with a little knee pain was because of a poor running shoe choice, and it resolved when I got properly fitted and changed shoes. Hope you figure out the source of your troubles!
Today marks ten years, 3653 consecutive days, of running at least one mile every day under the USRSA rules [1]. To celebrate, I built an interactive dashboard that turns a decade of GPX files into charts you can explore.
Running has truly changed my life: I've made lifelong friends, explored beautiful places, and more importantly invested into my own health and fitness, which I'm starting to see the positive benefits as I get older.
The stack is pretty simple: a NextJS app, with a Postgres database to keep all my running data, and all the stats are pre-computed and cached in Redis, so I effectively only hit the database once a day when a new run is ingested. On the fronted, I toyed with the idea of using D3 or pre-existing data viz libraries, but ended up rolling my own using SVGs directly, it gave me more control on the visualizations.
I used the Strava bulk export to pre-populate the database, and I'm using their webhook API to do incremental updates. I have to tap into OpenWeatherMap and OpenCageDate to enrich the running data a little bit.
Happy to answer anything about the stack, data pipeline, or how I stayed motivated for 10 years!
[1] https://www.runeveryday.com Run Streak Association rules: ≥ 1 mile per day