Nick Marshall's enduring perspective on streak runners.
By Nick Marshall Ultramarathon World
Camp Hill, Pennsylvania (UW) - I wrote (an article on streaking) for Runner's World in 1977. Unfortunately, it doesn't add any hard facts or documentation on the subject of streaks, but may be of interest as historic background. My piece was mainly a personal account, with a look at some of the psychological factors surrounding the phenomenon of running streaks, but I don't know if anyone had ever previously addressed the subject in print from any aspect.
Of course, my views on the topic seem premature in retrospect. Writing about it from the vantage point of having a streak which then was less than four years long sounds a little presumptuous when you consider that nowadays there are guys with 25+ years' experience in this regard. But I was only in my fourth year of running then, and pretty much "commenting in the dark," as streak running was mostly an unknown quantity then.
(The guys named Bob Wood, John Kelley and Eddy DeCook who are mentioned in the article were merely other members -- along with Park Barner and me -- of the Harrisburg Area RRC back in that era.)
Interestingly, the magazine followed up my article by printing several extremely negative letters, in which I (and RW) was bitterly accused of total irresponsibility in "glorifying" a form of behavior which could only harm people seriously, with one writer adding that I must have a psychotic personality to engage in such self-destructive activity.
Ended in 1979
My own streak ended in February 1979 (after 2,080 days) due to a hip problem. Despite my saying in the article that I'd never start a second streak, I later resumed the every-day routine in 1981, and this time went 1,600-plus days in a row, till a hip flareup in 1985. That was the injury which put me out of ultras for 12-plus years. The bum hip was indicative of a postural/back problem, and I had back surgery in 1991. My comeback from then went so slowly, though, that after a few years I concluded it was unlikely I'd ever do another ultra.
But then, bingo, things started falling into place. And, oddly, I attribute this partly to streaking. Although there were other factors, one thing I did from 1985-1995 was avoid,
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