SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.—The Kierland community streets were noticeably quiet this morning, the missing element being the labored huffing and puffing of 40-year-old Matt Morgan, a more or less familiar face to walkers and other runners who only sometimes acknowledged him on the roadways.
He had already run two days in a row—a Saturday and a Sunday—when, spurred on by Runner’s World and other promoters of running streaks, Morgan decided to see what it would be like to string more days together.
“I didn’t even intend to start running every day, necessarily. That’s the funny thing,” Morgan said. “It sort of just happened.”
The streak began in earnest on a Monday, a day Morgan normally doesn’t run, when he went out for a mile after a cross-training session. He recalled that his legs felt heavy from doing an awful lot of kettlebell swings and jump squats. Still, he persisted. And after his cross-training session later that week, when he should have been not running, he ran a mile again.
On Friday, he tacked on 2 more miles, despite the fact that it was his rest day. The streak, it seemed, was in full effect. And because it’s not unusual for him to run both Saturday and Sunday, those two days were a gimme.
Though starting the running streak sort of just happened, ending it was quite deliberate.
“I suddenly realized, why the heck am I running every single day? Am I trying to prove a point? This is silly,” Morgan said. “And so I stopped. Besides, odd numbers like nine make for good story headlines.”
Morgan said he enjoys running for the cardiovascular benefits, weight management and some other stuff, but he needs his breaks, too. “My body and my brain need the rest,” he explained, wincing in pain as he rubbed a muscle roller stick over his calves. “I know that for sure now. I just don’t get why some people would ever want to go out and pound the pavement every single day.”
In Morgan’s nine consecutive days of running, he totaled 36 miles, logging runs of 1 to 6 miles each, none of which is all that impressive.
With the streak over, Morgan vowed to continue running his normal, boring route every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. “But not those other days,” Morgan said. “That’s just nuts.”
Matt Morgan’s Blog for Running and Life - @gomattmorgan 
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