The running man
Tod Kundsen has run every day -- for 7,326 days
By Bret Hayworth | Posted: Friday, December 19, 2008
Tod Knudsen goes for a late-afternoon run last week on a frontage road near U.S. Highway 20. (Staff photo by Jim Lee)
MOVILLE, Iowa -- Would a doctor give this advice?
Tod Knudsen likes running, so he heads out each afternoon, typically after he gets off work.
The "typically" is for when he runs during the day. But he runs every day. Without fail.
Every day, for slightly more than 20 years, totalling 7,326 days.
"It is almost like an addiction," Knudsen says.
To keep his streak alive, Knudsen, 47, runs at least one mile daily. Never on a treadmill, always outside. That's his rule. It could be double-digit-below-zero wind chill like this week or 105 degrees in summer -- as when a motorist stopped Knudsen to inquire if he knew it was indeed 105.
Sometimes he'll run when he's sick. He has run with a sore hip, and he's run with bruised ribs. He's vomited along the route. He's run around the block of a Des Moines Applebees after a business meeting, wearing a pair of running shoes, slacks and a collared shirt. He's been hailed on.
Once he was prepping to go out the door and heard a weather service report for a tornado warning covering his home.
"I did pick up the pace that day," Knudsen says.
Although Knudsen will run as little as a mile, most days it's more like five miles. Now he's putting in about eight miles daily as he preps for an early 2009 marathon.
"It is just relaxing. You wouldn't think running eight miles is relaxing, but it is," he says.
Knudsen, a 1980 graduate of Woodbury Central High School in Moville, ran sprints at W-C, then had one year of cross country as a senior, which spawned his obsession. He ran for a track season at the University of South Dakota and then, for much of the 1980s, five or six days a week.
On Nov. 29, 1988, the streak began for no earth-shattering, life-changing reason.
"I read someplace where some guy had run for years and years," he says.
Really, he said, the first five years of consecutive-day running were the toughest, when his inner voice would say, "Do you really want to go out?" Now, "It's part of my day, that's what it's become. I almost have to run."
It's pretty much his niche in life: "I'm just the guy that runs."
Of course, he's not the only "guy that runs."
The U.S. Running Streak Association keeps tabs on Americans in the midst of running streaks with at least one mile per day. Mark Covert of California tops the list at 40-plus years, having run every day since July 23, 1968, when he was 17. USRSA breaks the list into The Grand Masters, nine men who have run daily for more than 35 years, The Dominators, who have streaks of more than 25 years, The Highly Skilled, with 20-plus years, and so on down to The Neophytes, those wimps with streaks from of only one to five years.
Two tri-staters are on the short list of streaks of 30 years or more -- a guy from Indianola, Iowa, and one from Lincoln, Neb.
Knudsen lived in Des Moines for two of the 20 years of his steak, but the other 18 have been while living in Moville. He's done 20 marathons, including the 100th anniversary Boston Marathon. He hit his fitness peak in his mid-30s in the 1990s, when he ran a 26-mile marathon in three hours and two minutes.He wishes he could be faster but realizes those highly competitive days are gone.
"I just run for me now," Knudsen says.
Many Moville area residents have become accustomed to seeing Knudsen plowing through the miles. Scott Herbold, who was a year behind Knudsen in school and now teaches at W-C, was a track teammate. Herbold said it would be "mind-boggling" to figure out the mileage Knudsen has racked up over those 7,362 days.
He said there are other runners around Moville, so most people don't know Knudsen is doing anything special.
"No, I don't think he's crazy at all," Herbold says. "It is just one of the things you see in town, 'Oh, there is Tod.' He's just out there running."
BREAKOUT:
OTHER STREAKS
Major League Baseball consecutive games: Infielder Cal Ripken, 2,632 games, 1982 to 1998
National Football League consecutive games: Punter Jeff Feagles, 334 games, 1988 to present
Snow skiing consecutive days: Rainer Hertrich of Colorado, 1,873 days, October 2003 to present
Consecutive hours of movie watching: Suresh Joachim and Claudia Wavra, 123 hours, October 2008
Tod Knudsen likes running, so he heads out each afternoon, typically after he gets off work.
The "typically" is for when he runs during the day. But he runs every day. Without fail.
Every day, for slightly more than 20 years, totalling 7,326 days.
"It is almost like an addiction," Knudsen says.
To keep his streak alive, Knudsen, 47, runs at least one mile daily. Never on a treadmill, always outside. That's his rule. It could be double-digit-below-zero wind chill like this week or 105 degrees in summer -- as when a motorist stopped Knudsen to inquire if he knew it was indeed 105.
Sometimes he'll run when he's sick. He has run with a sore hip, and he's run with bruised ribs. He's vomited along the route. He's run around the block of a Des Moines Applebees after a business meeting, wearing a pair of running shoes, slacks and a collared shirt. He's been hailed on.
Once he was prepping to go out the door and heard a weather service report for a tornado warning covering his home.
"I did pick up the pace that day," Knudsen says.
Although Knudsen will run as little as a mile, most days it's more like five miles. Now he's putting in about eight miles daily as he preps for an early 2009 marathon.
"It is just relaxing. You wouldn't think running eight miles is relaxing, but it is," he says.
Knudsen, a 1980 graduate of Woodbury Central High School in Moville, ran sprints at W-C, then had one year of cross country as a senior, which spawned his obsession. He ran for a track season at the University of South Dakota and then, for much of the 1980s, five or six days a week.
On Nov. 29, 1988, the streak began for no earth-shattering, life-changing reason.
"I read someplace where some guy had run for years and years," he says.
Really, he said, the first five years of consecutive-day running were the toughest, when his inner voice would say, "Do you really want to go out?" Now, "It's part of my day, that's what it's become. I almost have to run."
It's pretty much his niche in life: "I'm just the guy that runs."
Of course, he's not the only "guy that runs."
The U.S. Running Streak Association keeps tabs on Americans in the midst of running streaks with at least one mile per day. Mark Covert of California tops the list at 40-plus years, having run every day since July 23, 1968, when he was 17. USRSA breaks the list into The Grand Masters, nine men who have run daily for more than 35 years, The Dominators, who have streaks of more than 25 years, The Highly Skilled, with 20-plus years, and so on down to The Neophytes, those wimps with streaks from of only one to five years.
Two tri-staters are on the short list of streaks of 30 years or more -- a guy from Indianola, Iowa, and one from Lincoln, Neb.
Knudsen lived in Des Moines for two of the 20 years of his steak, but the other 18 have been while living in Moville. He's done 20 marathons, including the 100th anniversary Boston Marathon. He hit his fitness peak in his mid-30s in the 1990s, when he ran a 26-mile marathon in three hours and two minutes.He wishes he could be faster but realizes those highly competitive days are gone.
"I just run for me now," Knudsen says.
Many Moville area residents have become accustomed to seeing Knudsen plowing through the miles. Scott Herbold, who was a year behind Knudsen in school and now teaches at W-C, was a track teammate. Herbold said it would be "mind-boggling" to figure out the mileage Knudsen has racked up over those 7,362 days.
He said there are other runners around Moville, so most people don't know Knudsen is doing anything special.
"No, I don't think he's crazy at all," Herbold says. "It is just one of the things you see in town, 'Oh, there is Tod.' He's just out there running."
BREAKOUT:
OTHER STREAKS
Major League Baseball consecutive games: Infielder Cal Ripken, 2,632 games, 1982 to 1998
National Football League consecutive games: Punter Jeff Feagles, 334 games, 1988 to present
Snow skiing consecutive days: Rainer Hertrich of Colorado, 1,873 days, October 2003 to present
Consecutive hours of movie watching: Suresh Joachim and Claudia Wavra, 123 hours, October 2008
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Mark Neustrom wrote on Dec 21, 2008 1:25 PM:
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