1,000 Days and Still Running

On July 20, 2010, Nick Weide decided to get in shape and start running.

Now, more than 1,000 days later, the 39-year-old Whitefish Bay man is still trucking.

"About 100 days into it, I Googled 'streak running' to see if other people were doing it. I came upon the United States Streak Running Association, and saw that after one year of running, you can join their list," he said. "I thought I would make it to a year and see what happens, but it just became a habit." 

Whitefish Bay is also home to another notable streak runner, John Chandler, who has been running for at least 30 years despite broken bones, muscle aches and a mini-stroke.

Over the last three years, Weide, a Whitefish Bay High School alum, has toughed it out through muscle aches, sickness and snowstorms. He runs a minimum of three miles per day, but averages 4.2 miles per day.

"For the most part I stay outdoors, but I will run on the JCC indoor track if the streets aren't shoveled yet," he said.

After running the Lakefront Marathon in 2011, he was left with extreme knee pains for the next eight months – but he kept running.

His wife Rebecca is impressed by his ability to wake up at 5:30 a.m., drink his coffee and take off running.

"It's admirable and a little crazy at the same time," she said with a laugh.

He even ran on the morning his daughter Elizabeth was born last year.

"We had a contingency plan in case we had an unexpected delivery," Rebecca said. "We had to make sure we had our hospital bag and his running shoes."

After three years of running, Nick has developed his own rituals. When he takes his running clothes out of the laundry, he groups his three running outfits together on the side of the bed. He has certain shirts that are assigned to a certain pair of compression shorts and running shorts.

That sense of organization may be part of why Nick has been able to fit running into his schedule every day over the last three years, despite his other responsibilities of being a husband, father, running a property management firm and coaching his two sons' Whitefish Bay Little League teams.

Still, despite his schedule, Weide doesn't plan to slow down his streak any time soon.

"It's kind of an unhealthy habit at this point," he said. "I'll keep running until something severe happens or my body tells me to quit."