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Show HN: Ten years of running every day, visualized (nodaysoff.run)

958 points by friggeri ↗ HN
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

141 comments

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agcat
Love it! How did you stay motivated?
ahalimah
Do you have the source/pipeline available? I love the design and would want to do something similar for my own runs.

Congrats on the decade! Did you ever focus on specific metrics or was it always just about the run?

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.
som
Agreed. Was wondering where the inspiration came for each chart choice?
friggeri
I wanted something minimalist but high contrast, and enough variety so charts would not be repetitive. I have a thing for data visualization, so I pulled inspiration from the pile of books I have on my bookshelf.
Breza
What are some of your favorite data viz books? I'm a fellow chart nerd and I'm always looking for new suggestions.
vismit2000
You might want to check out Edward Tufte books, particularly 'Envisioning Information'
yamatokaneko
This is so cool! At what point did you start thinking about this project? Like, were you quietly working on it a year ago after every run, just waiting for this moment?

And hey, great run in Japan! (Tokyo here!) I love the map visualization too.

mvkillu
Love it!

I will hit one year mark in a couple of weeks. Currently maintaining stats in a Google spreadsheet :)

https://vijaykillu.com/

friggeri
Congrats, that’s an amazing milestone!
high_priest
SVGs? So, some of the staistics graphs do not update, or have you made them dynamic by hand?
chrisxlucas
beautifullllllll—both the streak and the stack. Love how lightweight the architecture is for something so personal and long-term. Curious if you noticed any patterns in the data that surprised you once you visualized it?
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.
YuvalFishbine
That's awesome! any tips for people who are just starting out?
GZGavinZhao
Not OP but I've been consistently running for ~4 years (consistent := >=200K every month). The #1 advice I'd give is start short, start slow, e.g. start with 1 mile and as long as you're not walking you can consider yourself running. It's about finishing, not about speed.

Also unlike many people I know, I don't listen to anything while running. Running is a time for me to think about stuff that I'm too busy to think about during the day (e.g. contemplating life issues or is 1*0=0 because of 1 or 0)

__turbobrew__
When you exercise try to stay in heartrate zone 2/3. This may mean walking up a hill as many people cannot start running and keep their heart rate down. Many who try to run get discouraged as they go too hard and blow up their heartrate which makes for a unpleasant experience.

Over time the speed and duration you can run will get better but your heart rate will stay the same.

I would recommend trail running as it is much more dynamic and you are less likely to get overuse injuries like people who run on concrete for many miles get stress fractures. Bonus points you get out in nature.

igouy
Our heart rate will not stay the same when we run.

Our expectations change. We learn to expect a faster heart rate.

__turbobrew__
Im not sure what you are trying to get at? I 100% can run faster and longer than I did a few years ago, but my heart rate stayed in the same zone when running?
igouy
> Many who try to run get discouraged as they go too hard and blow up their heartrate which makes for a unpleasant experience.

"People who are just starting out" may experience "blow up their heart rate" as unpleasant; and then they learn to expect a faster heart rate when they run.

These days my running heart rate peaks at 3.5x my at-rest heart rate.

friggeri
Like others said: take it slow, invest in the long term, and most importantly learn to listen to your body. Best of luck in your journey!
fifilura
When I started out (3y into my streak now), the magic happened in some more or less distinct stages.

On week four "I am really doing this". And on week 12 "impossible to stop now".

Aim for those and you will be unstoppable.

elric
Don't buy into the "couch to 5k" hype. Instead, try "none to run" and don't be afraid to take it even slower than the programme suggests.
faeyanpiraat
I always hated running, but months of nagging by one of my colleagues (who does marathons) I started doing it, but keeping it short and slow for now.

My first jog was like 500 meters, and I was exhausted, but I've did like 20 more sessions since then, and I see a steady increase of distance I can go before I reach my first point of exhaustion.

Now I can go 1000 meters, and recover faster, and I even feel slightly generally better during my everyday life.

Since I'm not pushing myself too hard, it is actually kind of enjoyable and even though I do not have a regular routine, never before I had the spontaneous urge to jump up from my chair at the end of the workday and go running with a smile on my face.

hackeraccount
If you run regularly there'll be nice days. The temperature will be 55F with no breeze and cloudy enough so the sun isn't annoyingly bright. You'll feel great the whole time and the only regret will be that it wasn't a longer run.

Those aren't the days that matter.

The days that matter are rainy. They'll be bastard hot and humid. Cold and windy. You'll be annoyed because you don't have time. Something will hurt and there'll be a thought in the back of your head that maybe if you skip today (and the next run too?) then you'll feel better.

Those crap days are the days that count. Those days are money in the bank. Enough of them and you get great days. Every day like that is a day where you can think that running for you is like a smoke to a pack a day man. It's not something you do it's something you are.

GZGavinZhao
I don't have the tenacity to run strictly _everyday_, so as a middle ground I don't run when it rains at anytime during daylight.

Of course the effectiveness of this rule depends on where you live :P

MOARDONGZPLZ
I’ve always wanted to do this, but I fly to Singapore from the USA about annually. That means that I essentially skip a day (take off on day 1, land on day 3) so can’t qualify for the streak. Also why I couldn’t do the 366 day streak in one year.
elcaro
Under the "Countries Visited" section it says "been lucky to run on all seven continents, including antarctica!", but it doesn't look like they've been to Australia.
paulcole
I love streaks like this.

My current bests are: 686 days for completing the New York Times Crossword and 582 days of 20+ minutes of Apple Fitness+ classes.

Plus 15,344 days without driving a car (I never learned) and without having alcohol or soda (just never had the interest). And 5,123 days since I've taken Ecstasy (tried it once).

Around 6,000 days since I last intentionally ate meat, but I couldn't tell you the exact date.

lbrito
>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.

WalterBright
I had an operation a while back, and had to give up running for 6 weeks (running increases blood pressure which can cause internal bleeding). I was climbing the walls waiting so I could step out and resume running.

One of the symptoms of the flu is aching joints. Running on aching joints may be damaging them, so I don't.

michaelhoney
I love this! BTW you are selling yourself short on your 5K personal best. The time listed (35:35) is your best 5 mile, whereas your best 5K is a respectable 21:20
jmpavlec
Something funky with your personal beats. It says your best 5k was in 35:35 but your best 10k was in 43:26. Not possible for those both to be true . I guess the 5k data is screwy since that is quite a slow 5k time.

Edit: seems maybe tht 5k is mislabeled, should be 5 miles... But that feels like a less standardized time.

bix6
Congrats! Why don’t you ever take a day off eg for recuperation or during some of the more serious issues you mention?
lippihom
Love how you laid (layed?) everything out. Super clean site.
edverma2
This is so cool. Congrats on ten years!
zug_zug
I'd be curious to see long-term improvements, like resting heartrate over time, or heartrate @ 10 min mile over time.
rocauc
both the endeavor and the site are super cool - congrats on 10 years. interaction on the graphics would be a nice touch to select into a specific run. went looking for the code on your GH! https://github.com/friggeri
_zagj
> heart procedures

Do you have AFib, by any chance? Congratulations on your streak, regardless.

EDIT: in another comment, you mentioned:

> I needed a cardiac ablation a couple of years ago

So I guess that's a yes? Was that when you were averaging 5.3 miles daily that one year? For those unaware, there's a well-established link between excessive endurance exercise and AFib.