Just Run, Baby
Mark Courtney and Les Shoop share streaks that span decades.
Shoop, a retired Knoch High School boys basketball coach who now serves as official scorer for the team, says he and Grove City resident Courtney are quite different.
“I'm a jogger. He's a runner,” Shoop, 73, said.
You can't keep either one from pounding the pavement — every day.
Through Tuesday, Courtney, 65 — whose Runner's High company ran the timing system at the Butler Road Race for nearly 25 years — has run at least one mile for 15,008 days, a streak covering 41.09 years.
Shoop has done the same for 14,878 consecutive days, or 40.73 years.
Both are members of the United States Running Streak Association and Streak Runners International, Inc., which chart such endeavors. Courtney's streak is the 27th longest active one in the world. Shoop's is 30th on the list.
“You pay $20 a year to join the association and it's the honor system from there,” Shoop said. “You stay on the list, the association keeps track of it every day until your streak ends.”
Neither has any idea when that will be.“My goal? Be able to get out there and run tomorrow,” Courtney said.Courtney added that his running streak had reached 20 years “before they even formed that club.”A runner may continue the streak by running at least a mile on either a road, track, over a hill or on a treadmill.Shoop and Courtney generally run at least three miles a day. And neither has extended his respective streak on a treadmill.For this duo, it's outdoors or bust.“There is quite a bit of luck involved,” Shoop admitted. “Your health has to stay at least to the point where you can physically get out there and do it.“I've run with the flu before. My worst day was running on a day when the wind-chill was 61 below. That was the day of that NFL playoff game (San Diego at Cincinnati), I can remember.”Shoop said he usually gets his runs in at 5:15 a.m., on Riemer Road, where he lives.“I had a calf injury and ran on it,” he recalled. “One thing this streak has done is motivate me to continue. It's definitely been great for my health.”'Courtney has run through a lot of pain over the years, even on crutches a few times. He had a cyst removed from an ankle and kept the streak going.He even vacated a hospital bed in the middle of the night to avoid seeing it come to an end.“I was in there for some surgery. It was after midnight,” Courtney said. “I got dressed, walked out of the hospital, ran eight miles, came back and hopped back into bed.“Nobody missed me. I got away with that one.”
Shoop has run the Buffalo Creek Half-Marathon and roughly 50 5k and or 10k races.“I've had two 2,000-mile years,” he said of his running. “But that was some time ago.”Courtney has more than 250 career race wins. He's run as many as 70 races in a year and 1,900 races overall.Included in that stretch is 41 consecutive Boston Marathons, which ranks ninth on that event's all-time list.“My most miserable day of running was at a Boston Marathon,” Courtney said. “It was 40 degrees, 20-miles per hour winds, a driving rainstorm the entire time, and I was running despite a pulled hamstring.“I managed to finish.”For Shoop and Courtney, finishing what they start is what running is all about.“Dec. 19, 1979 ... That's when it all started for me,” Courtney said. “Once I ran every day for a year, I thought it'd be cool to try to do it for 10 years ... it just grew from there.Courtney has run nearly 105,000 miles during his streak.“I guess you can call it an addiction,” he said. “But there's a lot worse things you could be addicted to.”The Streak Runners International's leading active streak belongs to Jon Sutherland, 70, of West Hills, Calif. He has run at least a mile for 18,863 consecutive days, or 51.64 years.“You look at that list,” Shoop said. “No matter how long this lasts, there will always be someone who's gone longer.“It just comes down to personal pride.”
