Behind Jon Simpson’s home near the University of Memphis sits a grassy field with a well-worn path that spans around a quarter of a mile.
“When I started my streak there was nothing there,” Simpson told Runner’s World Newswire. “I made that path.”
It was just one path of many that Simpson, a 77-year-old retired dentist, ran over the course of 43 years, notching at least a mile each day on his way to what would be the fifth-longest running streak in the world (15,991 days) before it ended earlier this summer.
“One of the only times I had a near miss was around year 15,” he said. “I got food poisoning from a Christmas meal and had to go to the emergency room. I ran when I got back.”
Over more than four decades, Simpson said the running became a constant part of his morning routine. He woke up at 5:30 a.m., drank a full glass of water with some vitamin D pills, then performed his “gut buster” exercises that included pushups and situps to prep for a run that typically spanned a little under two miles.
Simpson’s streak started more from necessity than a love of running.
“I am not one who really enjoys a long jog,” he said. “It is still a chore for me, because of my right leg.”
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The summer of 1954, before his sophomore year at Central High School in Memphis, Simpson went on vacation to Arkansas. He soon felt ill, and when Simpson returned home, he went to the hospital where tests revealed polio.
Simpson missed a semester of school. For more than nine months, he relied on wooden crutches and then an aluminum cane to get around.
“The rest of my life I have spent trying to strengthen my right leg,” Simpson said.
After he graduated from Rhodes College (then called Southwestern at Memphis) and dental school at the University of Tennessee, Simpson started running regularly while he served in the U.S. Army at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 1966, he moved back to Tennessee with his wife, Caroline.
In his early 30s, Simpson said he usually ran six days a week, resting on Sundays. But on August 30, 1971, he made a resolution to run every day for an entire year.
“One thing led to another,” he said. Since then, Simpson has run all over the country and the world, in places like Yellowstone National Park, England, Iceland, and Israel. He’s run on the decks of cruise ships.
All those years of running, and Simpson never ran a race. “Not even a 5K,” Simpson said.
“You just get in the habit of doing it,” he said of the streak. “You get some good shoes and when each day comes, you know that you’re going to run.”
After 20 years without missing a day, Simpson’s wife had one of his older running shoes bronzed. The sides were split open and there was a hole in forefoot.
“Dad would run in a pair until he couldn’t run in them anymore,” Simpson’s son, Grant said.
In addition to the bronzed shoe, Simpson keeps a plaque in his den that he received from the United States Running Streak Association (USRSA) in 2011, to commemorate his 40th running anniversary.
“I want to make it to 50 years,” Simpson told Other Hearst Subscriptions Beginner Running Gear.
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On June 10, however, Simpson’s right leg buckled toward the end of a normal run. Fortunately, a few people nearby saw him fall and helped him home.
The next day, it wasn’t Simpson’s leg that hampered him. It was his vision. Doctors told him he had suffered a detached retina and advised immediate surgery.
“They told me it would be weeks before I could even consider running,” Simpson said.
So after 15,991 days, the running streak came to an end.
Simpson can now claim the second-longest retired running streak, according to Mark Washburne, the president of the USRSA and Streak Runners International. Simpson trails only Mark Covert from Lancaster, California, whose streak from July 23, 1968 to July 23, 2013, spanned 16,437 days.
Both Simpson and Covert are members of an exclusive club. In order to qualify for a spot on the USRSA’s list, a runner must have a streak that spans at least one year.
The USRSA’s website specifies the requirements: “The official definition of a running streak, as adopted by the Streak Runners International, Inc., and United States Running Streak Association, Inc., is to run at least one mile (1.61 kilometers) within each calendar day. Running may occur on either the roads, a track, over hill and dale, or on a treadmill.”
While there are currently 570 people on the active list, only 12 individuals on either the retired or active USA lists have streaks of 40 years or more.
“Running one mile is not that tough,” said Washburne, who has run at least three miles a day since December 31, 1989. “But completing it every day year after year becomes a great challenge. What Jon has done is amazing, especially given his illness in his teenage years.”
Simpson notified Washburne that his streak ended through a written letter postmarked August 7. The association relies on the honor code.
“Some people think we are obsessed,” Washburne added about his fellow streakers. “I prefer to think of us as dedicated.”
