Richard Grady Story

Just Another Runner’s Story December 2023 Written by Gale Fischer

Never a Day Off

“Life is so full that you just take it one day at a time.”

—Sheryl Crow

Many in the running community are driven by goals. Goals can be measured by distance or pace. Some may be centered around race PRs or races completed. Others may be short-term while goals that require months, years, or decades to complete are what some runners may strive for. Whatever your goal, patience, persistence, and dedication are usually required. Battle Creek runner Richard Grady set his sights on a unique goal more than fourteen years ago. He has not created a timeline for achieving this goal. He might accomplish his goal tomorrow or it might be another fourteen years. To keep his goal alive requires a commitment every single day. There are no days off. Richard’s mission has been something that has kept him running as a middle-aged adult but as a child his future as a runner was doubtful. Many may know  Richard as the goofy guy who runs in shorts even through Michigan’s bone-chilling winter months while sporting toe shoes on his feet. His running story goes well beyond this perception and is one of distinctive inspiration.

When Richard was six years old he endured a traumatic accident. “I was crossing the street in front of my house. I saw a car coming so I turned back toward the sidewalk.”  The car didn’t stop, hitting Richard and running over him. He suffered a compound-complex fracture of the right tibia and fibula. The bones of his right calf spun in place but his ankle stayed put. “I spent several months in the hospital. The scar tissue in my leg is still noticeable from both the initial accident  as well as the series of skin grafts that were completed to save my leg.”

Initially, the surgeons were not sure if his leg could be saved.  “For one of the procedures scheduled a few days after my accident, I was wheeled into the OR. There were two sets of instruments for the surgeons to use: one to continue the work to save my leg and the other if my leg would need to be amputated.”

Ultimately the surgeons were able to save Richard’s leg. “When the cast was finally removed I began PT. I had to learn how to walk again. The early prognosis was that for the rest of my life, I would need a cane or a crutch. As I began to progress with PT my medical team realized that I would not need a cane to walk but I would always walk with a limp. Any chance of ever running was a lost cause.”  Richard would go on to prove his medical team wrong.

Like many adult runners, running wasn’t Richard’s first sport of choice. “I played soccer in middle school, switching to cross country in high school. Soccer was the sport I enjoyed playing as a kid. I was on the soccer team as a freshman but I didn’t earn much playing time.”  

Richard’s experience in his freshman year left him questioning his future as a soccer player. “We had a terrible team and were often punished by having to run. I remember thinking I was getting punished for losing a game that I really had no part in. I had a friend who was running cross country and after talking to him I realized I could participate in every competition as a cross country runner, unlike what was happening in soccer.”

Richard signed on for track in the spring of his freshman year, running the mile and two mile. He came back from summer vacation and joined the cross-country team as a sophomore. He recalls some fond memories as a high school runner. “My junior year I remember one moment in particular. During a race on our home course, I rounded the last corner. There was a competitor ahead of me and my coaches kept screaming that I needed to catch this boy. He heard my coaches encouraging me to catch him so he picked up his pace and I gave up. After this, I decided that I needed to build a kick into my racing strategy.” 

Richard was never an elite high school runner but this didn’t bother him. “I was always a consistent eighth or ninth runner on my team so I usually raced on the JV team. Even though I wasn’t a star,I always enjoyed it.”  His experiences as a high school runner left a lasting impression on him, creating not just a hobby but a lifestyle.

Richard and his family packed their bags in 2004 moving from Omaha to Battle Creek. Richard joined a gym to stay in shape. “My family moved to Battle Creek in 2004 and I immediately joined the YMCA. They had child care so I thought that dropping off my son Kevin, who was ten months old, at a gym with childcare would be a great way for me to exercise. I joined the YMCA to work out with no intention of running long distances. I jumped on the treadmill at first thinking it would be easy but it wasn’t. Eventually, my go-to cardio activity became the treadmill.” 

Richard’s wife would plant a seed for him pushing him to increase his training and race distances. “My short runs on the treadmill were enough to keep me running but soon I would make the jump to longer distances. My wife and her sisters had started talking about running the 2006 Disney Half-Marathon, a race that was a part of the Disney Race series which at that time consisted of a weekend with a half marathon on Saturday and a marathon on Sunday.”  While training for the Disney Half, Richard ran his first half marathon, Labor Day weekend of 2005, the Runner’s Edge Trail Half, and then ran the Disney Half in January of 2006. 

With two half-marathon finishes, Richard was comfortable with the distance and had not considered a full marathon. His interest in the next logical step as a runner would soon come during his stay at Disney. “ After running the half we were sitting in a restaurant on the marathon course. I remember seeing the runners go by and thinking that running a marathon was something I could do and wanted to do.”

Running long distances was a challenge for Richard but also rewarding. He began to understand that running could be an easily accessible activity. “I began to realize that running could be a simple, inexpensive sport. You can make it as cheap as you desire. You can run whenever you want. At the most basic level, all that you need is a pair of shoes, socks, shorts, and a shirt.”  

After returning home from Disney, Richard committed to the training required for the marathon distance. “I ran my first marathon less than a year after running the Disney Half, the Equestrian Challenge Trail Marathon. I read a couple of John Bingham and Hal Higdon books which gave me some ideas for training for a marathon. I experimented with nutrition. I worked up to a long training run of twenty miles and finished my first marathon in a time of three hours and forty-five minutes. I felt good physically. I knew that I wanted to run another marathon but really didn’t have plans of when.” 

Richard’s interest in running longer distances was growing. Within his running network, he began hearing about other runners enjoying their sport every day, building a daily running streak lasting weeks, months, and years. He had run a few half-marathons and a full marathon but realized that he was still lacking consistency in his training. “I looked at my running logs and discovered that my training routine lacked discipline. I decided to test a running streak by running every day for two weeks. My journey with my running streak began August 20, 2008. After two weeks I decided to keep going to see if I could run every day for two months. Two months came and I decided to keep going for a year. Now more than 5,000 days later, (over 14 years) I am still going.”  

Richard began his running streak as a way to make his sport a steady routine but it would eventually turn into the focus of his running journey. Within his local running community, there are few runners locked in to the same goal as Richard but he has found support and motivation through social media. “I belong to a Facebook group of streaking runners. There is an ongoing competition among us. There is always an up-to-date list of how many consecutive days each of us has. Currently, I sit at  209 on this list for the most consecutive days. To keep my streak going I have to run at least one interrupted mile a day. My goal is to just keep going as long as I can.”

Like anything in life to excel at something or accomplish a task sacrifices are made in other areas of life. Richard understands that you can’t always have the best of both worlds. “There is a trade-off. Running every day with no recovery days has taken away some speed but I do feel that with my mileage I can go out and run a half-marathon or marathon anytime I want. It might not be an easy task but my training base would allow me to complete the longer distances”

For a seasoned runner going out and running a few miles requires little effort or commitment. To do this every day, however, might present some challenges. There have been occasions when Richard’s streak was at risk of coming to an end. “I have had to deal with some things that have made keeping the streak going difficult. I have run through plantar fasciitis. I have had to run through two elbow surgeries, within three months and the recovery required for each. When I was scheduled for my elbow surgeries I was a bit worried the streak would come to a halt. I ran after the stroke of midnight the day of each surgery and then I ran later in the evening the day following each surgery”  Richard spent a few weeks after each surgery having to run with a sling.

To run every day for more than fourteen years has required hard work, discipline, and patience for Richard on a personal level, but he is not in it alone. “My son thinks this streak is cool. My wife indulges me. I wouldn’t be able to do this without her support and willingness to let me run on Christmas Day or each day if we were on vacation. It is a sacrifice for her on these days.”

In the midst of his running streak, Richard has been blessed with experiences that are common among other runners. He has finished twenty marathons to date. Of these twenty marathon venues, there is one in particular that is his favorite. “I am a University of Illinois graduate. In 2009 the University was home to the inaugural Illinois Marathon which finished in the football stadium. Because this was where I went to school I decided I wanted to run it. I liked the course and I was able to see some college friends. I decided that I would like to run this race every year. So far I have run it ten times.” Due to COVID the Illinois Marathon has not been run since 2019. Richard is anxious for organizers to bring it back and would love to run it as many consecutive years as he can, another streak that he embraces. 

A running craze that gained popularity among many in the running community just after the turn of the century was barefoot running. The ideology behind this is that running without shoes allows for a more natural stride and gate. Shoe manufacturers began producing a minimalist shoe that protected the foot from pebbles and sharp objects while also mimicking barefoot running. For nearly a decade many runners embraced running barefoot or with a minimalist shoe but eventually, the popularity wore off. Richard is one of the few who has continued with this trend. “Several years ago I read the book Born the Run which promoted the benefits of running barefoot. After this book came out there was a big hype for running with minimalist shoes.”  Richard joined the hype shortly after reading the book but quickly realized he would have to ease into it. “I decided that I would need to ease into them gradually before running exclusively in the minimalist shoes. It took a few months to transition to minimalists full time and now it's the only shoe I run in.”

When looking back at overcoming a traumatic accident as a child with the possibility of never being able to run to the lifestyle that running has now created for him as a middle-aged adult Richard understands how running is a metaphor for life. His words of advice are a perfect illustration of this. “It is important to remember that what works for me as a runner may not work for you and what works for you may not work for me. You need to figure out what part of running you want and figure out what you need to do to get there.” 

Richard’s running story provides us with a great example of how life is often unpredictable. His parents were told by doctors when he was a young boy that he would forever need the assistance of a cane to walk and that he would never be able to run. Doctors are blessed with a wealth of knowledge but even with their extraordinary wisdom, it is impossible to predict an outcome with 100% accuracy. No one can place themselves inside the soul of another to see what one is truly capable of. Richard’s run streak in a way resembles the attitude he possessed as a six-year-old. There are times when it is best to put on the blinders and not look behind or ahead but simply live in the moment. I would suspect that this attitude is part of what keeps Richard going. One day at a time and one run at a time.

Everyone has a story.  Stay tuned next month for another runner’s story.