Rick Rayman’s running streak continues at 300th marathon Sunday

When Rick Rayman toes the starting line at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon on Sunday, he’ll be continuing a streak that quietly has to count as one of the more amazing in any form of athletics.

Rayman, a 67 year-old professor at the University of Toronto School of Dentistry, will be running Sunday in his 300^th marathon. He ran his first in August 1978, and has run an average of over 8 per year since. In the last three weeks alone, Rayman ran marathons in Corning, NY and Ottawa in the lead-up to the Toronto jaunt.

But the marathon tally isn’t Rayman’s most impressive accomplishment. Rayman has run every single day for 34 years, 10 months and 9 days. It’s a streak that started when his friend, broadcaster Brian Williams, pointed out that Rayman hadn’t missed a run in 270 days, back in 1979. Rayman’s been running ever since.

And we’re not talking a quick jog around the block; unlike some other streak runners who consider a mile a day a worthy accomplishment, Rayman runs at least 30 minutes each day, rain or shine.

“To me, running a mile isn’t even worth putting your shoes on,” Rayman says.

Rayman admits to being a little obsessive in other endeavours as well. He says he’s only missed three days of work since 1970, for example. He’s run three marathons in three days before. And he considers the combination of the daily streak and the pounding of marathon racing to be more powerful than the exploits of some of his more esteemed collegues in the streak running world.

For example, Robert “Raven” Kraft, a Miami songwriter, has earned accolades for running 8 miles a day since January 1, 1975. But to hear Rayman tell it, Kraft’s runs might really be just a walk on a beach. Kraft doesn’t run races, or vary his milage.

“His reason is he doesn’t want to pay to run, but my feeling is he’s not pushing himself,” Rayman said.

“It’s hard to run 8 miles, but it’s really hard to run marathons.”

As Sunday’s marathon approaches, most runners are in the last days of Taper Madness, where reduced mileage, carb-loading and race anxiety combine for sleepless nights and pre-race jitters. Not for Rayman, though; he says his daily workload and exhaustive race schedule has a silver lining.

“All you need to do is run marathons every week, and you don’t need to taper!”