5k. Every day. For 366 days.
Sounds crazy, right? Sometimes the crazy ideas are the best, even if you think they might seem a little too crazy... Jack Anstey shares his wild year of running and what it taught him about himself.
If there’s a shared weakness runners have, it’s that we are rather more susceptible to intrusive thoughts than the general public. Watching hoards of brave men and women haul their sleep-deprived asses across some of England’s harshest terrain during the Winter Spine Race this week has certainly had my ridiculous thought generator going into overdrive.
“Could I… could I do an ultra?”
“Yeah, yeah I know it’s tough. But it might actually be fun?”
“It’s kinda just doing what I do now, but for longer…”
“Our bodies are made to do this kind of stuff anyway. Aren’t they?”
These disruptive flashes that crash into your consciousness like your foot dropping into a hidden hole on a boggy marsh are just part of being a runner. Even though you know there’s a reasonable chance you might encounter one, when you do it leaves you shocked, shaken, and unable to think of much else for quite some time.
Intrusive thoughts are the ultimate in self-competition. They are our brain’s method of seeking out personal improvement. Our grey matter is constantly looking for ways in which we can feel proud of our achievements. Ways in which we can chase the next high.
It’s probably fair to call what happened to Jack Anstey just over a year ago the product of an intrusive thought. Already a fit and active guy living a nomadic lifestyle from his campervan as a full-time photographer, Jack’s brain decided to throw him a curveball that he couldn’t seem to shake.
Running a 5k every single day for an entire year…
“It actually came about mainly because of how much I didn’t want to do it,” Jack explains. “At first I dismissed it because it would be too inconvenient to fit in with daily life, travel and work. I don’t really like conceding to a challenge, and I’m frustratingly competitive with myself, so I knew it wouldn’t be something that I could take lightly. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to realise it was something that was going to happen, I just hadn’t accepted it yet.”
And so, just before Christmas 2023, Jack made the contractually-binding error of voicing this challenge out loud. It had just become official.
For most runners, a set of rules to live your life by like this would be challenging enough. For someone who lives on the road, travels internationally on a regular basis for work, and already leads a very active lifestyle, it’s probably more akin to juggling bars of soap.
“Weeks 3-6 were probably the hardest weeks, as the initial motivation had lost its shine and I’d picked up some feisty shin splits and was living in kino-tape,” explains Jack.
“It’s also at that stage where I feel you’re most likely to back out, when the novelty has worn off, there are aches and pains and you’re beginning to realise just how many days there are in a year. I think this is where my self-competitiveness came into effect, and I’d just accepted that I didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
Just in the same way that an individual run can sometimes feel pretty gross until a certain mileage or time has been reached, by March Jack started to feel his fitness growing, his shin splints fading, and – perhaps most unexpectedly of all – his enjoyment of running blossoming.
An awful lot can happen in a person’s life during one rotation of this hunk of rock we call home around the burning ball of gas at the centre of our Solar System. You’ve been on a few rides around by now I dare say, reader, you don’t need me to tell you this.
Imagine trying to run on every single one of those days along the way. Some of you may have already done it. Others may find the idea fun but the practicalities unmanageable.
Jack didn’t allow a single drop of inconvenience to stand in his way. He ran around Scotland where he was based for a lot of the year. He ran through the Arctic blasts of winter in Åre in Northern Sweden. He left footprints in the scorching sand of the Namib Desert in Namibia. He confused fellow travellers and dodged security guards while completing the 5k ritual around a South African airport during a layover.
Every single time he threw on his trainers and got the 5k done, he was saying no to inconvenience. Defiance in the face of drawbacks.
“The travel made it exciting, and the extra challenge and pressure of fitting the 5k in around a busy schedule almost motivated me more,” he says.
“The tougher days were the ones sat in the van on a stormy afternoon, trying to decide when to go out and brave the elements. It was great getting to experience such a wide range of environments and landscapes, I found a love for these little 5k snapshots of the world around me – it’s like an extra little set of memories from each place I visited.
“There was a particularly tough couple of weeks in Kyrgyzstan, where I was guiding an adventure photography workshop. On top of hiking at 3000m, camping in the mountains and waking up to photograph sunrise every day, I’d also have to squeeze a 5k in there somewhere. This usually meant getting up an hour before everyone else and running straight out of the sleeping bag to get it done before everyone else woke up.”
Anyone who has completed a challenge that demands consistency such as this will know that eventually, it becomes automatic. It really does become born into ritual. And as Jack’s ritual had begun to feel like a seamless integration into his daily life, he realised he was nearing the end of 2024 – the finish line was in sight.
No matter whether you’re closing in on the last mile of a marathon, or putting down the last few runs in a long streak, as you approach the end of something like this, you begin to take stock of how it has changed you, and also what you have learned about yourself. Not only as an athlete but also as a human being.
“There’s a lot of pride I have in completing a long goal like this,” says Jack.
“It’s proven through action that I am as disciplined, motivated and capable as I believe. It's also reinforced a lot of beliefs about the benefits of exercise – about keeping fit and healthy, submitting yourself to discomfort, and giving yourself time to think.
“Cutting music out of my exercise was a huge part of my growth into the challenge, and it’s not something I think I could go back to. I really love the atmosphere of my surroundings, and taking the time to really think to yourself – it’s kind of like therapy.
“The other huge takeaway is that going for a run always leaves me feeling better afterwards – and I’m convinced that it’s the best hangover cure out there!”
After running 1,925km in 366 days, it’s fair to say that Jack now feels like he can confidently call himself a runner, but that was never the aim of a challenge like this. It was about proving something to himself. Testing himself and hoping he got the answers he suspected he might. When posed with the cliched question of ‘what’s next?’, Jack makes the noises that all of us have probably made when asked that – and perhaps quite neatly in terms of this article’s narrative, reveals a few more intrusive thoughts he’s let into his head.
“Maybe it’s time to get into long-distance running?” he jokes. “I’ve always wanted to do an ultra in the mountains. I’m not putting too much out there in terms of future plans and goals, but I’m looking forward to whatever the next challenge brings.”
Whatever happens, Jack became so attached to this particular running ritual that he plans to continue into 2025 by doing at least 30 minutes of exercise per day – whether that’s running, cross-training, or strength.
He concludes: “We all probably spend way too much time staring at screens than is good for us, so I would tell myself that all I’m doing is trading half an hour of scrolling for time better spent. I started looking forward to the escape and relishing the time outside. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done, and I’d recommend it to anyone!”
Huge thanks goes to Jack for taking the time to do this interview. Also for all the photos and the YouTube video share. You can follow Jack and his work over on his Instagram page: @jack_anstey