For basically every single one of us, the allure of coming up with a resolution hits every New Year’s Day.
It’s a goal to work towards for the entire year.
A way to better ourselves.
A chance to push aside bad traits, and replace them with new skills or self-improvement.
… And for some, those resolutions become healthy habits.
Just ask Ryan Pavao.
When the 50-year-old Newburyport native wakes up on Thursday morning to ring in the new year, he’ll do so having run at least one mile every day for the past 10 years. It’s a challenge that he started with Lafayette Street neighbor Bob Hoffman back on January 1st, 2016, and now a full decade — exactly 3,652 days — later, he’s still grinding away around town.
“Bob and I always did the 5Ks in town,” said Pavao. “Then on our street, there were like 10-to-15 kids, along with my own, who started doing the High Street Mile when they were young. So we had T-shirts made up through the years that said, ‘Lafayette Street Running Club’. And yeah, that December Bob and I agreed that we would start this challenge to run a mile outside every day for a month to start the new year. He continued until February until he hurt his ankle.
“But I just sort of had a lot of fun with it and kept going.”
Now a full decade later, he hasn’t stopped.
One mile. Outside. Every day for the past 3,652 days. Without fail.
Pavao jokes that he’s, “delayed dinner more times than I can count,” over the years while keeping his streak alive. Working as the General Manager of Millennium Tower in Boston, there have been countless long drives through city traffic after clocking out, where the first order of business after arriving home has been changing into sweats to head right back out for a run.
“Sometimes I take our dog out with me to take some of the heat off,” laughed Pavao.
But rain or shine — blizzard or hail storm — he’s got it done.
And, as you would expect, there have been some near streak-ending days.
Pavao remembers COVID being an especially stressful time for the potential end of the streak, as pretty much everyone in his family got sick except for him. Then one day, an accidental scratched cornea during a pick-up basketball game required a visit to urgent care, and Pavao remembers running half blind at night after getting home.
“It definitely can be a challenge in the winter,” said Pavao. “But I actually prefer to run in bad weather. I like to go over and run at Old Town Hill in the winter to sort of challenge myself. … It’s nice coming home after a long drive from work and just being able to go out and run.”
And through the years, the streak has extended to his family.
Pavao’s wife, Niki, ran the mile with him for 2.5 straight years. Then a few years ago, his then-11-year-old son, George, did it for an entire year as well, having to go as far as to talk to his counselors at sleepaway camp to make sure he could sneak away to get it done every day.
The story even extends to Pavao’s daughter, Brela, a Newburyport High Class of 2024 graduate and former two-sport captain in soccer and basketball. Brela — who, according to her father, hates running — took up the mile with her dad for an entire year when she was a junior in high school, then wrote her college essay on the lessons of perseverance she learned from the experience.
So starting today, maybe one of your New Year’s resolutions will turn into a habit.
Ryan Pavao is a decade into running one mile every day, and he doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.
“I’m kind of pumped that it got to 10 years and I haven’t gotten hurt,” said Pavao. “But it’s just fun that something that started out getting the kids into running turned into this. Newburyport just has a great running community.”