WISCASSET, Maine — The osteoarthritis is more than a nagging presence in Dr. Stephen Reed’s left hip as he gets in his daily run.
Others in his family have urged Reed to have hip replacement surgery, but the notion it would deprive the 67-year-old retired physician of even one day of his favorite physical avocation continues to delay that option.
“At some point, common sense is going to have to intervene and allow me to maybe get some quality of life back,” he admitted this week as he prepared to spend Patriots’ Day competing in the Boston Marathon for the 26th consecutive year.
With the ever-present hip pain and other inevitable effects of a life spent running, Reed’s competitive goal this year won’t be measured on a stopwatch but by the 26.2-mile route from Hopkinton to Boston, Massachusetts.
“I’m hoping I can get to the finish line,” said Reed, who completed last year’s race in 5 hours, 47 minutes, 1 second. “It’s going to be a very pedestrian pace, but hopefully with some diligence and a bit of luck I’ll be able to get the job done.”
Reed’s motivation to keep running extends beyond a specific race, though the 26-year streak at Boston is a source of pride.
An even more significant source of competitive self-satisfaction stems from a remarkable commitment to running.
Reed has run at least three miles each day since June 16, 1976 — 14,185 consecutive days covering 38.84 years through Friday — as certified by the U.S. Streak Running Association Inc.
It’s the 11th-longest streak of its kind in the nation, according to the USSRA.
The official definition of a running streak, as adopted by the USSRA and Streak Runners International Inc., is to run at least one mile within each calendar day. Running may occur on roads, a track, over hill and dale, or on a treadmill.
Reed’s personal standard is to run at least three miles per day, all outdoors.
“Just about all of it’s been in Maine, basically, which makes me more proud because of the weather conditions,” he said. “I’ve run through some adversity, but I’ve also been very fortunate to have not had a major illness or event that’s absolutely prevented me from running.”
Reed has run through deep snow or water on occasion and coped with bad colds, ankle sprains, stomach flu and other ailments to keep his streak alive — not to mention his hip condition for the last two or three years.
“The thing I needed to be most careful about was when it came to talking to my patients about running with illnesses and injuries,” he said. “I had to say, ‘Don’t do as I do but to do as I say,’ because there were times I went running when common sense would have dictated that I shouldn’t have.”
Reed was a competitive runner in high school and into college until he backed off while pursuing his medical degree.
But once he resumed running, he couldn’t stop.
“A couple of months into it I realized I hadn’t missed a day and thought so far, so good, let’s just keep the ball rolling for as long as I can,” Reed said. “The more I got into it the more diligent I was about not letting it go.”
One of his biggest challenges was finding time to run within the unpredictable nature of his medical practice.
“I might have one of my patients in labor at the hospital, and I had to try to figure out how to get my run in around that, for example,” he said. “On days I was on call in the emergency room it became a little tricky, but it didn’t take me long to do the three miles back when I could pick them up and lay them down. I could get that done in about 20 minutes.”
Reed grew more competitive about running during the late 1980s and became a fixture on the state’s road racing scene.
“It just became contagious,” he said. “It’s been a wonderful avocation, I just can’t say enough about it. Socially and athletically it’s just been wonderful.”
Reed made his marathon debut at Sugarloaf in 1989, when he qualified for the 1990 Boston Marathon.
That prompted the start of yet another streak, Reed’s annual pilgrimage to Boston that has included fifth-place, age-group finishes in 1998 (2:48:39 in the men’s 50-59 division) and in 2008 (3:10:59 in the 60-69 class).
“Those were a couple of highlights for me,” he said. “The Boston streak and the daily streak are the real biggies but being able to compete against that level of competition meant a lot to me, too. Those days are over, but I can still savor them.”
Then there are the memories of 2013, when terror bombings near the finish line ended the race prematurely — for Reed, near Mile 22.
“When I first heard that it happened I couldn’t believe it actually occurred,” said Reed, who learned of the bombings from another runner with a cellphone while scaling Heartbreak Hill. “Then my first concern was for those waiting for me at the finish line and being worried about whether they might have been in that area.
“Once I knew everybody was OK, that allayed a lot of my anxiety. Then I started thinking about the fact that I could have been at the finish line if I had been running a little bit better and that gave me two thoughts — one about how it affected me personally, but also thinking that as a physician, perhaps I could have helped.”
Reed completed enough of the race to be granted automatic entry into the 2014 event, which concluded in a different manner.
“Last year was a celebration, everybody with few exceptions seemed to be in good humor,” he said. “People would not let that event destroy the marathon.”
He expects a similar atmosphere Monday when thousands of runners converge for the 119th edition of the world’s oldest annually contested marathon.
“The Boston Marathon has always been extremely charismatic, and I think probably even more so now because of this ignominious event that occurred,” said Reed. “I am so looking forward to going down there even with this bad hip because I just want to try and enjoy this atmosphere as much as I can.
“I think it’s going to be a joyous day even if I don’t get to the finish line.”
