Professional Streaker Max Jolliffe Professional Streaker Max Jolliffe

Hey man!

What’s up, bro?

How’s Indo?

Dude, it’s sick. It’s my first time coming here and it’s mental. It’s just a dream.

I’ve heard it’s awesome.

You gotta get over here.

So, listen, this is for the POSSESSED is POSSESSED issue, which is basically all about running and how it’s addictive.

I can relate.

Yeah. So, I wanted to chat with you because you’re on that crazy running streak.

Yeah, yeah.

But before we talk about that, can you quickly tell me how you got into running?

Yeah, well, my running journey was kind of not your normal route. In high school I played other sports; I did water polo and swimming for half of my high school career, and then transitioned to wrestling later on, but I never ran at all. 

Right.

But my dad was a marathon runner, so there were, you know, some hints that I might’ve been good at it, but I didn’t do any running-related sports in school. Then, after high school, I was kinda going down a rough patch in my life. I got pretty fucked up on drugs and was on a bad path. Then, I ended up getting sober, and I got a job working for this local surf company. They had a skatepark in their office, like, in the warehouse, so I’d just skate the skatepark every day and got super into skating again after not doing it for a while and being lost in my life—

Right, right.

So, I got back into skating, and if you skate long enough, you’re gonna get injured, right?

Yes, you are.

So, in the span of a year, I ended up breaking both of my ankles separately—

Yikes.

Yeah. So, I broke one, and six months later, it healed up, and I broke the other one. 

Oh, man. 

So, I kinda went through this period of six months to a year where I couldn’t really do anything. I was hobbling around on crutches, and then I had a knee scooter for a while. Anyway, my roommate at the time, he was super into going to the gym, and I was like, ‘Man, I feel like shit. I’m super out of shape,’ you know?

Yeah, yeah.

And he was like, ‘Hey, you should start coming to the gym with me!’ So, I started going to the gym and lifting weights and stuff, which, you know, I’m into, but I wasn’t really trying to be a fuckin’ bodybuilder or a big dude or anything. But then I sort of found myself going to the cardio section before I could even run. My ankle was still wrecked, so I’d just do the Stairmaster.

The Stairmaster?

Yeah, and I became obsessed with it. I’d be doing it for an hour and the machine would switch off, and I’d hit it for another thirty minutes—I was like the fuckin’ Stairmaster Master, you know what I mean?

[Laughter]

Then what happened?

So, after doing that for a while, I started slowly running on the treadmill when my ankle started to feel better, and then I eventually found myself going to the gym and just running on the treadmill and being like, ‘What the fuck am I doing with this gym membership?’ Like, ‘I can just run outside.’ And that’s kinda how my journey began. I started running outside, and I really fell in love with it. And I started pushing myself, you know? Naturally pushing myself, and eventually, around 2018, I decided I wanted to run my first marathon; then in 2019, I ran it, and then it’s just kinda been the continuation of the obsession ever since, getting into ultras and all that crazy shit.

I gotta say, I didn’t see the Stairmaster coming.

Oh yeah.

[Laughter]

My best buddy had a drinking problem years ago, and he went to AA and turned his life around—thank god—and he kind of replaced drinking with running, and that’s how I was expecting your story to play out, but then the ankles and the Stairmaster?

I mean, I think that’s true for a lot of people. Running can fill that void you have, that need for something in your life, that obsession, which, like, for a lot of addicts is drugs and alcohol forever, and you cut that out and it’s like, ‘Fuck. What do I have to fill this big hole inside me?’ Y’know?

Yeah, right. 

At least for me, running was perfect. It just gave me everything that I needed.

Do you get obsessed with stuff? It sounds like you do, with the Master of the Stairmaster phase. 

Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s been like that my entire life, since I was nine years old skating on the curb in front of my house. It’s like, if I decided I wanted to learn how to kickflip, I’d spend four months in my street trying to do a kickflip until I finally did it, you know?

Right.

But over the years, it’s been skating, surfing, y’know, girls, whatever. And whenever I find that love for something, I’m all in. And it’s been exactly like that with running. In fact, it’s almost been the most extreme with running.

I mean, you’re a pro now, so it’s obviously the big one, right?

Yeah, yeah, but even before that, I always had this drive to push myself with running. Even when I was just a beginner. I remember when I started running, the first run I did was, like, two or three miles on the street, and I was wrecked, but I was like, ‘Dude. Next time, I’m gonna try to run four miles!’ And then the run after that, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna try to run four miles under ten-minute pace,’ you know? And it was just, like, every time I ran, I was trying to push it. The frequency of my runs was pretty sparse back then; I could only run maybe once a week, and I’d be sore because I was continually trying to push myself. It was just part of the obsession, like, I want to get better at this, and I wanna see how far this thing can go.

And now you’re on an insane streak. So, how many days in are you? It’s almost one thousand, right?

Yeah, yeah. Today is day nine-hundred-and-thirty.

Nine-thirty. Insane. How did it start?

The streak was kind of this random, weird thing I didn’t plan on doing. About three years ago—and I’d been running quite a bit; maybe I’d run two or three marathons at that stage—I was at the climbing gym, another obsession, and I just jumped off the wall, not really paying attention, and I landed with my legs straight and kinda popped my knee and tore my meniscus—

Jesus.

Yeah. And I had to get surgery. The recovery wasn’t too bad on that, you know, maybe a month or two of not running, but when I finally started running again, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m so grateful to be back, I’m just gonna run every day, no matter what, even if it’s just a mile.’

And that’s how it started.

Yeah, that’s the basis of the streak. There hasn’t been a day where I’ve been too sick or too injured to run at least a mile. 

So, how do you train when you have no days off? How are you recovering properly?

Well, I mean, a lot of those days are recovery days, you know? Like, the day after a hundred-mile race, I’m super-wrecked but not too wrecked to run a mile. And to be honest with you, it’s actually a good thing to run the next day and just get your legs moving and clear out some of that lactate buildup. Obviously, if you’re injured, it’s probably not good to run on it, but I don’t think I’ve been injured so far during this streak... Or maybe I have, I don’t know, but there hasn’t been a time when I felt like it was detrimental for me to run at least a mile, you know?

I saw you run a mile after... I think it was Saddles? Anyway, there was a vid on Instagram where you set off for a run after a big race, and it was actually painful to watch you start running because it looked like you could barely walk.

[Laughter]

Yeah, yeah, I’ve put out a couple of those on my TikTok; the algorithm loves those videos. I actually got one that was right after this last race, Leona, the 100 miler—that one kinda blew up. But it’s rough. And, you know, the first couple of steps are always painful, but as soon you get moving and get a half mile in, it starts to feel better. It’s not as bad as it looks. Most of the time, it’s not my joints or my muscles that hurt—it’s usually, like, my toes, man, or my toenails have fallen off, and I’ve got blisters. That’s usually the most painful part.

Are you aware of the Master Streakers? Do you know about that?

No, no, tell me about it.

There are these people who have been on running streaks for freakish amounts of time. And I think the guy leading it is named Jon Sutherland. He’s from California, he’s in his 80s, and he has run every day since May 1969. 

That is fuckin’ sick.

Dude is in his 55th year of running every single day. 

Yeah! Fuckin’ respect. 

Isn’t that insane?

Dude, there’s a ton of people out there like that. I recently saw a woman on Instagram who was on a twenty-something-year streak—and she had kids! 

What do you mean?

Like, she gave birth in that time!

And ran every day?

Yeah! She had a baby and then went for a run!

That is genuinely insane.

I mean, that’s fuckin’ sick!

Well, when I found this Jon Sutherland dude who has been at for 55 years, my first thought was, ‘Has this guy never been sick?’ Like, how has he not been struck down by bronchitis or the flu at least once in all that time?

Well, I mean, I’ve been wrecked with food poisoning, where I’m hugging the toilet for the entire day, but could I still have muscled out a one-mile run and stopped to puke along the way? Yeah, probably, y’know? Unless you’re on your deathbed or in hospital... But maybe his thing is part of a streak of good luck? 

Gotta be.

I mean, there’s also tricky days when you’re on a run streak. It’s not always fun and convenient. When I came on this trip to Indo, my flight was out of LAX on May 7th, and I didn’t land in Singapore until May 9th. So, on the flight, I had to run during the calendar day of May 8th—

Which was when you were in the sky on the plane?

Right. So, what I did was—

[Laughter]

—and, I mean, this so fuckin’ crazy.

Go on.

So, I didn’t want to run next to people, up and down the aisle like a fucking maniac, so I found this little corridor up the back near the bathroom, and I set my watch to treadmill and just ran in place—

[Laughter]

No way.

Yeah, it took me forty-something minutes, with having to stop and, you know, let people pass. But I was up 30,000 feet in the air, and I ran in place for a mile. Sometimes you just—

[Laughter]

Sometimes you just kinda make do with the less-than-ideal situation that you’re given, you know?

That’s bananas. But that’s why I called you up for this issue! Did you have to explain yourself to anyone?

I mean, my buddies who were on the flight with me knew what I was doing, and they were laughing, and they cruised over and filmed me... But, yeah, I felt like a complete fuckin’ lunatic. People were walking by, like, ‘What the fuck is this kid doing?’

You probably looked like a security risk.

Well, it was in the middle of the flight and everyone was sleeping. I wasn’t too obnoxious. But that’s kinda the craziest run that I’ve had to do on this streak. 

How are you going for socks? You must be chewing through them.

Oh, dude, the socks are going like crazy. And shoes too! Besides the streak, I run quite a few miles each week; I try to shoot for around 100 miles per week, and I can go through a pair of shoes in a month. Shit gets expensive.

Do you think you'll do this streak until you fall over and die? Like, I can’t imagine you stopping now you’ve gone on for so long. 

I’m seriously not going to be able to stop.

I mean, how can you stop now? You can’t.

Unless I’m too injured or too sick. But, like, if I can run, I’m going to. There’s no stopping me unless something major happens, y’know?

How do you feel knowing that Jon Sutherland has done it for 55 years and it could happen to you? Are you like, ‘Great!’ or ‘Oh, fuck. I gotta do this for the rest of my life now?’

You know, that actually doesn’t sound bad to me at all.

[Laughter]

It’s become such a part of my routine, part of my life, and, really, it’s not even that hard. At a minimum, it takes ten minutes of my day to run a quick mile, and everyone’s got ten spare minutes in their day.

You’re seriously never gonna stop, are you?

No. 

No?

Fuck no.