Running News Daily

Most runners measure their progress in kilometres, personal bests and finish lines. Rick Richard chose a very different way to measure his.

For six years, the Calgary resident pursued a challenge that sounds almost impossible until you see the map: run every single street within his city.

This week, he finally completed it.

Richard covered all 10,359 streets in Calgary, accumulating an astonishing 9,252 kilometres along the way. That is roughly the distance between Calgary and Tokyo—except Richard did not travel it in one long journey. He covered it gradually, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, one section of the city at a time.

What began as an ambitious running project eventually became a six-year commitment requiring patience, planning and an extraordinary willingness to run roads that most people would never think twice about.

The challenge became increasingly difficult as the map filled in. Early on, each run could cover large sections of previously unexplored streets. But as Richard progressed, the easy kilometres disappeared. What remained were isolated roads, short lanes and residential cul-de-sacs that could be several kilometres from anything else he still needed to complete.

Sometimes, finishing the project meant travelling across Calgary simply to run a handful of streets that had been missed during earlier outings.

That is part of what makes the achievement so remarkable. There was no conventional finish line waiting at the end, no race number and no crowd lining the final stretch. The goal was simply to leave no street behind.

Richard documented the journey through a public map, allowing people to watch Calgary gradually transform from a blank canvas into a network of completed routes. Month after month, the coloured lines spread across neighbourhoods as another section of the city was conquered.

The project belongs to a growing community of runners known as city streeters—people who challenge themselves to run every road within a defined area. For some, it is about exploration. For others, it is a mapping obsession. For Richard, it became a six-year test of consistency and determination.

And then came the final street.

After 10,359 streets and 9,252 kilometres, the map was finally complete.

Calgary had no more roads left for Richard to run.

Six years after starting the project, every street was covered—and an extraordinary chapter of running history in the city had come to an end.

Sometimes, the biggest running achievements are not measured by how fast you finish.

Sometimes, they are measured by how much of the world you are willing to run.