Very impressive work.
I've been on an unbroken rowing streak (Concept2) since December last year. Half hour per day mandatory, no rest days. Typical distance rowed is 6.5-8km. There are days where I "take it easy" but I still force a minimum distance of 6.5km regardless of how long it takes. My rationale for using the C2 is the lower impact and the fact that it resides inside a climate controlled building. These factors help reduce the possibility of excuse making.
I found that taking even one day off is all it takes to throw my discipline into a death spiral. Making it a required thing no matter what changes the psychology and game theory. It has become entirely a background concern after day 90 or so. There are days where I have to row and then do hours of yard work. The first two weeks of Texas summer almost got to me. But, this too has become a background concern. I can wake up, row 30 minutes, landscape for 2 hours, and then write code or post on HN until the sun goes down. No naps, stimulants or motivational speeches required.
What do you do if you're out of town for a vacation, work trip, family event, etc? I could see making a daily habit work for running since your feet work anywhere but if you physically don't have access to a rowing machine do you find some alternative?
I haven't encountered this scenario yet, but I would just substitute with running, stationary bike, etc. The whole point of rowing is to minimize impact and encourage consistency day-to-day. If we need to deviate on rare occasions to stay on track, it's not a big deal.
Not overthinking the exercise is a big part of not falling off the wagon. If you wrap yourself around that post it can really discourage you. Perfect is the enemy of really, really good things.
A lot of the comments are raising how unsafe it is to be exercising through 10 years of life without a day off, but as someone who also tends to let a day off turn into a year off, I can appreciate the wisdom of slowing rather than stopping / having a slow day rather than an off day.
I really enjoy the philosophy of the 80/20 rule for running (Book from Matt Fitzgerald), which says that 80% of your training should be at level 2, where your heart rate is much lower. It's made it a lot easier to actually go run every day, as it doesn't leave me feeling exhausted and it changes the psychology from feeling like I need to run faster to actually needing to slow myself down, which is really transformative for me in particular. YMMV, pun intended.
I don't think 1mi per day is dangerous by a longshot but pushing through injury and sickness is wildly dangerous. heart infection is a thing, especially for men
Do you have e some evidence for this? I’m looking but having trouble finding any. May you are talking about myocarditis risk during/after influenza infection? Even for that I can’t find anything specifically showing that exercise increases the risk. I haven’t looked exhaustively though, and I’d love to see the evidence if you can point me to it.