Running long distances is normal for Rob Perez. He has run countless races, including ultramarathons and 300-mile races. But he didn’t know he would be running this much when he set off on his challenge to add a mile to his run for each day the shutdown continued.
Day 1 was an easy 1-miler, day 26 was nearly a marathon.
Not only did he add the mileage, but the running content creator also gave brief civic lessons during those runs and posted them to social media, going viral in D.C.
“Running one mile for every day the government is shut down. It’s day 19. So, I’ve got 19 miles, and today I want to break down the idea behind our system and why it’s so slow and frustrating to a lot of us,” Perez can be heard in one of his videos posted to Instagram.
He has used this challenge to relearn long forgotten civics and government lessons and then share that knowledge in a nonpartisan way.
“I wanted it to be where, in the morning when you wake up, when you do your little 20-second doom scroll, I hope you get one little mini civics lesson or politics lesson during that time,” Perez told WTOP.
Perez said all the stuff he talked about in his videos takes research. He would spend an hour every night reading the proposed bills and relearning basic civics on how the government functions and then condense it into an understandable format for his viewers.
He takes notes and puts them in his phone and when he runs, “I would reference my note in case I needed to make sure I nailed the talking point because I didn’t want to give any misinformation. I think that was one of the biggest goals.”
He has discussed the Hatch Act and federal employee involvement in partisan politics, health care subsidies, filibusters and the history of government shutdowns.
The challenge and lessons learned have seen overwhelmingly positive feedback, according to Perez, who said 99% of the comments are supportive.
“You get the occasional internet troll or someone who’s trying to antagonize, which is totally fine. I’ve never felt the need to delete any comments or anything like that because I do want those opinions heard, too,” he said.
He found that the element of running and his laid-back personality, while talking about these basic political science principles, have been disarming for most viewers.
“Screaming doesn’t get people to listen,” Perez said, adding that viewers liked his level-headed approach. “They didn’t want to turn it off at any point. They wanted more.”
More became quite the challenge for Perez. He had to suspend the challenge at day 28 because he was simply running out of time in the day to continue running those long distances.
With a full-time job, the added four to five hours of running a day and two-plus hours of research and video editing would keep him up close to midnight.
He also had other duties, such as running multiple marathons, including the Baltimore and Marine Corps Marathon. He also ran and guided a visually impaired runner at the New York City Marathon this year and wanted his legs fresh for that important moment.
“I was spending about seven hours a day. It was literally a second job, and that doesn’t include eating, sleeping, a little bit of social life,” Perez said.
During this challenge he racked up 456 miles.
This is not Perez’s first time delving into politics. His political running began earlier this year during the inauguration. He lives in the Chinatown area and decided to run in the days leading up to the inauguration to show what it was actually like in the city.
“What a lot of the biggest feedback I got was, ‘We’re not seeing any of what you just showed in the news,'” Perez said. “And that’s kind of when a light bulb went off.”
He also ran around D.C. in August, observing the surge of federal police and National Guard in the city.
“Same kind of feedback. ‘Hey, that’s not what we’re seeing on the news. That’s not what is being depicted on either side.’ Each side is kind of focused on their narrative,” Perez said.
While Perez focuses most of his content on running related topics, he thinks he will continue his nonpartisan political runs on a weekly basis.
“I want to keep pushing out this information,” he said.
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