100 Runs 100 Days

Today, December 15th commences the 2010/2011 100 Runs 100 Days Challenge.

I guess some would say I’m an easy sell, as it doesn’t take much to convince me or “challenge” me to do something. In some ways that’s how I wound up with a Mechanical Engineering degree from Virginia Tech, “one of the toughest majors at Tech” my reply, “sounds good, sign me up!”

But I digress, the real point is this crazy 100 runs in 100 days. I first heard wind of this challenge via Jake at Garmin’s twitter feed, now @Garmin but still Jake doing all the tweeting. Yesterday he tweeted the following:


After some investigating I found the thread on Slowtwitch.com, read the description and said “why not!” I’ve been pretty sedentary since early November when I got burnout racing cross and decided this was good motivation to get off the couch.

You may ask yourself what counts as a run? That’s a good question and one that has been outlined in depth at Slowtwitch, and instead of rewriting all of the rules I decided some copy and a paste action was necessary, or you can read it HERE:

On Dec 15th we'll start the 2010-11 edition of the 100 runs in 100 day challenge, commonly known as 100/100. The thing has evolved somewhat over the past few years, due to and contrary to popular demand. The basic “unit” that counts as a “run” is 30 minutes.

The goal of this entire thing is to lay down a solid run base by doing volume through frequency. The goal of the challenge actually is not to randomly be doing a bunch of short runs, although some in the past may have chosen to. The goal really is to increase your overall mileage which will result in better performances next year. Frequency is the carrot to get you there.

The runs can be outdoors or on a treadmill, but it must be running (no water running, no elliptical trainer...). Walking does not count...there must be 2 feet off the ground at some point in every stride (the difference between race walking and running) and there must be forward motion so 30 minutes of jumping jacks will not count either.

DO’S AND DON’TS
1. You can take days off
2. You can do days with more than one run (doubles)
3. You can and likely should take rest days
4. You get no credit for going longer than 30 minute wrt number of runs, however it will help your distance totals
5. If you go fast, it will show up in your total distance over the challenge in less time and the speedsters get to beat the crap out of each other.
6. You can go as slow as you want provided both feet leave the ground on every stride
7. Listen to your body if you need to take a day off…don’t get too sucked into what the other geeks on the ‘standings’ are doing (who am I kidding….talking to a bunch a type A tri geeks) 8. By all means, use the overall standing as a motivator to push you up a level, but don’t put yourself in the injury/hurt locker in the middle of winter
9. Don't sprint out of the gate in the first 3 weeks....easiest way to get injured...start slow....perhaps take your aggregate mileage over the last 3 years and divide that total by 156 to get a gauge for what your average weeks for the first 4-6 weeks should look like before you ramp up
10. If you make it through 10 weeks (70 days), pour it on in the final month when your body and mind can take it.

WHAT COUNTS AS A DOUBLE RUN?

For a run to count as a double, it must be separated by at least 1 hour. I have to pick a duration to separate 2 runs and it can't be 1 minute or 5 minutes, and putting 1 hour in between means that I will allow you to count a run-swim-run, run-bike-run, run-wts-run, run-XC ski-run, run-McDonalds-run as 2 sessions as long as the thing in between lasts for at least 1 hour (be it 40K on the bike, or a session at the donut shop).

Four years ago _EH_, Jana and I put down 100 days in a row of running 30 min or more with ZERO rest days. Not really recommended. The last few years we have had approximately 50 or more hit 100 runs in 100 days, but that's really not for everyone (nor should it be)

WHAT ARE THE VARIOUS LEVELS

While some might go for 100 runs, the reality is that unless you are already running 4-6 hours per week, this is not a realistic goal. If you did over 2500K of running last year, you're probably goo to go to attack the full 100 (assuming you have no injuries) For most a realistic goal is to start at Bronze “club pace” (or less) and then see how things go.

1. Platinum Club = 100 runs in 100 days (March 24th)

2. Gold Club = 90 runs in 100 runs in days

3. Silver Club = 80 runs in 100 runs in days

4. Bronze = 70 runs in 100 runs in days

It is great training for anyone doing a spring marathon or an early season triathlon, and you'll be shocked by how quickly you accumulate mileage, all without getting injured...because the focus is keeping them short and aerobic. By all means feel free to run longer than 30 minutes, but the main goal here is to get you out the door, 5-7 times per week, especially given that the weather is generally shitty for riding in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere.

QUESTION ABOUT RUNS SHORTER THAN 30 MINUTES

The goal is to encourage people to run as much as possible. Sometimes, life gets in the way. We have lives outside sport. Something is better than nothing. So if you do 2 runs shorter than 30 minutes in one day (ex 20+15), you can count the total as 1 run, but beyond that, you can’t keep adding up incremental amounts to count for additional runs. For example, a 50 minute run and 10 minute run in one day won’t count as 2 runs and nor will 20+20+20. They will both count as one 60 minute run (you can add your short run amount to your large run amount to get full mileage credit).

So basically let's say you do a 15 minute run covering 3K. You can't enter this as a "complete run" for your "club status", however, if you do many of these over the winter, they all add up to more base, so what you CAN do is add these 15 minutes in your entry for your previous run...so if your previous run was 45 minutes, and 9K, just put it in as 60 minutes and 12K and take some partial credit for it.

WOW! That’s a mouthful, glad I just copied that one. If you’re still here after all the nitty gritty above, then you’ll know I have to run a total of 50 hours in the next 100 days, with a run counting as 30 minutes of forward motion with two feet off the ground. Also if I want to double count in a day I need a solid hour between, perfect for a burrito if you ask me?

With a few quick assumptions:
100 (30min. runs) = 50 hours
1 hour (approx) = 6.6667 miles
9min/mile pace

Total mileage: 333.33 miles or 536 km or approximately a pair of shoes!

So I’m going to add a new header at the top of my page “100 Runs 100 Days” to keep progress of the challenge. This afternoon I’ll head out for my first run and we’ll see how it goes from there!