THIS IS THE OFFICIAL 100/100 THREAD. RULES AND OTHER IMPORTANT DETAILS POSTED HERE. USE THIS THREAD TO POST YOUR SMACKTALK FOR THE REST OF THE WINTER.

Thanks to Slowman, Rappstar, Herbert and Petter for accomodating us and hosting this virtual training camp on their website at no cost but at their cost!!!

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OK, here we go again.

Tomorrow is Dec 15th which means we start the 2008/2009 edition of the 100 runs in 100 day challenge, commonly known as 100/100. It ends on Mar 24th, 100 days later. 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.

We now log runs, time and distance. Last year we used a google docs based spreadsheet. This year, thanks to a number of contributors on slowtwitch.com who have put effort and $$$ to host this thing, we will do it based on the on line training log at training.slowtwitch.com (more on that below).

The goal of this entire thing is to lay down a solid run base by doing volume through frequency in short bursts of running. It can be outdoors or on a treadmill, but it must be running (no water running, no bogus 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 L.

DO’S AND DON’TS

1. You can take days off
2. You can double, triple (or more) runs in a day
3. You can 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 average speed over the challenge 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...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).

Two years ago _EH_, Jana and I put down 100 days in a row of running 30 min or more with ZERO rest days. Last year 48 people got to 100 runs in a time frame that ranged from 100-130 days. This year, the challenge ends the same day for everyon.

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. For most a realistic goal is to start at Bronze “club pace” 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.


SIGN UP AND USING THE SLOWTWITCH.COM TRAINING LOG
1. Go to training.slowtwitch.com
2. Sign up for a training log account if you don’t already have one
3. Then go to training.slowtwitch.com/challenges
4. Look for the 100 runs/100 days challenge and sign up for it
5. Now start entering your runs in the slowtwitch log. Make sure you only enter runs >30 minutes as one entity. If you have a 20+15 day, enter it as one workout of 35 minute or it will not take
6. Please ensure that you log a distance along with the time. If you don't know the distance, please try to estimate...this will also get you finely tuned to your pace at various times/distances...great for racing
7. Your runs will automatically get entered into the challenge with everyone else
8. From the challenges home page, click on the link to go to the 100/100 challenge, which will allow you to view the results
9. Once click on this link you will end up at the results page. You can click on any of the column headers, and it will sort the sheet based on that category (frequency, time, distance, pace, speed).
10. Please note that you must be logged in to actually enter your data. You can’t enter data without logging into your account (seems obvious...)

I’ll update this list as other questions come up. Age group categories will come later in the challenge

Last year we had several 100 people from all around the world. This year, there are 100 Euro's doing their own including Kona overall age grouper Clemens Coenen, so you guys have some serious competition!!!

By the way, don't expect any love around here. If you think I can be hard nosed, I get beaten up by even more hard core guys on this accusing me of making the challenge too "soft".

Dev