The challenge is back to get you in shape. The last few years we have had 400-500 athletes from all over the world. Invite your friends and training partners. The more the better. Thanks to Slowman, Rappstar, Herbert for accommodating us and hosting this virtual training camp on their website at no cost !!! This is the 8th year we're doing it and the 6th year in a row on the slowtwitch.com training log. Instructions below which are cut and paste from previous years, so no point debating them (well we did for 2 weeks so now is time to get on with running).


On Dec 15th we'll start the 2013-14 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 challenge 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 hopefully result in better performances next year as long as you don't go overboard and injury yourself. Frequency is the carrot to get you overall mileage, but don't end up using it to get injured!


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 two 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. Over time, many of your runs will be in excess of 30 minutes.
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).

7 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 good 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.


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 2013-14 100 runs/100 days challenge and sign up for it: http://training.slowtwitch.com/challenge/frequency/187
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 get rolled into the results sheet
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 results sheet 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, aerobic points.
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 post as other questions come up.

And as was the case in previous years, don't expect any love around here (there is lots of tough love). If you think I/we might be hard nosed, let me just say, that offline, I get beaten up by even more hard core guys accusing me of making the challenge too "soft". So the rules are the rules. They've been refined over the past few years and love them or hate them, they kind of work and out or respect to previous years’ finishers, let’s stick with what works OK.

Please put any questions on this thread. Better to put them here than send me PM's or emails, because they may not be answered n real time if sent directly to me, but if you post on this thread there are a bunch of guys who will likely answer questions for your immediately. It's like being in a big training camp with a bunch of veterans. You don't need to ask the organizers all the questions. There are a bunch of vets who probably can provide much better insights than I can.

FINALLY: GOOD LUCK, PLAY SMART, TAKE REST, COME OUT THE OTHER SIDE INJURY FREE AND READY TO HAVE A PB YEAR IN 2014. (edit: fixed date)

I'm shooting for 700-800K over the challenge myself. I don't really care how I get there, but that would be 80 runs of 10K average. We'll see how things work out. I'm racing IM Texas in May, so the challenge should keep me honest about getting the run miles in.