doing more can easily be done as proven by folks like IC. But as I will always will push, the challenge should be quality mileage increase vs junk miles. So how about everyone post their recent honest hard effort 5k time, and these 20 minute runs cannot be over 2 min/mile slower than 5k pace :) would be a fun challenge for the ST programmers too

ex 18:30 5k person (6:00 / mile) cannot go slower than 8:00 for 20 minutes.

As someone who has coached running only and not triathlon, I don't see the benefit to doing this to improve their running.

Running nearly every day and putting some doubles in (the 100/100 plan) to improve running through consistency is a great idea.

Doing doubles every single day for 3+ months (or triples I guess if you do some singles) is both unproductive and stupid.

You're completely missing the point IMO...

E

---

Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Thanks for the input.

FWIW, I've probably averaged 9x/wk over the last 100 days, so about 135/100. At what point do you think there are diminishing returns?

E

---

Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

One other thing.

I agree with you here, but that's not what the 100/100 does or rewards, operationally speaking.

E

---

Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

I wouldn't worry about diminishing returns. Diminishing returns are still increasing cumulatively, the key is not hitting declining returns.

Overall volume over time is generally the biggest correlation to running performance (from what I've see it seems that way in cycling and swimming too, though I am no expert there). So in general doubles are good, but just because some doubles are good doesn't mean always doubling is good. I try to think of getting as much as I can in my main run each day before adding doubles. This isn't the same for everyone. I like to think about where to add a double in order to add value. Do a hard morning workout that ends up being high volume (for example I did a hard workout this morning that totaled 12 miles), then maybe a double isn't productive. But tomorrow doing two 3 mile recovery runs might be better than a single 6 mile run.

Basically too many doubles are when they are interfering with your ability to execute key sessions at the right effort AND impede your ability to recover from those efforts. Most pros run 13 times or less a week, usually less most of the year, not counting ultra runners who have far different habits and I am not very well versed at that.

Disclaimer: No coach here, just got a nerdy interest for reading about training.

Probably most bespoken training-regime in scandinavia past years are the Ingebrigtsens routine - While they say noone knows exactly what they do, general consensus is they run 13 week somewhere right about like this:

Monday: Easy run morning, easy run afternoon.
Tuesday: Threshold-session morning - threshold session evening.
Wednesday: easy run morning, easy run afternoon.
Thursday: Threshold session morning, theshold session afternoon.
Friday: easy run morning, easy run afternoon.
Saturday; Hill repeats morning (2x(10*200m) - easy run afternoon.
Sunday: Long run.


I agree with above point though - key is total overall volume, and total overal intensity-work you can sustain. Key issue with Ingebrigtsens regime, is they believe the double threshold-days allow for more total volume of intensity-work. Way I understand it, the do really stringent intensity-control. Tuesdays - Thursdays are not to be over threshold (like keep lactic under 2 - 2.5 mmol). Saturdays they prob go a bit harder.

So doing 13 sessions a week for them works great - But i think it takes quite a few years of training to get to the point that kind of training-regime will not get you injured.

Back to the OPs suggestion - the OCD-part of me really likes the challenge of 200/100. I think something to keep us constantly running is good for fitness, and I think running often and short vs running long and seldom is the way to go. however, when you are already doing 10 sessions + pr week, I think focus should more be total content of your training rather than how many runs can you do.

-----------------------------------------[/quote]Disclaimer: No coach here, just got a nerdy interest for reading about training.

Probably most bespoken training-regime in scandinavia past years are the Ingebrigtsens routine - While they say noone knows exactly what they do, general consensus is they run 13 week somewhere right about like this:

Monday: Easy run morning, easy run afternoon.
Tuesday: Threshold-session morning - threshold session evening.
Wednesday: easy run morning, easy run afternoon.
Thursday: Threshold session morning, theshold session afternoon.
Friday: easy run morning, easy run afternoon.
Saturday; Hill repeats morning (2x(10*200m) - easy run afternoon.
Sunday: Long run.


I agree with above point though - key is total overall volume, and total overal intensity-work you can sustain. Key issue with Ingebrigtsens regime, is they believe the double threshold-days allow for more total volume of intensity-work. Way I understand it, the do really stringent intensity-control. Tuesdays - Thursdays are not to be over threshold (like keep lactic under 2 - 2.5 mmol). Saturdays they prob go a bit harder.

So doing 13 sessions a week for them works great - But i think it takes quite a few years of training to get to the point that kind of training-regime will not get you injured.

Back to the OPs suggestion - the OCD-part of me really likes the challenge of 200/100. I think something to keep us constantly running is good for fitness, and I think running often and short vs running long and seldom is the way to go. however, when you are already doing 10 sessions + pr week, I think focus should more be total content of your training rather than how many runs can you do.[/quote] -------------------------------------------------------------------

Pros should not be emulated - they are either genetic freaks or pharmaceutically enhanced which allow quick and effective recovery. I hope the Norwegians are clean but I fear there could be a bit of reindeer milk flowing as they are dominating in so many endurance sports at the moment which is a statistical anomaly given the small size of the country.

But back to topic, as someone who has taken the 100/100 too seriously the past couple years finishing with well over 100 runs, I agree that more runs isn't better. I like the daily run goal, but would see more benefit in incentivizing both the second run but also longer runs. The person who builds up to a 90 minute run by the end of the 100 days should be rewarded with a bonus.

Edited because I failed to quote properly.

there could be a bit of reindeer milk flowing as they are dominating in so many endurance sports at the moment



So where does one get this ‘reindeer milk’, asking for a friend!

I think you’ve described the general philosophy of distance swimming fairly well. Maglischo’s swimming fast is kind of the go too book on training and your comment “too many doubles are when there are interfering with key sessions…” could have been lifted straight out of it. Ernie said swim 8-9 times per week and definitely have 36 hour break every week.

Bowman decided it was all nonsense and just had had his elite group swim 12 times per week. He said over an Olympic cycle his squad was putting 200+ more workouts than everybody else. Phelps, Hoff, Schmidt… they were pretty good : ) so others copied and now a lot of elite groups swim sundays. And double mon-fri.

I’m not saying you are wrong. I agree 100% that simply doing something for the sake of a number is silly. But tell me why 2 x 11s isn’t better than a 20. Tell me why 5 x 800s am and 5 x 600s pm isn’t better than 4 and 4 in a single session. And maybe it isn’t better. But one thing Eric isn’t is stupid. His body will tell him if he is robbing Peter to pay Paul.

E I say go for it. See what happens. I will not be joining you, though!

There's a couple major differences between swimming and running, the biggest being that swimming has zero weight bearing stress and the pounding of running takes more to recover from than a swim workout. That said, I didn't say that doubling most days is bad. It may or may not be depending on who is doing it and how. I've gone through periods where I doubled every day but Sunday in my training (putting in 115 mile weeks). It worked for me then, it would not work for me now. It all depends on a bunch of different variables (age, experience, where one is in their training cycle, recovery ability, etc). That is why I said doubling a lot is ok so long as it's not impeding one's ability to execute their plan. If you need to do a threshold workout and can't hit it cuz you're too tired, then you need to rethink what you're doing.

“ There's a couple major differences between swimming and running…”

No kidding. You brought up swimming not me. I was merely confirming your suspicion that the principles you described apply across sports.

“ I've gone through periods where I doubled every day but Sunday in my training (putting in 115 mile weeks). It worked for me then, it would not work for me now. It all depends on a bunch of different variables (age, experience, where one is in their training cycle, recovery ability, etc).”

That is great. What you appear to be saying is high volume /13 sessions per week worked for you in the past. But Eric trying 14 sessions would be “stupid.” Hmmm.

There is agreement here: don’t let your quest to accomplish what is arbitrary- 200 runs in 100 days - interfere with your ability to deliver on your key runs. You’ve provided evidence that 13 runs per week is effective , you’ve provided no evidence that 14 runs is too many. To me that claim is dubious. Many people have staked a claim that the right number of sessions per week is X. Only to be proven wrong by someone who rejected X. With that in mind let’s not call Eric’s quest to try something you’ve never done stupid.

You have a lot to add to this forum. Lets leave it at that.

Let's tackle this on the face of it, on the merits as it were. I think what he and others are saying is that consistency has more weight than frequency when computing volume. I'm not so sure. I'm not a Friel guy, but in the pillars of training model frequency comes first, and if you're running frequently you're running, and you're running rested because the runs are so short because of the frequency. Frequency is just as important as consistency. When you start to do progressive overload, you're squaring instead of doubling as it were.

Second, the scale. Scaling up 14x runs is way easier than scaling up 7x, when trying to get to a weekly volume or mileage goal (mileage is just an output of intensity x time). I went from zero runs a week after a year of no running to 70mpw in about 4 months by scaling up daily doubles. Lots and lots of 15-20min runs that glacially became 40min runs. Actually, if I'm being honest, it was 13x/wk because I did a long run on Sunday with no follow-up run.

Finally the psychology and brain chemistry. It's to the point now that the more I run the more I want to run, so much runner's high or whatever and I'm also calm AF. I don't think I'd be getting that on 7 runs instead of 13.

At any rate you're right, it's arbitrary, and also some veiled meta sarcastic shade thrown at the 100/100, but you'd have to really read between the lines for that. I tried the 200/100 last year and got halfway until I gave up out of boredom, and the format is not designed to make better and healthier runners whereas I think mine might actually be better.

E

---

Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Wait, so what is your program? Encouraging doubles every day? What are the other details that distinguish it from 100/100? The way I've always read 100/100 is to encourage: 1) daily running and 2) doubles as much as you can. Of course the "winners" are running triples or more but that's not really the spirit of the challenge.

You're on the right track with running doubles as much as possible. Go search for "summer of malmo" on letsrun if you want more validation -- the spirit of that plan is top-notch.

One of the problems w/ the 100/100 is the 30min minimum rule.

E

---

Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

30 minute minimum only means that if you run 25 min for fiirst run and 15 min second run just means you count it as a single 30 min qualifying run. Nothing is stopping anyone from running less than 30 minutes at a time. The idea is to get over 30 min daily or 3.5 hrs per week.

People get stupid and fixate on frequency. Only idiots worry about frequency. The goal is overall mileage through frequency, not how many runs. Someone who runs 1200km over 80 runs is probably going to gain more fitness then the person doing 500km over 120 runs but the way some people get out of hand is they think they are heros for hitting a high number of runs.

From what I understand this year, slowman wll cap daily max of runs to 3 only (on my recommendation). People goiing out doing 6x30 min runs are missing the point. Better to do a single 2.5 hrs run and second 30 min run (or a second 20 min run)

I'm worried about frequency. I think only idiots worry about "overall mileage" as a goal instead "getting faster" and/or "better" as a goal. You're worried about frequency too, it's right there in the name... "100/100".

It's the difference between doing things right vs. doing the right things... the 100/100 and specifically the 30min rule is doing things right, whereas the 200/100 with no minimum is doing the right things. I would argue that for those that like doubles there's the chance one that system leaves you crushed after a winter of hard running and one preps you for the hard work to come in the spring and summer.

E

---

Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

There is a list and he's checking it twice to see if you've been naughty or nice.

No, that is incorrect. What I am saying is that, in the right context, daily doubles can be effective. In the context posted in this thread it is stupid as there is no strategic rationale for doing it.

For whatever its worth (not much?)...

Last summer, while competing in the GVRAT, I ran 145 times in 77 days, covering roughly 85 mpw. So, right at the 200/100 frequency. I took the approach of trying to run a 1/2/3 style training plan @ 60mpw with whatever "easy" extras I could manage to get in. My week typically looked like:

Mon:
AM: 6 mi easy
PM: 4 mi easy
Tue:
AM: 12mi w/ tempo
PM: 4mi easy
Wed:
AM: 6 mi easy
PM: 4 mi easy
Thu:
AM: 12mi w/ threshold
PM: 4mi easy
Fri:
AM: 4mi easy
PM: 4mi easy
Sat:
AM: 15-18+ mi easy
PM: 4mi easy
Sun: off

That worked OK for about 4 weeks. At which point I had to kill the threshold. A few weeks later I killed the tempo. Obviously, the GVRAT was all about weekly/monthly mileage. I did a couple of homegrown backyard ultra's in there, also. Both were ~8 hours @ 4.167 miles per hour, for about 35 miles.

At 53 years old, I'm a 19:30 5k / 41:00 10k guy. I was running all that at 9:20 pace. Lessons I learned about myself...dunno how they might apply to others:

1. Running that much, all I could do was run slow.
2. Once it was over, all I could do was run slow, even after dropping the extra doubles.
3. But, within weeks (after a short break) I was running easy at sub-8 pace, 6x1mi repeats at 6:20 pace.

After the GVRAT was over I dropped back to a 60-70 mpw schedule (basically 6/12/6/12/6/18/off)---Dropping most of the double days, and focusing on tempo/threshold/speed/hills through the fall.

So, it "worked" for me...but, not how I thought it would. It set me up well for the fall training season, and being able to "do the work" then. But, I couldn't "do the work" while 200/100'ing it. "The work" was just showing up every 12 hours.

How that might apply to you, or anyone else? You're smarter than I am about that....maybe what I did was stupid.

I don't think fixating on frequency is stupid... I think it's about both frequency and volume, and the two dovetail. Even if you just cared about volume, getting to high volume through high frequency is key with running much moreso than cycling or swimming, and 100/100 is an excellent way of trying to make that a habit. Doubles are the way that most elite runners get to greater volume, since it's not feasible for most people to run 100 miles/week on singles.

But it's not all about volume -- there are physiological and neurological adaptations that come about from doing activities more frequently even if the total practice time is fixed. Think about learning a musical instrument, reviewing material for a test or quiz, or trying to master a video game... you will have better outcomes if you space out a fixed volume of practice into multiple sessions once the volume becomes large enough.

It's also clearly not all about frequency. No elite athletes that I'm aware of are running 6x/day for 20-30 minutes at a time. From what I've gleaned about running, there are also stimuli for physiological adaptations that come at different time horizons into a run, so it's particularly important to do some runs for an hour+ if you care about developing run-specific aerobic endurance for longer runs. On the other hand, going much over 2.5 hours for a single run seems counterproductive.

Capping at 3 runs a day seems smart. IMO, 100/100 should have three top prizes: one for frequency, one for miles, and one for time -- but with the latter two requiring at least 100 runs in the 100-day period. E.g., think about how to maximize volume given the constraint of averaging 1+ run/day.

[Also, side note, there has been mention of the 30-minute minimum, but I thought that was adapted to a 3-mile minimum last year. So for runners at the pointy end of the stick the minimum run will be closer to 20 than 30 minutes, no?]

So am I the only one that thinks this is about bringing the Pain Train?

---

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Yes, it was adapted to 3mi or 30min whichever comes first. Outside of the 100/100 context I think the minimum is individual. At 60+mpw, 4mi/30m seems about right---another 4 miles is easy-peasy. At 40mpw, maybe that's 3mi/20m. At 30mpw, maybe its 2mi/15m...dunno. At some point....if I'm putting on my chest strap and getting sweaty, there's a minimum amount of time I want to spend on the road.

 

At 53 years old, I'm a 19:30 5k / 41:00 10k guy. I was running all that at 9:20 pace. Lessons I learned about myself...dunno how they might apply to others:

1. Running that much, all I could do was run slow.
2. Once it was over, all I could do was run slow, even after dropping the extra doubles.
3. But, within weeks (after a short break) I was running easy at sub-8 pace, 6x1mi repeats at 6:20 pace.

.[/quote]
As I worked up to 70mpw I only ran slow, and thought I could only run slow, but then snapped off a 2h30 run at the same average pace as a hard 2:30 run pre-Kona so I'm not so sure now. Sure it was less humid for this recent long run, but it doesn't explain the easy speed that I was able to do. Fast speed is not possible, if only because I'm wobbly and off balance like a newborn deer.

E

---

Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”