Naw, it's all in good fun. Nobody is getting awards for their training logs so you might as well flaunt it.

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speedySTATES

Can't believe you'd lie like that, look what I just found:

I have less than half of bluestack's run count but jusssst toppled over him in total miles count :)

Checking in after 2 weeks of close to zero running. Knees, ill-health, bad attitude, new job (!). I'll want to ration my energy going forward so I hope to get 1/day and no silly extras.

Status reports, please!

Today was a strange one weather-wise. Got in my longest run so far in the Boston prep ... 30.5km. Started out overcast and 2 degrees Celsius so I was in shorts. 45 minutes in it started raining insanely hard and the wind picked up. After 17k we dropped a few from our group back where we started but not before the rain switched to small hail stones for 5 minutes or so. Grabbed a dry jacket and donned some track pants for the next 13.5k which included a thunderstorm and more driving rain.... at least it didn't snow on us!

Allan, that's about the worst weather you could get. Snow might have actually been better b/c at least snow won't soak you quite as much. Good grief!

A full week of business travel, combined with a temporary move overseas, has me 13 runs behind the 100 run mark. Will have a chance to double up a few times to bring me within 10, so a 90% or higher is still an A, right?!?!?

nerd dump:


I am averaging 16.4 runs per week.


week 0 (2 days) - 19 runs
week 1 - 31 runs
week 2 - 4 runs
week 3 - 19 runs
week 4 - 11 runs
week 5 - 3 runs
week 6 - 13 runs
week 7 - 21 runs
week 8 - 23 runs
week 9 - 17 runs
week 10 - 8 runs
week 11 - begins today
week 12 -
week 13 -
week 14 -


There were 13 days where I didn't run.


My average run is 32 minutes (weak, I know!), 3.6 miles, 8:48 pace.


4 weeks remaining.


New goal: I am going to finish the last 4 weeks with 20 runs per week (a 22% increase) and go for 250. Posting new goal to hold myself accountable. Let's finish strong!

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"If it costs you 30 minutes at Maryland so what" -dwreal

My focus has shifted a little more towards an actual "plan" vs. just banking short runs. Still hanging in there with at least one run every day, though. I'm just not trying to get in doubles and what not---rather I'm working to extend the length of most runs to maintain close to the same volume (38-44 mpw) over fewer runs (7 vs. 9-10), while still running every day. I've dropped a few more places in the standings, but I need to keep reminding myself that I've already met my original goal going into this challenge....and not get caught up chasing a number, instead of working the real PLAN.

Yesterday was the most difficult run, yet. I was up in North-West Texas (Nocona, TX) this weekend, because my wife was at a Life-Drawing seminar, and we stayed with some friends at their horse property. The terrain up there is a lot more lumpy, with sustained grades, and very little "flat". But, its very pretty countryside.

Saturday was crazy windy with 30mph sustained and gusts up to 50. I postponed my intended bike ride, and did a long run instead. Even the run was a challenge in the windy conditions. it seems I was either running into the wind, uphill, or both. it was like an hour long hill climb.

Sunday the weather calmed down, so I did my ride. However, the (1x) gearing on my TT bike was less than optimal for the local terrain which was much more lumpy. Further complicating things was the fact that I ended up on a much longer route than expected because many of my shorter route options turned out to be gravel roads. So, what was going to be a LSD type medium distance ride...turned into a very peaky, repeated standing climb...longer ride.

By the time went to get my run in for the day...the legs were very disinterested. Slowest run since last august. I imagine they will feel similarly disinterested in a few minutes when I go for my lunch run.

Anyway, it was enjoyable riding and running in a new area even if the weather wasn't ideal. Now to see if I can shed some of this fatigue while continuing to run through it.

Sounds like a plan ;-)

Today was my first run post-marathon, doesn't quite count at only 20 mins (although I could do the 2-day total thing) but I'll get back to countable runs soon enough.

Next year I might take a run at making 100, I think I can do it without getting injured if I put in some doubles, drop some rest days & tweak the bike schedule.

Eric, can you clear something up for me... I see in the forum where people are doing 2 hr runs and logging multiple's in the 100/100...for one run... thought anything over 30 mins say 45 or 60 or 120 min's counted as one run...Was under the impression that you had to have at least a thirty min break between runs... or do you just log the time as say a 2 hr run as 2 one hr runs or 4 30 min runs with 30 min's in between.... just wanted some clarification... thx

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MFlinn

Nope :)

I have no clue what people are up to. I have no idea what the rules mean, no particular opinion one way or the other on them, and no authority to enforce anything. My job is to make sure the log works properly.

From a training log perspective, any type of run of 30 minutes duration with a start date inside the challenge period will be counted.

-Eric

That's my understanding too. One continuous run counts as one run, regardless of how long over 30 minutes it is. If multiple runs are to be logged in one day, they need to be separated by at least one hour.

This all came up 25 pages or so ago, and probably every 7-10 pages since (more or less every time Dr. TC posts an update :-). The ultimate arbiter (Mr. Dev Paul) has never actually weighed in.

I don't really care as long as someone is logging one run for every 90 minutes of continuous running. I think its pretty hard to jump the line with that approach versus running 30 minutes and resting for an hour. I don't think anyone is gaining some kind of advantage (in this CHALLENGE) by counting a 2 hr run as 2x30 (60m run). And if someone wants to do 3x30 (60m run) = 3:30 continuous running...well, fine...because that's mostly nuts.

If someone thinks that they can chase down bluestak by runnning for 10 hours straight every day....good luck!

Not that my opinion counts for much.

Status reports, please! //

My body was fine, but I got sick and took 10 days off completely. Been back about a week and a half, did my first double today to start my catch up. Probably won't hit the magic 100, but already almost double what I did last year, so I got that going for me. As long as I dont get sick again, should be able to increase runs and tempos. Time to swim more too, so that will hamper any crazy running plans..


Sorry to hear you hit the wall, hopefully you are healthy and feeling good to go now...

I didn't bother to look how the automatic uploading worked after connecting to Strava. Turns out couple days a week of running a 2.5 mile loop in the morning with the dogs and then another 10 or so minutes later in the day to warm up for a gym session hadn't been automatically credited and I was many days behind on the leaderboards. I sort of lost interest after that and am not going to take the time to manually input a bunch of stuff. I'm still running every day (and coming up on 800 days in a row in a couple weeks), but I'm not hitting the 30 minute minimum a couple days a week now.

It's still a really cool challenge and I'm not complaining about it. What a tough (good?) time of year for it too. I appreciated many of the posts here leading up to and throughout the challenge.

It's also led to some stupid behavior. I'm an idiot for running outside in the middle of the polar vortex a month ago and falling on ice constantly as we have been covered with it here on the IL/WI border for weeks. My yard, the local park, the low traffic roads in my neighborhood.....ice. I have never seen anything like this for so long. My dogs are going nuts and I'm getting there.

You cursed me. A day after that I strained my calf. Slipped on some mud and that was that. Lost a few days of training and it thankfully seems to be better now. But, I'll still be cautious (except for a 15k race this weekend!).

Am still in the top 10 for mileage and haven't done a double yet. Should climb a bit more assuming everything stays healthy over the next few weeks. 7 (?!?) weeks until Boston and lots of miles to run!

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speedySTATES

Fingers crossed, I don't think I've been through a marathon build without a tweak/scare at some point, at least you've got a good few weeks for it to settle back down.

You're well in the lead for gold-medal millage, Kendall's closing you down but I know she want's a cup.

Can't quite believe dualsport's almost in the millage top-10 without a medal, average of ~14.5 miles per run.

Monty, don't give up on hitting 100. I think you can do it. This is easier than the 50/50 sprint, right? I'm still hoping and planning to break 100 runs.

I'd like you or someone else to think of another challenge after we've had a little break at the end of this. I enjoy these things.

Only just saw this. Congrats Mrs Bluestacks! Tell her she can make an account and join us in the Womens :-)

Woohoo hit the big 1K in total distance today :D.

This has not been a good week.

Despite running easy, and postponing (and then skipping) Bike workouts I just have not been able to shed the fatigue from last weekend (and, also presumably accumulated fatigue from this challenge). Also, the last time I had a truly decent swim was 14 January...probably not concidentally, 3 days after I started doing lots of double-run days, its been a downward slide ever since.

Last night I skipped my planned run (first time in 3 weeks...and the first time I've done it ON PURPOSE). I'm contemplating taking another zero again today.

All this has caused me to seriously review my training logs for the last 8 weeks or so, and realize how I've let this challenge (and my competitive nature) get the best of me, and overshadow my intended goals for the off-season---which was to become a "fish". Instead I've lost about 15% of my swim fitness since mid-January.

As I alluded to in my previous post above (but, didn't really follow through on until last night), mentally I have to checkout of this challenge and let whatever happens in the remaining days happen. I kept trying to make challenge runs this week, and its just let to a downward slide in my mental and physical state---the legs feel like crap, and yesterday morning's swim workout was the last straw at 7s / 100 slower than 6 weeks ago.

I lost so much faith in my coach (Me) that I fired him---and, hired a real one.

Its not all doom and gloom though:

1. I've actually already met my original goal (86 for silver) when I entered this challenge.
2. At 87 runs with 24 days remaining, I'll still make the full 100, even if I only run every other day. But, I doubt I can go quite that "cold turkey". So, I'm sure I'll still squeeze in a few "challenge runs".
3. I've learned I can knock out a 45 mile running week, and I can string together a 170 mile month, and over 300 miles in 2, and I can run 30+ days in a row...without injury, or even a hint of pain---fatigue yes, but no pains.
4. I was able to do all that while continuing to swim and bike.
5. Even though the swim has suffered in the second half, I'm still ahead of my 2019 goal of 365,000 yards. I'm hoping that once I shed some of this fatigue some of the swim-pace will come back faster than it left.
6. At this time last year, i was finishing my 3rd (of 5 total) month of being sidelined from an abdominal injury. So, I'm WAAAY ahead of that.

Keep on running challengers!

Tom, you've done a fantastic job with this challenge, both in your running accomplishments and awesome motivation for others.

I think you'll feel the benefits of what you've done and will do in this challenge during this coming year. The benefits will really stick with you. In a year from now, you will still be glad for what you've already done.

It sounds very reasonable to adjust what you're doing. Having to adjust means you're paying attention to your body's response to the workload. That's good! There are circles within circles here. Definitely no doom and gloom!

Keep telling us what you're doing. And thank you for all your great posts in the challenge.

Got run #90 in last night, which is definitely further than I've ever made it in prior years' 100/100 challenges. Was nice to see a little bit of clear sidewalk after running through a damn blizzard on my lunch on Wednesday - 5" of fresh snow with near-whiteout conditions and absolutely no plowing done.

Been having some problems with my right foot, but it's on the mend after I managed to pop something back into position on Wednesday (just before the run in the howling blizzard) - I suspect my talus was being a bit of a jerk, but I seem to have settled its hash. Legs took awhile to recover after the snowshoe race, but they're coming along; got a bit of plantar fasciitis from the steep climbing in snowshoes, but it's starting to resolve with some diligent self-care.

Mostly, I'm just sick and tired of bloody ice. Unfortunately, it looks like we're going to be dumped back into the deep freeze next week, so spring is still a ways off - with my luck it'll finally start to get habitable outside right at the end of the challenge!

Edited to add: at least I'm finally coming off the worst 2 months I can remember. Between my husband being completely out of commission for a few weeks in January (hernia surgery & recovery) and February being my absolute busiest time of year at the office, it's been a struggle. I put in 44.5hrs of overtime since Jan 2nd while still maintaining 7-11 runs per week, racing an ultra, a 3-hour trail race, and 2 snowshoe races. So, it's gotta get easier even if the weather still blows!

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ill advised racing inc.