A Lot of You Wanted to Run
Slowtwitch’s Annual 100/100 Run Challenge started the way most epic things do: accidentally, and as more of a beer bet than anything tactically planned. Over its dozen or so years its largest “field” had been 599. This year 758 took part, and not only was the field bigger, the commitment was more ardent!
The goal, of course, is/was to run 100 times in 100 days. You could miss days, you could run doubles. Or triples. There were rules. A run must be at least 30 minutes long (with certain specified exceptions). Outside or treadmills okay. Multiple runs in a day must be separated by an interval of at least 1 hour.
As of this writing 129 who participated met the goal. (Another 5 are at 99, 4 are at 98, and they may yet log in their final runs.) There are platinum, gold, silver, bronze levels (100 runs, 90, 80, 70). As of now 207 ran at least 70 times over the 100 days between December 15th and March 24th.
The winner – by a fair distance – was bluestacks867 (Reader Forum screen names used), with 220 (!) runs in the 100 day period. The leaderboard is here. ZippityDuDah was second with 171 runs, IntenseOne had 163, dm26tg1 completed 160. As I know many of our forum regulars, it’s notable to me how many were in the older set, that is, in my own age group of 60-64.
bluestacks867 began his assault in a dead sprint, running 19 sessions over the first 2 days of the Challenge. Starting on day-16 he also biked for 22 consecutive days. He ran through 4 illnesses (colds). Day-100 he ran the distance of a marathon, with 6000 feet of vertical. He ran more than 20 miles on 3 of the days. His 3 largest weekly mileage totals were 94, 95, and 109. This is not the textbook way to do this challenge but, in his case, it worked!
There were some big hitters who took part: one of any race’s fastest age group competitors, Dan Stubleski, was good for 145 runs. The Challenge got ex-pro Brandon Marsh off the couch for 72 runs and his talented wife Amy was good for 78.
Swim specialists Halfspeed was in for 98 runs, which dims my AG hopes, and Dr. Tigerchik (pictured below), with 95. Ultraman champ Rob Gray found time to slide in 86 runs.
I was 33 for 33 until illness sidelined me. Sick twice (or three times?) I was not as stalwart as bluestacks867 and did not run thru my sniffles. I finished with 60.
Our Reader Forum thread on this year’s Challenge has 858 posts as of this writing.
Three participants logged more than 1000 miles running over these 3 months, with qintegral topping the list with 1,255 miles in 152 runs, for an average of more than 8 miles per run. The highest average per run I could find among those near the top of the leaderboard was fartleker, with 95 runs in 100 days and a daily average of more than 10 miles per run.
Here are some statistics. There were 29,932 qualifying runs logged during this Challenge, with participants investing just over 22,569 hours into their running. If all the runs of all participants were placed end to end, the earth would’ve been circled 6 times.
