Wednesday, January 13, 2010

50/50 Challenge


In the fall I read on Doug's blog about a 50 day swim challenge. Now I have no false hopes of swimming 50 days in a row, I know myself better than that, and know that I would never complete it. Running on the other hand is definitely possible.

Just to outline the 50/50 swim challenge as Doug described it:

1. We will record workouts individually on the honour system.

2. There is no need to complete one swim each day; multiple swims are allowed, as are rest days (see point 4 below)

3. An individual swim workout must be at least 1000 metres to qualify, with the following exceptions:
  • 1-on-1 sessions with a swim coach count even if you don’t swim 1000 metres
  • Open water swims that last for more than 5 minutes count as a swim (but honestly, it’s October, so this shouldn’t be a problem

4. If attempting to do multiple swims in a single day, 1000 metre swims won’t cut it
  • To count two swims, one workout must be at least 2000 metres, or the total of the two workouts must be 3000 metres
  • To count three swims, one workout must be at least 3000 metres, or the total of the three workouts must be 6000 metres
  • If you try to count four swims, we’ll know that you’re cheating
5. Dry-land training doesn’t count. That’s weights

How am I changing things for the run challenge? I know that running 50 days in a row probably isn't the smartest idea because of the impact. So I will try and take 1 day off a week. Originally I was going to try and schedule this day off, however, decided that since life throws you curve balls that I will leave it unscheduled and when a day comes that I'm too busy, then no problem.

As a result of these days off, its really a 50/56 challenge, therefore, you can't make up any days by simply running longer.

5K minimum for a day to count, pace doesn't matter.

Why am I doing all of this? I find that every spring I start running and find that I'm in terrible shape and need to rebuild all the work I've done over the past season. This way it will be building a nice strong base over the "off season" banking on consistency instead of long mileage.

How am I doing so far? I started on January 3nd and currently have only missed one day because I had lab work run late and dinner plans that prevented me from running, so in 11 days I've run 10 of them with 61km done and feeling pretty good.

I'll keep you posted on how the rest goes.

Any takers for the challenge?

6 comments:

heydabop said...

I've run every day since January 1st, so I'm up for it. I'm really aiming for running every day of 2010, but we'll see how that goes. And my runs probably aren't fast enough yet for me to do damage running every day. However, my minimum distance has been 3 miles, a little short of 5k....
Good luck btw.

heydabop said...

O, that previous comment was in no way me trying to best you, because I'm not capable of doing so. It was more a roundabout way of saying I'll try the challenge.

Vincent said...

Hey Ross, no problem! Every day since January 1st, intense. Its dumping rain here tonight, the 5k is going to be fun.

You getting in shape for the summer? We should bring back the ice cream run!

heydabop said...

Haha, it would be intense if I wasn't running an easy pace almost every day. But I gotta start somewhere.
Have fun with that rain... All we've had is "cold" weather, the coldest I ran in was about -4°C.

My main focus right now is adventure racing, the season starts in April. But come summer I should be in good running shape, and we should definitely get it going again. Good idea.

The Boring Runner said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Boring Runner said...

With all of the Newton Running that I have been reading about, I couldn't help but wonder if you are a mid/fore striker... It sure looks like it in your picture!

Wow - 50/56 running 1 mile a day would be FUN... but 3.1!? Gosh, this past summer I would have jumped on this (I was doing 6/7 days per week then) - but I'd probably better pass until I can get up a better base.