0 to 100 in 14 weeks

Picture a Sunday morning in January... I just finished riding around on my bike with friends cheering on the 3M half marathoners. I'm over by the finish line, and my coaches Ruth and Steve come up to me. They were both REALLY excited to see me, probably because they’d been hitting the Beer Keg that morning. Any way, a conversation ensued:

Ruth: “MIKE, MIKE!! We have a project for you! We’re going to run 100 miles in 1 week! You’re going to do it too! We're putting together a program!!”
Me: You two have lost your minds. How much beer have you been drinking!?!
Steve: Seriously, we’re putting together a program and… dude, if you do it, you’re going to be a monster come the fall. A monster!
Me: A monster? Seriously, how much beer have you guys had?!?!?
Steve: Dude, I’m setting up a 10 week ramp to 100 miles, and you should do it with us.
Ruth: We’re recruiting people, and you’re one of the first people we thought of that would be crazy enough to join in.
Me: Umm, I don’t know about that. I’m going to need some more information, and I'm on vacation from running.
Steve: Yeah, yeah, yeah!! I just finished the macro-cycle! We’re going to announce it soon. I know you’re not really doing anything right now anyway, so you can start earlier if you want.

So, a month went by, and I continued just running on my own, enjoying “my vacaction running”, jumping in with the Saturday long run Boston / Austin marathon crews. I then ran the Austin Marathon for fun, and then got injured for 6 weeks (because I didn’t take care of myself.)

That was the perfect amount of time to give Steve and Ruth time to put the pieces together, and I was given the Base Building schedule in late March. The official program would not get started till May 27

I ramped up, following the schedule as best I could, but loosely adjusted it, as I also made sure my IT Band injury didn’t come back.

I ramped quickly (per the macro-cycle), increasing the mileage almost every week:
Week 1: 33
Week 2: 46
Week 3: 51
Week 4: 49 (Torrential downpour/lightning made me miss 6 miles to make it 55)
Week 6: 60
Week 7: 72
Week 8: 81
Week 9: 69 (travels and recovery week)
Week 10: 63 (missed a run day due to travel. Should have popped to 75, so slowed the ramp)
Week 11: 71
Week 12: 75
Week 13: 60 (2 travel days, but also chose to be a recovery week)
Week 14: 101

So there you have it. 0 to 100 in 14 weeks. A nice a gradual, but aggressive ramp, keeping the pace of the runs at 8-8:20 per mile to remain injury free, and be able to increase the load as the weeks went on.

I really hadn’t planned on going to 100 this last week, but as the week progressed, I knew I had an 18.6 mile trail race on Sunday, which I had no intentions in running hard, and so playing with the math, I decided an easy 22 miler on Saturday was fine, and I would lower my 3 loop race to just 1 loop (10km). But then, my mileage would be 88.5 for the week. Sure, that's good and a new 7 mile record (88 vs. 81), but I can’t quit that close to 90. So then I figured I had run 10—12 milers every Sunday after a 20 + Saturday, so 2 loops would be fine. But that again, would put me at 95, which is a butt load, but hey, 95 is so close to 100, that I may hate myself. So there you go. I ran the three loops to end the week at 101. I do want to point out that the 3rd loop was hell. That trail race was by no means flat, and it took me 22 minutes longer to run the 3rd loop. Did I mention I sat on a tree trunk for 5 minutes to rest, and also spent 11 minutes at the water stop!? But hey, I ran it, I finished, and it’s a nice memory of my first 100 miler.

Why did I write all this?
Well, people keep congratulating me for hitting 100. It feels weird that people are congratulating me just for hitting my weekly goal, but than again, the more I think of it, 100 miles in a week is something people put as “things to do before they die”. I clearly never had the intention of doing it!
I also thought I’d write it up to make it more human, and hopefully others will join me!

14 weeks ago… heck… 25 weeks ago when Steve and Ruthie were half drunk telling me about this idea, I thought it was the craziest and dumbest thing I’d ever heard. But then again, so is running your first 5 miles, your first 10km, your first half marathon, your first 18 mile training run, reaching TWENTY MILES!, running 50 miles in one week! Running an entire Marathon! (I told my first coach, Carolyn after my first half: “I will NEVER run a MARATHON”) And what about those crazy weirdoes I know that train for half-ironmans? Don’t even get me started on the Full Ironman athletes! Wait, let’s not forget the 50km, 50 mile, 100km, and 100 mile trail race runners I know. Haven’t they’ve completely lost their minds???!
No, they haven’t. They just put in the appropriate training. Anyone can run 100 miles in a week. My legs honestly don’t feel any worse than when I hit 72 or 81.
Was it easy? Actually, kind of, yeah. The actual feat was easy. But you have to be willing to put in effort, the time, and just bite off one run at a time.

Will I do it again? Oh yeah, in a few weeks, but differently; and I’ve already come up with the redistribution of mileage throughout the week to make it simple! Here it is:



Yes, I said "SIMPLE"!! Where’s the EASY BUTTON when you need it!?

So now I sit here, on top of the 100 mile macro-cycle mountain… alone… looking around for Steve and Ruthie, (who said they were going to do it too). It wasn’t as crazy as I originally thought it’d be!…

“Ruthie, Steve… where are you guys?!?!”

Oh, here it is!