Eleventy-leven

On Monday of this week, the 2019/2020 100 runs in 100 days challenge drew to a close.

As all things do, eventually.

Tanker said it felt like it had been quite short, but I - as the one out there trudging each and every step through everything from calm sunshine to raging winter storms - had to disagree. I felt like it had been long enough to fall into a routine; one that had become fairly comfortable, but that was now ending.

And let me tell you that even some of the sun-filled days had not been easy.

I took a fairly measured approach to this year's challenge, despite some changes to the base rules for the 100 in 100: while the requirement for a qualifying run was reduced from 30mins to 3mi (4.828km) OR 30mins, my own personal standard remained at 30mins or 5km, whichever came LAST. I thought I had given myself a bit of grace for a snowshoe run and counted it even though it was less than 5km (but more than 30mins), however looking through my logs I did actually push all of them to a minimum of 5.0km by my GPS watch.

Which really just goes to show you what a dork I really am.

Another personal requirement was that I run every day of each week except Fridays, which are my traditional day off. There were 15 Fridays in the challenge period of December 1st to March 9th, and I took 14 of them off - I did run (twice, actually) on Friday, December 27th, as I was in the middle of 5 days off work for the holidays.

Gotta make use of daylight when you can.

The final rule I put in place for myself was that I run twice on every day I was not at the office. With three exceptions, I fulfilled that requirement: one was a day on which I had to DNF a race due to severe knee and ankle pain, the other was the day I ran for 6 heckin' hours, and the last was the day after the 6-hour.

Even one run the day after a 6-hour was rather a struggle.

Thanks to weekends, holidays, and one day that I was working from home, I put in a total of 35 days with multiple runs. 34 of those were doubles - on the penultimate day of the challenge, I put in my only triple. I had run three times per day on 3 other occasions, but my 5-to-6-minute warm-up runs before the three snowshoe races I ran in February don't count for the challenge.

They count according to my legs, but not the spreadsheet.

So, to relieve the anticipation that absolutely none of you are feeling - the results!

Which are much more readable on the original page

With 121 runs in the 100 days, I ended up in 20th place overall, and what appears to be 2nd woman - the first place woman had the same number of runs, but significantly more mileage. It was also 1 single run more than I did in the 2018/2019 challenge, when I was also 2nd woman.

At 833.58km (517.96mi) of total mileage, I averaged 6.89km (4.28mi) per run - with 14 days off in the 100 day period, that gives me an average of 9.69km (6.02mi) per day of running, or 8.34km (5.18mi) per day of the challenge period. Amusingly enough, while thinking I'd run more last year, it turns out I put in a whole 0.61km of additional running in this year's challenge. So, lower average per run, but almost exactly the same on a per-day basis.

No runs were completed on a treadmill, though I will admit that 4 of them were on an indoor track, including the 6-hour. Many were on the roads due to conditions or time constraints - I have no access to trails I can run on my lunch break - but as many as possible were done on trails through ice, snow, slush and rain. There was one memorable evening when weather dictated my run take the form of 12 laps around my small crescent.

The end total of eleven squared was only partly by design - as I came into the final week, I totted up everything I expected to do before the end and realised that I'd come in exactly where I had last year. Having not done a triple at all, I decided to throw down on day 99.

It didn't hurt it was both mild and sunny that day, and I'd gained an extra hour of evening light.

With 120 in the bank, all I had to do on day 100 was go for my usual lunch run. It seemed a fitting way to end it off - not with some big push, but rather the day-in-day-out habitual running that this challenge encourages.

By coincidence, it happened to be 17c/63f and my first run in a skirt since October!

So this one goes to 11...squared.

Of course - as luck would have it - I finally succumbed to the cold that had been threatening to overwhelm me for a few weeks now, and haven't run since the challenge ended. I do have high hopes for tomorrow, though!

For those who might think that running 100 (or more) times in 100 days is out of reach, I still suggest giving it a try - there are many who join the challenge with an aim to simply improving on their current run frequency, and the leaderboard awards medals of varying tones to those who complete 70 or more qualifying runs in the challenge period.

There are awesome stories of people making massive gains in speed or resiliency through their 100 in 100 efforts, so I would encourage anyone to give it their best shot! It's a great motivator in those dark days of winter when it can feel awfully difficult to take that first step out the door.