πŸƒβ€β™€οΈβ€βž‘οΈ0 to 100k, Real Quick

I’m not athletic.

On a scale of 1-10, my natural athletic ability is probably a 3. That sounds dramatic, but ask anyone who’s known me since I was a kid. Off-season was my season.

But I wanted a challenge, so I signed up for a 10k run. I knew I could do it, but it’d take work.

I’d run a 5k maybe twice in my life, each time huffing and puffing until the end. And that was years ago.

So instead of training like a normal person, I decided that my March project was to run 100k during the month to prepare for the race in April.

It sounded crazy, but I wanted a big stretch goal. I wasn’t working, so I felt I didn’t have an excuse. I planned to run 25k a week, running 3-4x a week.

Putting this challenge out into the world, shocking some childhood friends.

Week 1: Baby Steps

I ran 8k and felt okay, but very exhausted.

Then I ran 8k again. My knees hurt.

Then I ran 10k for the first time, it was slow and a slog but I managed. It felt like it was going on forever, and it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes to finish. I was exhausted, but proud of myself.

After week 1, I felt like the 100k was definitely achievable.


I felt pretty good and decided to front-load the week and run 10k earlier in the week. I ran faster and felt better than I did the last time.

Week 2: Feelin’ It

At night I didn’t feel exhausted like I had the other times. I was shocked at how quickly my body was getting used to all of the running.

Another 10k and faster! I was blown away that I’d run over 50k already.

Week 3: Over It

I started hating being bound to running every other day. I wanted to do other workouts but was too tired on the off days. I felt like I needed to rest or I’d be too sore to finish the longer runs.

Week 4: Crawling Towards the Finish Line

At this point, I was just excited to be done with the 100k.

The last run was brutal. I didn’t eat anything beforehand and I felt slow and sluggish while trying to weave through throngs of tourists at Belvedere. My knees started to hurt, but I finally finished.

I can’t believe I ran 100k. I was so happy that I didn’t have to run again in 2 days.


πŸƒβ€β™€οΈβ€βž‘οΈ The 10k Run

After the 100km challenge in March, I only ran once in April before the 10k race. I just wanted to finish the race and since I knew I could do it, it took a lot of the pressure off.

Nonetheless, I was still nervous the night before the race and didn’t sleep well. During the race, I ran faster than expected, probably due to all the excitement and Kim Petras tunes in my playlist.

I finished in 1:07, which was the fastest I’d run a 10k. I was pretty happy with my time.


What I learned Running 100k in a Month

  1. πŸ’” I Don’t Love Running – I didn’t fall in love with running. I didn’t get runner’s high or feel amazing while running. Even though it got easier, I still would pick a nap over running any day to destress.

    It’s not my thing and I’m okay with that. It made me appreciate running a lot more though, and I have much more respect for long-distance runners.


  2. 🀯 Training Shouldn’t Be Hard – The best advice I heard was that most of your training should be at zone 2, at a pace you can breathe out of your nose and still hold a conversation.

    This completely changed my view of running. Before, I was always running too fast and was out of breath after 10 minutes. Making sure I could still talk while running made me slow down and allowed me to run longer.


    “Go slow to go fast.” Sounds like a cheesy LinkedIn inspo quote, but it’s true in this case.


  3. πŸ’ͺ Your Body Adapts Quickly – The first time I ran 6k in February, I was completely exhausted for the rest of the day. Then I ran 8k, then 10k. I was shocked at how quickly I could increase the distances at the same pace.

    Tracking your progress is the best way to see how quickly you improve. When I felt that I was plateauing, the data showed otherwise. I highly recommend tracking every run. Posting publicly and sharing my weekly updates with friends also helped keep me accountable.


Books

I read some books to help inspire me along the way. Well, actually I listened to them as audiobooks while I ran.

  • Born to Run – A real story about the author’s quest to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners, the Tarahumara. It was entertaining and reinforced the idea that running is natural for humans and that it should be fun and easy.
  • Never Finished – David Goggins is a polarizing person, but I loved his first book Can’t Hurt Me and decided to listen to Never Finished while running. He can be intense, but I like the overall message of accountability and constantly challenging yourself. Definitely not a book for everyone.

Tracking Apps

  • Nike Run Club (NRC) – I downloaded this for the guided runs, but actually found them annoying. I started tracking on NRC first though, but I wish I just stuck to Strava.
  • Strava – I connected NRC to Strava, which only imports data from NRC to Strava and not vice versa. I feel like Strava has a bigger community and is better because it also incorporates other sports if you’re into that. Also, more of my friends are on Strava, even though I decided to keep all of my runs private because I was shy. πŸ˜„

What’s Next?

Many friends asked if I would run a half marathon next or if that was the end of my running career.

The answer is somewhere in between. I don’t want to focus primarily on running and don’t have plans to run a longer race, but I like the idea of tracking my improvement and would be down to do another 10k.

I never thought a running challenge could change my life, but it did. I don’t hate running anymore. For me, that’s huge.

Will I ever learn to love running?

Maybe it takes another 100k.