Andrew O’Connor is a coach with Team RunRun. To learn more about him or to work with Coach Andrew, check out his coaching page.
100 miles in a week of training. There is nothing inherently special about running 100 miles in a week. From a physiological standpoint, my body and muscles don’t know the difference between a 96 mile week, or a 103 mile week. But that number, the significance of crossing that threshold, the work of running 100 miles in seven days holds a special spot in the hearts and minds of long distance runners. Maybe it represents a certain amount of dedication, running over 14 miles a day requires an amount of planning and love of your craft that can’t be achieved with a passive attention to your goal. Maybe running 100 miles in a week is a sort of rite of passage, showing that you have put in the work, building and training your body to the point that it is able to respond to such a training load. Maybe 100 miles in a week is nothing more than a ridiculous concept that holds little meaning, because each body is different and the idea of a standard threshold to cross has little value. Whatever value running 100 miles in a week, does or does not hold, it’s a goal that has intrigued me for as long as I have been running. I have run 96 miles in a 7 day period, but I have yet to crack the 100 mile mark in 7 days.
So starting on Monday May 18th, I plan to set out on 7 days of running, shooting to accumulate 100 miles for a training week. My goal is to blog and document my experience and journey along the way. I want to include photos, videos, and writing that help to give you an insight to the anatomy of how 100 miles in a week come together. I have sketched out a rough plan of what my training will look like over the next week. Of course as life comes at us this plan may need to be modified or changed. I have a 14 month old daughter so distances, times, or days of workouts may need to be modified to fit her schedule, but I believe this is a framework that will help me achieve my goal of a 100 mile training week.
Monday:
AM: 8 miles easy effort
PM: Hill repeats x 6 (1 hour total running) – 7 to 8 miles
Tuesday:
Easy 12 miles – trail
Wednesday:
AM: 20 min warm up
45 min steady state effort
20 min cool down — 11 miles total
PM: 30 min easy — 4 miles
Thursday:
Easy 13 —- or 7 am / 6 pm – up to you
Friday :
AM: 9 easy
PM : 4 easy
Saturday:
18 – 20 miles long run
Sunday:
Easy 13 miles
So follow along over the next 7 days to see how this shapes up! I feel rested, healthy and excited to undertake this project, but the unknown is the exciting aspect. Nothing is given with our training and running, and it’s exactly that challenge and uncertainty that push me to tackle 100 miles in a week.
Andrew O’Connor is a coach with Team RunRun. To learn more about him or to work with Coach Andrew, check out his coaching page.