Every Day. For 35 Days. I Ranā¦ā¦.. For like 15-60mins. Not like 35 days all day or anything like that. Lets not get carried away.
Even so, this probably raises a few questions like:
Why?
How?
Did you get hurt?
How did you feel after all that running?
What did you learn?
Are you crazy?
The last question is up for debate, and will continue to be as such for the rest of my life I am sure. You will get different answers depending on who you ask.
The others I will do my best to answer.
Lets start with WHAT I did over the 35 days of running.
I started on Monday, April 27th and finished on Sunday, May 31st.
I ran over 130km and amassed almost 12 hours of running over those 35 days.
I ran in the snow, the rain, some decent heat (for Canada considering we had just come out of winter, or so I thoughtā¦.), and in some pretty nasty winds too.
I ran at least 3km every day and never more than 10km in any day.
I always did the entire distance in one run, no stops, no walking.
While I was doing this running I also mixed in some heavy Squats for some of it, a few days of Weightlifting, and was doing 4-5 CrossFit WODs per week. The CrossFit WODs were dumbbell based and generally were light load (50# dumbbell) or body weight and high reps.
On day 27 I also did the Hero WOD Murph (with Ring Rows instead of Pull-ups).
It was +11 and sunny yesterday
That might be all neat and some fancy numbers but you likely are still asking WHY run EVERY day for 35 days?
There are a few pieces to this. The first is that I needed a challenge. This was about a month and a half into things more or less shutting down from COVID-19 and I needed something to get me going again as I was losing motivation and steam fast. But thats not the only reason.
When I was younger I used to actually enjoy running, and I used to be good at it too. Most of the sports I played growing up (Football, Ultimate Frisbee, Soccer, Baseball, Lacrosse, Track and Field and others) required me to be a good runner. I wasnāt big by any means so what I lacked in size I often had to make up for in intelligence, but also speed and endurance. After finishing University and traveling for 6 months I decided I wanted to give CrossFit a try. I instantly fell in love with it and the type of people it drew. I was the speedy, gymnastics guy at the local Crossfit. But as soon as you threw a barbell in there I was screwed. Once I realized that, I immediately started focusing on the lifting aspect of fitness, and trying to get bigger and stronger. Fast forward 6 years and all my strength and gymnastics numbers have increased (along with my bodyweight), but I felt my running had gotten much worse. I was for sure more fit overall but there was a glaring gap in my fitness and that was partially cardio in general but mostly running. I now had flipped almost entirely and now pretty much any workout with running in it destroyed me. It was getting to the point that I would say any workout with running in it I actually hated. But with the gyms being closed and getting tired of lifting in my windowless basement I decided I would take on something outside that would hopefully make me a better, more well rounded athlete and human. So I guess point two on why I ran for 35 days straight is: I was sick of feeling like I was a terrible runner, was sick of lifting in my windowless basement, and saw an opportunity to improve running as the weather was getting much nicer as spring started to take itās hold. So, point two is basically a collection of points that resulted in me needing to do something different.
Also at this time, I heard Ben Bergeron say something on a podcast that really made sense to me. It was basically that if you lost a point in one area of fitness and it dropped from an 8 to a 7 but at the same time increased another area of fitness from a 3 to a 6 you actually became more fit overall. So in the interest of becoming more fit and a more well rounded athlete we find my third reason why I ran for 35 days straight.
There are two distinct events that influenced the EVERY DAY part of this though and make up reason four for why I ran every day for 35 days.
60 minutes. Row for Distance. That was it. That was the workout.
When I was living in NZ I was attending a CrossFit that did not have rowers. We either ran or skipped, or did burpees or box jumps as our only ācardioā. One month we went really wild on burpees. Every day. For an entire month. We did burpees. They were either in the warmup or the workout. For an ENTIRE month.
Both of these taught me something similar. That if I do enough of something I potentially no longer hate it. I still DO NOT like Rowing or Burpees but when they come up I know I will survive and be able to get through the workout in a decent time. I have come to terms with them being there and donāt really react or care if they are in the workout.
So taking those thoughts, ideas, and experiences I decided that I was going to run every day for a month. Which then turned into 35 days because I have mild OCD and needed it to end on a nice number. 5 full weeks. Also when I made my spreadsheet to track everything I put in 5 weeks for some reasonā¦ā¦.Copy and paste got a little carried awayā¦ā¦
The hope was that by the end of the 5 weeks I would not hate running anymore, stay healthy, not lose too much strength, and if I was lucky I would be a better runner and a more well rounded athlete.
Now another big part. HOW did I put it together?
The first thing I did was set a minimum and maximum distance I would run on any given day. The minimum I set as 3km because the only other running I had done that year (both in the month before) were 3km runs and they werenāt too bad. I figured even on a really sore and tired day I could jog, or more likely waddle, 3km. The maximum I set at 10km because it was the farthest I had ever ran in one go in my life. I had only ever done it once in my entire life.
The other distances I picked were 5km and 8km. I picked 5km because it seemed to be a pretty standard distance that was ran a lot. I picked 8km because it was long enough I knew it would be challengingā¦ but it wasnāt 10km. Also 5+3=8 soā¦ā¦math.
The next step was to designate what days I would try to run what distances.
PLAN 1
Monday -> 3km ā because I was squatting that day
Tuesday -> 3 or 5 or 8km ā depending on how I felt after my squats
Wednesday -> 5 or 8km ā there wasnāt really much logic behind this but it was what I wrote down
Thursday -> 3km ā because I squatted this day as well
Friday -> 3 or 5 or 8km ā depending on how I felt after squats
Saturday -> 10km ā itās the weekend. I got time. Go for a long run.
Sunday -> 3km ā recovery run
That was the initial plan anyway. It made it to Saturday. The first week went 3/3/5/3/3/3/3=23km. Part way through the week I made the decision I would ease into it. I was feeling much better than I thought I would but wanted to give myself the best chance at actually finishing the 35 days. That is when I made the second version of the plan.
SIDE NOTE: At the end of week 1 I realized my FitBit was not tracking distance properly and left me a bit short on every run. I then used RunKeeper after that. I also used RunKeeper to calculate out roughly how much of each run I was missing. All the 3km runs were closer to 2.7 and my 5km run was more like 4.5. I also recalculated all my paces for each run knowing that I had not ran as far as I thought.
PLAN 2
WK1 -> 3/3/5/3/3/3/3
WK2 -> 3/3/8/3/3/3/3
WK3 -> 3/3/10/3/3/5OR3/3
WK4 -> 3/3/10/3/3/5OR8/3
WK5 -> 3/10/3/5/3/8/3
SIDE NOTE: At this point some of you may now have a new questions. It might be something along the lines of āWhat the hell kind of plan is this?ā Let me explain.Ā I have never actually followed any sort of running program in my life. So the structure of this challenge may look a little different than most running programs. I would say still to this day I have not followed a running program because I did not follow the distances I had set out at the start and I Ā had at least 3 different versions of this plan by the time I was done. I do however feel that the changes I made were appropriate and still kept the overall intent of the plan intact.
The second version of my plan saw the end of squats in week 3. The volume of the running plus the squats was adding up. Plus I was at a nice spot in the squat program to stop. The second version also saw the addition of a 3km Vest (30#) run on the Friday of week 3. The second version also saw the creation ofā¦ the third version.
Version three looked like this:
PLAN 3
WK3 -> 3/3/10/3/3Vest/5/3
WK4 -> 3Vest/3/3/3/3/3.2(Murph)/3
WK5 -> 5/3/10/3/8/3Vest/3
When I came to week 4 I was feeling pretty good considering I had gone from running once a month to every day this month. But I wanted to gear up for a big final week so I decided to chill out a bit on week 4. The idea was I was taking week 4 easy because I wanted to do all the runs in week 5 and be able to give very high effort on all of them. This meant I was going to try to PR my 3km, 5km, 8km, 10km, and 3km Vest (30#) runs all in the span of 7 days.
SIDE NOTE: I counted the runs from Murph as my minimum 3km. Murph starts and ends with a mile run. 1 mile = 1.6km, so 1.6km+1.6km=3.2km. I figured the 100 Ring Rows, 200 Push-ups, and 300 Air Squats was an okay reason to stop running part way through my 3km. This was the first and only time I stopped running during any of my runs. That includes not walking during any of them either.
WEEK 5
Monday -> 5km ā Time ā 23:36, Pace ā 4:42min/km (PR by 1:54)
Tuesday -> 3km ā Time ā 14:33, Pace ā 4:49min/km (1 second slower than best)
Wednesday -> 10km ā Time ā 52:31, Pace ā 5:14min/km (21 seconds slower than best)
Thursday -> 3km ā Time ā 16:05, Pace ā 5:19min/km (Recovery run)
Friday -> 8km ā Time ā 41:18, Pace ā 5:09min/km (PR by 4:31)
Saturday -> 3km Vest(30#) ā Time ā 17:12, Pace ā 5:42min/km (PR by 19s)
Sunday -> 3km ā Time ā 14:27, Pace ā 4:46min/km (PR by 5s)
Week 1: Total Distance = 20.7km, Avg. pace = 6:00min/km
Week 2: Total Distance = 26km, Avg. pace = 5:41min/km
Week 3:Ā Total Distance = 30km, Avg. pace = 5:36min/km
Week 4: Total Distance = 18km, Avg. pace = 5:22min/km (+3.2km from Murph)
Week 5: Total Distance = 35km, Avg. Ā pace = 5:06min/km
I ran my best times in my life in the 3km, 5km, 8km, and 3km with a Vest.
I also got within 21s of my best 10km run ever.
My resting HR dropped from 66 to 60 and my average pace per km went from 6:00 to 5:06 despite running MUCH further in the final week.
On average I slept 7 hours and 20mins each night.
I weighed 182-185 lbs throught the 35 days.
Final Thoughts, Findings and, Key Points
The 8km and 10km runs were always done on days I did nothing else. While I was doing this run month I was working 3-4 hours each day, centered around lunch, Monday to Friday. The 3km runs were often just fillers and I generally did not care how fast or slow I ran. I was just doing it to get in the run to meet the EVERY DAY part and used it to focus more on the WAY I ran.
I honestly was not very confident in my ability to actually finish this challenge. I felt there was a very good chance that this much running would leave me injured before Week 1 was done. But I was pleasantly surprised that I did not get injured and had very few runs that felt bad through the whole run. I had many runs where the start did not feel good. I would have aches in my shins, hips, feet, or calves. Or I had a few runs where I started off with pretty rough headaches. For whatever reason though, those things seemed to go away after the first km or so. On the days that I rolled out my legs (most importantly my calves) I always felt better the next day. So if I do something like this again I need to make mobility and foam rolling a staple of the program as well.
Through this I also feel like I found my stride. There is a sweet spot for me that is just back from the balls of my feet. If I can focus my contact point there I found I ran faster and my legs (most noticeably my calves) were not as sore the next day.
The day after I finished my run every day I rested completely. The second day I lifted. I was very interesting to see how lifting heavy-ish a couple times a week while running every day would affect my strength. I think I lost some strength through it but to hit 90% on my Snatch and 94% on my Clean after 35 days of running I was more than happy.
SIDE NOTE: During the 35 days I did Snatches 2 times, Cleans 4 times, Squats 5 times, and Deadlifted 1 time. So that is 12 TOTAL days that I lifted a barbell in the 35 days of running.
I am very interested in creating/trying/testing something similar with more lifting involved. This time was very light weight and body weight based training outside of the running. So now I am quite curious as to how it would work with something like this if I was lifting heavy more often throughout.
If I do try to create another challenge like this with more lifting involved there are some key points I will need to keep in mind:
1. STRETCH and MOBILIZE: Every day I will need to stretch and do some mobility (typically I stretch approximately neverā¦.). When I stopped squatting heavy I no longer got lower back pain while I was running. I believe this is due to less tightness in the quads, glutes, and hamstrings.
2. If I run more than 5km it needs to be done on a day that all I have to do is run.
3. Remember to focus the foot strike just back from the balls of my feet and think about long relaxed strides.
4. For me I need to have a plan BUT I also need to have flexibility within the plan. Just the way my brain works.
So all in all the 35 days of running turned out pretty good I would say.
I got faster.
My resting HR went down.
I didnāt get hurt.
I learned how to run better and relax into it even when I was tired or sore.
I stayed pretty strong relative to where I started.
I believe I am more fit because of it.
I donāt hate running anymore (still wouldnāt say I like it). I have grown to hate running less enough thatĀ I am thinking of doing something similar while lifting weights as well.
Run Every Day Every Day. For 35 Days. I Ran........ For like 15-60mins. Not like 35 days all day or anything like that.
