Start at 1 mile a day, add 1 each day, how long do you last?

I’m at 6 right now, will I survive to 7 tomorrow? Stay tuned.

I asked Pete via facebook what he thinks he or other stud multi-day guys could manage. Don't know if he'll reply but we'll see.

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

I asked Pete via facebook what he thinks he or other stud multi-day guys could manage. Don't know if he'll reply but we'll see.

**Update** He replied rather quickly.

"Hey XXXXX (omitted my real name), that’s hilarious! I’m fairly certain it would have to be in the 80-90 range, probably low 80s. Certainly above 70-75 since I’ve done that for 42 days. But they furthest someone has averaged over 80 miles is about two weeks I think. "

-Pete Kostelnick

another perspective wrote:

I'd probably barely make it to 10 days if I had to guess.

I don't know what the limit would be but people guessing 60+ have to remember, the person has to be healthy still to even get to the week that they approach 60+. Here's what your weekly mileages would look like and the longest day of week in ():

28 (7 miler)

77 (14 miler)

126 (21 miler)

175 (28 miler)

224 (35 miler)

273 (42 miler)

322 (49 miler)

371 (56 miler)

420 (63 miler)

Anyone want to revise their guesses down now? Making it to day 50 would be quite a feat in my mind, anything close to 60 seems nearly impossible.

These people here are full of it and delusional.

21 straight days of running with no recovery and the last 7 days consisting of 15 miles on Monday, 16 miles on Tuesday, 17 miles on Wednesday, 18 miles on Thursday, 19 Miles on Friday, 20 miles on Saturday and 21 miles on Sunday IS IMPOSSIBLE without RECOVERY. You would be INJURED. The human body doesn't work that way.

No one here would make it to 21.

Truefax wrote:

If we go by top "athletes" who are signed up for fitness tracker challenges, the actual number is greater than 452 days.

Post of the day. So true. Some Russian, Chinese and Indian guys are already running 60-100mpd. This is easy for them and we are weak. It helps if you're a member of all the clubs. I mean ALL the clubs.

You're wrong. Frank Shorter averaged 17 miles a day for a decade. Many others have averaged similar mileage for years. And another example, Arthur Newton, who won the Comardes marathon, "

Between 1922 and 1935 Newton accumulated 103000 miles in training and his daily mileage was as high as 25 miles in 1923.".

High mileage junkies wrote:

You're wrong. Frank Shorter averaged 17 miles a day for a decade. Many others have averaged similar mileage for years. And another example, Arthur Newton, who won the Comardes marathon, "

Between 1922 and 1935 Newton accumulated 103000 miles in training and his daily mileage was as high as 25 miles in 1923.".

http://www.championseverywhere.com/arthur-newton-old-school-running-hero/

AVERAGING 17 miles a day is not the same as running 17 miles a day. You are stupid if you believe there were no recovery days EVER.

BS Detector! wrote:

AVERAGING 17 miles a day is not the same as running 17 miles a day. You are stupid if you believe there were no recovery days EVER.

Look up Bill Rodgers training log. Averaged upwards of a 130 MPW some years. The amount of days with no running is few and far between. Once you get beyond being a beginner, a recovery day can mean a day of easy running.

High mileage junkies wrote:

BS Detector! wrote:

AVERAGING 17 miles a day is not the same as running 17 miles a day. You are stupid if you believe there were no recovery days EVER.

Look up Bill Rodgers training log. Averaged upwards of a 130 MPW some years. The amount of days with no running is few and far between. Once you get beyond being a beginner, a recovery day can mean a day of easy running.

You are a F*cking idiot!

Week 4 would be Monday 22, Tuesday 23, Wednesday 24, Thursday 25, Friday 26, Saturday 27, and Sunday 28 for a total of 175 miles. This after a 126 mile week WITH ZERO RECOVERY DAYS.

NONE.

NOT 1!

There are people saying they could make it to 60 days. To make it to day 56 you would have to run a 371 mile week, having no recovery days from the previous 322 mile week, which you had no recovery from the previous 273 mile week, which you had no recovery from the 224 mile week, which you had no recovery from the 175 mile week, which you had no recovery from the 126 mile week....

To make it to day 60, you would have to run 1,830 miles in 60 days,

That is an average of 30.5 miles EVERY DAY with NO RECOVERY DAYS for 60 day!

In conclusion:

Math Matters.

You are an idiot!

Sounds like someone never ran high mileage.

In addition to people who've done fast transcon runs like Pete Kostelnick, you can look at the Self-Transcendence 3100 for people who have to average over 59 miles/day to finish (in 52 days).

Most people wouldn't touch it, but it's definitely possible to hit better than day 60. I think Pete has it right on with his guess on the limit.

I'm not sure what the cumulative fatigue would do to me. I know I can survive one week of 50/day, so I'd guess I'm good for high 30s, low 40s.

Eddie Izzard, a small chubby middle aged comedian, 'ran' 27 marathons in 27 days. So he passed week 4. So there's 1 right there. Moran.

I've done something close to this.

1 day of 1

2 days of 2

3 straight days of 3 miles

4 straight days of 4 miles

5 straight days of 5 miles

6 straight days of 6 miles

7 straight days of 7 miles (49 mile week)

8 straight days of 8 miles

9 straight days of 9 miles

etc.

I made it to about the 10th or 11th day of 12s. So about 70-something days.

And I was doing workouts along the way too, this wasn't just junk mileage. 5x800, or 8 miles with 5 miles at LT pace, 3xMile, 10x800, etc...

Ok, I went and looked it up. On Day 71, the 5th day of trying 12 straight days of 12 milers, Day #71 of the streak, I threw in the towel and only ran 8 miles on the 71st day. I took the following day off. I did 18 workouts during the streak, and 3 races. I was 12th place in the 2014 Bear Run, it's a 5 mile race up to the top of Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. I also raced a 16:54 5K and a 4:53 mile during the streak. For those days, I only got to that days total mileage number by including the warm-up and cooldown.

BS Detector! wrote:

These people here are full of it and delusional.

21 straight days of running with no recovery and the last 7 days consisting of 15 miles on Monday, 16 miles on Tuesday, 17 miles on Wednesday, 18 miles on Thursday, 19 Miles on Friday, 20 miles on Saturday and 21 miles on Sunday IS IMPOSSIBLE without RECOVERY. You would be INJURED. The human body doesn't work that way.

No one here would make it to 21.

I've done 45+ miles twice over two month. The human body does work that way.

Good multiday runners would make it into day 55-60. Worldclass runners like Pete Kostelnick into the upper 70ies.

BS Detector! wrote:

There are people saying they could make it to 60 days. To make it to day 56 you would have to run a 371 mile week, having no recovery days from the previous 322 mile week, which you had no recovery from the previous 273 mile week, which you had no recovery from the 224 mile week, which you had no recovery from the 175 mile week, which you had no recovery from the 126 mile week....

To make it to day 60, you would have to run 1,830 miles in 60 days,

That is an average of 30.5 miles EVERY DAY with NO RECOVERY DAYS for 60 day!

In conclusion:

Math Matters.

You are an idiot!

Knowledge matters BS Detector.

Trans con runners have done 40-72 miles over two month.

Google Al Howie or Pete Kostelnick for starters.

If past runners have averaged 72 miles a day for an extended period, then presumably the answer would be at least 72. And surely the maximum would be less than 100, because even for relatively quick runners, you'd start getting to where there wasn't enough time in the day. And they'd have to get at least some sleep after 3 months of running. So clearly, somewhere between 72 and 100. That Pete Kostelnick guy was probably about right to guess low 80's.

I think the challenge would (as some have indicated already) be more interesting if there were pace requirements. I appreciate the accomplishments of the transcontinental runners and other journey-runners, but for this challenge, I think it would be better if the pace requirement was something half-way decent - say, 8-minute or 9-minute average mile pace required during each day's run. Personally, I like the idea of sub-8:00's. Not particularly fast (for a relatively fit youngish person), but respectable.

I can appreciate wanting to put a minimum pace requirement, but I think you've gone too quick with it. Sure, maybe early on it can be strict. But by the time you start getting past 15 miles/day with no days off the time should be relaxed some. A 4hr marathon is run at 9:09/mile pace. Not fast for sure, but respectable enough for something like this. (And before anyone makes assumptions I said this because I'm slow or something, I have lifetime PRs of 1:49 in the 800meters, 4:00 Mile, 14:20 5K, and a sub-2:45 marathon. I'm 44 years old and ran a sub-3 just last month)

The math in PK’s reply does not make much sense. If, as he says, someone has average 80 mile days for 2 weeks, they would not make 80 days, or even the 90 he suggests.

The reason is that, I presume, when someone ran roughly 2 weeks at 80mpd, they did not build up for that effort with months at 300-500 mpw with zero recovery days.

If a guy could get to 90, that would mean a 609 mile week that followed weeks of roughly 550, 520, 475 miles. I just don’t see it. The cumulative grind and lack of any recovery seems too much to me.

If you could make 90 you could run a lot more that 2 weeks at 80mpd. Getting from 60 to 90 is 4+ weeks at 75mpd average.