Six Lessons From Running 1,022 km in 121 Days
By: Brynn Mahnke
Tags: Fitness, Running, Life Lessons, Health, Goals

Six Lessons From Running 1,022 km in 121 Days

It seemed like a good idea at the time

Photo by nrd on Unsplash

After my spring race was canceled, just about every other summer race was canceled too. I wasn’t alone; races all over the world dropped like flies as a precaution against the current pandemic.

I need to be signed up for a race or have some goal to get out the door (or in the basement) for a run. I don’t care for virtual races as a rule, but at this point, I was out of options.

I found out about a virtual race called the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee (GVRAT). One thousand kilometers, or 621 miles, completed between May 1 and August 31, earned you a spot as a finisher. You could run the miles anywhere and at any time, just so long as you got them done.

This averages out to just over five miles per day, every single day, for four months.

Of course I signed up. How hard could it be?

Consistency can hurt

Most training plans build slowly over time, offering recovery weeks throughout the plan where you run fewer and/or slower miles.

Between May and August, I took one day off per week as a rule and made up the mileage with a longer-ish run on Saturdays. If I couldn’t make the five miles during the other weekdays, I’d tack those on to Saturdays as well. Many weeks I ended up running a half-marathon distance on the weekend.

I got tired. Really, really tired toward the end. Not having recovery weeks wore on me as the months dragged on, and I wasn’t prepared for how exhausting it would be.

Recovery days are a must

Even though I couldn’t take recovery weeks, I tried to take a day off each week. After completing this challenge, I genuinely do not understand how anybody can hold a running streak longer than a few weeks. My body is not built for that kind of intensity.

Recovery days are important! And I don’t mean just taking the day off of running. I mean spending the day off your feet as much as you can. I am not good at truly resting, but I got better at it as the challenge wore on.

Competing with yourself can be the best kind of competition

This challenge allowed users to see all the other people in the “race” and see their progress. Some people finished this entire race the first week. Many people continued the challenge by running back across Tennessee before August 31. Some people made up to five or six crossings. All I did was finish once, and that was only by the skin of my teeth.

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and that is something I think about often.

We all have our own lives. Some of us are more athletically gifted than others. Some of us have more free time or a stronger running background. We each have our own unique running story, and so comparing your current self to your past self is a better way to gauge your progress than comparing yourself to other people. Give other people a high-five for their extraordinary accomplishments, but don’t feel bad if you can’t accomplish the same things. We each have our own journeys.

Sleep is under-rated

Usually, six to seven hours of sleep is plenty for me. By the end of this challenge, seven hours was no longer enough. I was regularly getting eight hours and still feeling groggy.

Sleep is important. The more you run, the more you need to sleep. Elite runner Deena Kastor famously slept 12 hours per day. While I will never be anywhere near her intensity level, I should have been sleeping more to accommodate a heavier training load.

Loneliness

There’s a reason people like to do “real” races. There’s a shared camaraderie in running the same distance at the same time, even if you don’t know a single soul there.

I ran with one friend in real life over these months. We got together maybe a total of four or five times. One of the best things I did, though, was to join a long-distance running group on Zwift. I was able to run virtually on my treadmill at home while chatting with strangers on the internet who were also running on their treadmills at home! I’m not much of a talker, but I still enjoyed seeing familiar faces and keeping up with their banter.

These organized runs made the grind slightly more bearable, but I’d still prefer a real-life race over a virtual race any day.

Be prepared for surprises

As the final days of the challenge counted down, I was feeling great about my mileage. I had gotten ahead of the game a bit, and with five days remaining realized I only had to run a little over a 5k per day to meet my goal. This was a huge relief, as I was exhausted and honestly just ready to take a few days off running altogether.

I logged into the mileage tracking website, where a pop-up informed me that the challenge was 1,022 km rather than the 1,000 km advertised.

Wait. What?

Twenty-two extra km is a half-marathon, give or take. I cried a little bit on the inside and felt sorry for myself. I’m sure there was fine print somewhere that explained this at the beginning of the race, but I had missed it somehow.

I bucked up and took on the challenge. It was a busy weekend for me so I did my half-marathon in two parts on Saturday. I upped my mileage on the other days and did 5 to 6 miles each day, finishing with one day to spare.

Life comes at you fast, and being light on your feet makes sudden pivoting possible. A small wrinkle can seem massive when you’re in the thick of doing something hard, but keep your head up and take it in stride — you’ll feel even more amazing once you’re done.