Running Challenges – have you done one?

[Runningversity]

You’ve probably seen a lot of charities asking “Could you run 5K every day for a month for a good cause?” and other similar Challenges. Do you know anyone that has done one of these? Have you attempted one? Comment below with how you got on.

The main thrust of these challenges is that they are hard – which is why friends and family might give you money to achieve it for charity. Most runners don’t run every day and even those that do have some days where they do a mile to maintain the streak. So suddenly switching to running 5K every day will be tough for most people that sign up for this sort of endeavour.

What they don’t normally consider is that running is supposed to be easy! If you have a proper running plan, most of it will be easy running, with recovery days and a few fast runs, plus easy weeks to aid recovery further.

Doing some hard running with no recovery for a month is not just hard. It’s also risky! Many people attempt these challenges and succeed, but many get into trouble after a couple of weeks, refuse to listen to their body and push through pain “because I’m doing it for charity”. These ones might end up with an injury that puts them out of running action for a few months.

At the extreme end of these challenges, a runner that I met at an Ultra race has recently completed 102 marathons in as many days and raised a lot of money for charity and raised awareness of the cause (Syrian Refugees), but has just been told they will never run again due to a bone fracture that was ignored half way through.

So, if you are considering doing one of these challenges, my advice would be to be prepared to pause the challenge if you feel like your body isn’t coping. Most people that pledged money for charity will give it to you anyway just because you made the attempt.

P.S. If you are interested in improving your own running with a custom plan that gives you the right amount of stress and recovery so that you get fitter and faster, please take a look at this link to my coaching page. I can coach you remotely or locally.

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