What is this 50 Day Challenge? It’s simple:
-50 Days of consecutive exercise.
-No rest days.
-Each workout or combination of workouts
must be a minimum duration of 30 minutes, although I aim to make each one an
hour.
-I will go longer than one hour if I have the opportunity.
Why the 50 Day Challenge?
50 was a number that occurred by
accident. I was actually in the midst of
a 21-day workout cycle with zero rest or recovery days. This 21-day cycle I completed four times the previous year and found it
was a great method for me to get in shape for longer races and events
specifically when I did not have the time in my schedule to complete long
runs. Long runs are a key component to
training for any endurance event, and my work schedule last year did not allow
me to implement as many long runs as I needed to be ready for my event(s),
specifically 60 days out from the race day. For
me, I had registered to run the Austin Marathon, then life got crazy and my
long runs went out the door.
So I had to crunch and figure out a
way for my body to be forced to be under stress in a manner that would
encourage me to recover quickly. One of
the essentials of doing a long run (I term a long run--a run of two hours or
more), is that you reach certain physical threshold which your body then has to
adapt to and learn how to recover from.
One type of recovery is the recovery your body undergoes while
exercising during a long training session.
The other type of recovery is the after-training recovery, which is much
more substantial after a long training run.
The typical runner will take a day or two days of rest after the long
training run. So I put my brain in a
blender and thought: what could I do to facilitate pushing my body to a
threshold and facilitate quick recovery on my crunched schedule?
That’s how I came up with the 21-Day
Cycle. My logic was that if I train
without any rest days for a short burst of time, I will reach a threshold and
my body will have to learn how to recover quickly. With the 21 day cycle, I aim for an hour of
activity daily although some days may only be 30-45 minutes. On the shorter days, I up the intensity,
which means running faster or adding more weight if I’m cross- training in the
weight-room.
The 50 day challenge actually began as one
of the 21-day cycles. In the midst of
working full-time, building a house and spending time with family, I wanted to
get my fitness level up for a possible event later this year. Well, the 21-consecutive training days passed
seamlessly. b, I was at day 32 and felt like I could keep
going. So I’ve set the goal for 50 days…just
to see what my body will do.
At the time of this writing, I’m on Day
37.
In the coming two weeks, I will highlight
a few epic days and include some statistics.
Stay tuned.
Have a fitness challenge you want me to
try out? Let me know.
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