Imperial 100 running week

In the last few years I've twice done a race called the King Island Imperial 20, which is a fantastic weekend on a great little island where the actual race is not the only feature activity. Highly recommended. It is called the "imperial 20" because the race distance is 20 miles, which is equal to 32 km in metric terms (1 mile = 1.609 km). Given those parameters and a quick mind you will calculate that imperial 100 is equal to 160 km, and the reason for this post is to note the biggest 7 day running block of my life, covering 160 km from Sat 5th May to Fri 11th May. In fact, there were only 6 days of running with Friday being my non-running day of the week.

In many sports there are some recognised - even if not widely promoted - benchmarks which universally indicate training high level volume / workload per week, and identify athletes who are really striving for their best performance level. In swimming it is 100 km, cycling is 1000 km and in running it is 100 miles, with running measured in miles as a throw-back to the old school days – and ways – upon which many running legends were built. For each sport it takes a long time to build up to, and withstand, the stress this level of training but the fitness rewards can be worth the risk…if you're careful.

My training had been going well through April, albeit interrupted in favour of three races - Run for the Kids, the Geelong half marathon and two team run legs in the Marysville to Melbourne adventure race. The races were good to do, and each gave me both some confidence and a boost in fitness…which also necessitated a drop in volume the following week for my old legs to recover. But come May the race schedule was lighter, which has allowed for some good running in the key month of preparation for Gold Coast marathon on 1st July.

The funny thing about this big week is that I didn’t even realise it until a day or two later, mainly because I usually count weekly distance from Monday to Sunday, and often fall trap to counting kilometres during the week...plus planned distance for the remaining days...to see how the weekly volume is tracking. But because this 160 km didn’t fit that weekly pattern I wasn’t even counting, which made it a nicer surprise when I did realise the milestone I’d reached.

So here’s how the 7 days panned out:
Sat 5th May – 45km, 3:11hr. Good run, with younger brother for 34km. Ran comfortably and strong (42.2km in 2:59:05hr)
Sun 6th May – 17km, 1:16hr. Tired for easy run. Did 10 x short hill sprints at end.
Mon 7th May – AM 15km, 1:06hr. PM 7.5km, 32min. Easy day. Fast strides at end of PM run. Tired legs.
Tue 8th May – 24km, 1:37hr. Hard tempo run incl 2 x 4km + 6 x 1km. Legs felt dead & tired. Hard work.
Wed 9th May – AM 13km, 59min. PM 13.5km, 60min. Easy day with run to and from work. Did 10 x short hill sprints at end of PM run.
Thur 10th May – AM 13km 60min. Midday 12.5km, 51min. Easy AM run, then 8 x 200m efforts in lunch-time run.
Fri 11th May – Non-running day. Hooray!!

So there is the big week!! The key sessions are Tue long, hard tempo and Sat long run. The rest is mainly extra running plus a bit of speed and things thrown in. Hopefully it will get to the line in Gold Coast in shape to run a PB...but not sure if I’ll top the 160km from those 7 days. See you on the road.