Choosing a 100 Mile Training Plan - 27 weeks to go

Near the start of the Art Loeb Trail in Pisgah Forest, NC

Coming off my success at the Asheville Marathon, I was pretty stoked to officially start my training for my first 100 mile race in September. And I was also excited to get back to more trail running again. Choosing a 100 mile training plan was a little tough because I was looking for three things:

• A plan targeted for first timers

• A plan that had about 4-5 days of running a week (that seems to be all I can take without getting burned out)

• A plan that wasn’t too technical

If you straight up google “100 mile training plans” (as one casually does, obviously) you’ll get quite a few helpful links, blogs, lengthy articles, and pdfs. I obsessively perused through many of them with the same insane intensity that I use when searching for reviews on what which hotel to book for a vacation, which miter saw to buy, or when trying to view and pick seats through the horrific Ticketmaster seat map interface. 

Most plans ranged anywhere from 12 weeks (whoa, what am I? An Olympic Athlete just ready to like quickly tackle something this huge in such a short time frame), and 28 weeks (ah, that’s more like it). Some had very specific work outs for each day of the week, such as this excerpt from a plan featured in Trailrunnermag.com:  “2-3 mi easy, 6-8 x 3 min fast/2 min easy, 4 x 1 min faster/1 min easy, 2-3 mi easy. Think smooth on 3 min intervals, 10k effort”. 

Hm. Love the energy, but that seemed a little too technical for me. 

I finally settled on a 28 week plan created by Heather Hart over at RelentlesslyForwardCommontion. I had previously used her 50 Mile Training Plan for my Georgia Jewel 50 race in 2023 and I felt that this 100 mile plan had a similar, easy to follow, concise, layout. I’m not going to outright share the plan here as I recommend you head over to her website and fill out the simple form to receive your free copy and help support her blog! 

To summarize it though, the plan starts off on Week 1 with a weekly total milage of 25.5 and then ramps up to a 71 mpw (miles per week) at week 25. She uses a 4 week interval cycle where there are 3 weeks of “building”, meaning increasing your mpw, and then one week of “cutback”, in which the total mpw drops, giving your body a nice little breather before pushing forward for the next 4 week cycle. I clipped an example here for weeks 13-16… but again, visit her site and just get the free copy!!!!

Excerpt for weeks 13-16

Each week has 5 days of running and two rest days. The pattern tends to start with a rest day, then three days in a row of moderate miles, such a 10 miles Tuesday, 5 miles of running a bit quicker Wednesday, then 9 miles on Thursday. You get a little rest on Friday and then the weekend holds your nice big long runs. Saturday is the big boy, starting off with 8 miles on Week 1 then ramping up to the mid-twenties around week 15. Then you follow that up on Sunday with a run that focuses on time instead of miles, with 45 minutes the first week, increasing to a 3 hour and 30 minute run around week 21. The idea for these Sunday runs is to get your body used to running on tired legs.

Sounds gross huh? I love it.

The plan keeps it simple in the sense that there aren’t any complex interval workouts to follow. The only technical terms that are used in the plan is that she recommends some of the Wednesday runs be either “tempo” (meaning, kind of fast, pushing yourself a bit), “hills” (trying to get runs with a good bit of elevation gain), and “SSR” (Solid State Runs, which means running at a comfortable, moderate pace). 

She also recommends a few days of “Active Recovery” during the cutback weeks, which pretty much means you get to go on a bike ride, or swim, or hike, or do something besides run. And, although it is not called out in the plan, she recommends throwing in some strength training when it feels appropriate. Like, maybe don’t do lower body weights the day before your big run on Saturday.

So I am currently on Week 2 of this plan. I took it pretty easy for Week 1, skipping half of the workouts as a reward for crushing the marathon. I also am contemplating looking in to reaching out to a sports dietitian/nutritionist to help give me a little more understanding of how I should be fueling myself during these upcoming insane months.

Switching from my Marathon Training Plan to my 100 Training Plan was both exciting and intimidating. Seeing the mileage increase was a little scary but I think I did the right thing starting out with the Marathon as a precursor. My motivation is still high but I am concerned with carving out the time to get all these runs done. I know it’s going to be a sacrifice and it’s going to take discipline, I’ve knew this was coming and these are two things that I have demonstrated in the past for other big races but I also find myself mourning the thought of giving up almost all of my free time and “fun” to accomplish this goal. But to quote Alex Honnold, the insane Free Solo climber, “you face your fear because your goal demands it.”