Who is taking the 100 up challenge?

  Has everyone seen Christopher McDougall's New York Times article "The Once and Future Runner" as well as the video of a lost running technique called the 100 Up?  McDougall has mastered the art of creating quite a buzz and is evident in the comment section of the NY Times article.   This talk has led to exploration!!

  Justin Owings over at Birthdayshoes.com has posed the 100 up challenge to see what kind of improvement can be made in 30 days to your running.  Its about self exploration and sharing with others about your experience by incorporating a century old running drill created by Walter G. George in 1908 which was the topic of  Chistopher McDougalls video.

 I am dubious about a quick fix however curious to see what people find out about themselves. I don't think that any one drill will make it impossible to "run wrong again" according to McDougall,  however the man knows how to get people talking and thinking so lets go with it!  

What does it mean to run wrong or run right for that matter????

From the 100 Up challenge site:

What is the 100-Up Running Challenge

It’s simple, really. No matter where you are in your running abilities and no matter what your current training protocol is, the 100-Up Challenge requires you commit to the following:

1. Establish a benchmark for your current running abilities — write down your last run’s time. Write down how you felt running it. Get it all onto paper in as much detail as you can manage. Did anything ache? How did your stride feel? Any problems you encountered? Commit that run to paper!
2. Learn about W.G. George’s 100-Up drill and start practicing! — mind that you might not be able to do the preliminary version of the 100-Up perfect the first time, or maybe even the fifteenth time, but attempt the drill as often as you can, so long as each attempt strives for perfect practice (And not just getting it over with). Feel free to continue on running your normal mileage if you like, or take a break and focus on the drill. Do the drill! That’s the whole point of the challenge, and being able to determine if the 100-Up works or not completely depends on following George’s instructions as best you can and practice, practice, practice (perfectly!)!
3. Run that same distance as in step 1. above 30 days later — now you get to see how you did. How’d it feel? Faster? Slower? Less aches and pains? What happened, if anything?
4. Now report back on the whole experiment.

What’s the point? Well, the point is to see if the 100-Up actually makes you a better runner or not. And if it doesn’t make you a better runner, well at least you’ll have learned a new exercise and perhaps attained a bit of practice in the art of meditation.

W.G. George 1908-

“…let me impress upon the student the necessity of maintaining perfect form in every practice, be it in the preliminary or the exercise proper. Directly the correct form is lost the exercise should stop. Beginners should start the exercise slowly and on no account strain or over-exert themselves. Hurried or injudicious training, or fast work while the system is unprepared for it, induces breakdown and failure. On the other hand, slow, well considered, steady practice is never injurious, while breakdowns are practically unknown among those who start their training slowly and who gradually increase distance, time or pace as the heart, lungs and the muscular system throughout grow accustomed to the extra strain and revel in it.”

So go check out Justin's 100-Up challenge site and get your name on that participant list!  It will be interesting to see both new runners as well as long time runners try this out.

Good luck to you and happy running!

Cheers,
AngieBee