Run Across Canada?

April 30, 2008 4:54 PM

Let's say I wanted to run across Canada next year, what would I need to start doing to be able to?

Hypothetically speaking:

I start on the West Coast next May - by my calculations if I run a marathon distance everyday (Terry Fox style) it would take about 140 days.

Now, I would have a couple of friends driving behind me in a van for the entire distance, food would be taken care of, as would a place to sleep for the night.

What would I, a guy who runs 10k races now, have to do in order to run across Canada? Training, mental preparation, etc.

Let me have it!

posted by 913 to sports, hobbies, & recreation (29 comments total)

You know Forrest Gump wasn't a real story, right?

Do you really think you (/anyone) will be fit enough to run a marathon every day? I can't imagine anyone lasting more than a few weeks of that, never mind over 4 months... I think your knees would be shot for sure, if you ran it on roads.
posted by Brockles at 5:06 PM on April 30, 2008

Brockles, Terry Fox ran the equivalent of a marathon each day for 143 days while fighting cancer. Not saying everyone can do it, but with the right attitude and support it's definitely achievable. Good luck 913!
posted by adamfunman at 5:22 PM on April 30, 2008

Do you really think you (/anyone) will be fit enough to run a marathon every day?

Brockles, your profile says you're in Canada. You must have heard of Terry Fox before, right?
posted by winston at 5:22 PM on April 30, 2008

See The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei, Japan for examples of people that can run 200 marathons in 200 days and even 84km a day for 100 consecutive days.
posted by furtive at 5:24 PM on April 30, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

These guys ran across the US. They started with backpacks, but switched to a baby jogger.

This guy ran 51 marathons in 50 days in 50 states and DC.

E-mail them and ask for tips.
posted by Frank Grimes at 5:25 PM on April 30, 2008

Brockles, your profile says you're in Canada. You must have heard of Terry Fox before, right?

Nope*. Was the guy made of steel? Holy crap, that's crazy. I'd certainly consider it to be an extraordinary achievement, rather than 'you just need to put your mind to it', though.

*(not Canadian, don't read newspapers, don't have a TV).

The amount of knee injuries I hear of from just running/jogging on asphalt suggests medical advice for personal suitability/shoe selection may be sensible, mind you.
posted by Brockles at 5:32 PM on April 30, 2008

Have you been following this blog that was posted on the blue a while ago? They're doing 100 marathons, in Africa - fundraising for local projects. They seem to be taking at least 1 day/week off for recovery. They're also flexible in terms of mileage - cutting one day short if conditions necessitate it, then tacking the miles on to another day.

I can't begin to imagine how you could train. I can begin to imagine how seriously you should prepare financially & logistically. Do you have the finances to do this? Are you doing it for a cause or as a personal goal? Would those couple of friends be able to do massage, prepare the amount of food you'd need, act as coaches / psychotherapists / media relations / route planners / whatever else they'd need to do?

The other thing that springs immediately to mind is that May could mean snow in the Rockies, but also puts you in Ontario / Quebec in July / August, which can mean very hot and bug hell.

Negatives aside, it's quite the dream. Keep us posted!
posted by valleys at 5:33 PM on April 30, 2008

Was the guy made of steel?

Partly.
posted by mendel at 5:36 PM on April 30, 2008 [8 favorites has favorites]

Steve Fonyo eventually did do this:

"Fonyo began his "Journey for Lives" marathon on March 31, 1984 at 18 years of age and completed it on May 29, 1985, covering 7924 km and raising $14 million (Canadian dollars)."

So it took him 14 months in the end. I don't think he ran every day - even Fox had a few days off now and then.

From my experience doing a 700km bike trip you just train enough to do one day and then keep plugging away. Your body adapts relatively quickly. At the end of 700 km I could have just kept doing 100km a day except I had no more time for the trip. My suggestion is to pack a LOT of food. Read "Ultramarathon Man" and the description of how much food Dean Karnazes eats when he does his ultramarathon runs. I know he's not the only guy out there doing ultra-runs but it's the only book I know of where he describes the massive amounts of food that you need to keep up that kind of effort. It's scary how much food you will eat.

The major psychological issue will be boredom. You're not going to set any speed records so expect to be running 6 hours a day - my guess is you'll cover more distance per day running slower for 6 hours than faster for four hours. And six hours of running will be DULL. Six hours of bike riding sure was. Wear an ipod but expect that you'll probably want to do without one for safety reasons. And expect that unless one of your friends is a DJ you'll get bored of your playlist pretty quickly anyway.
posted by GuyZero at 5:37 PM on April 30, 2008

Partly

And so the lesson to google and be properly impressed after initial amazement is writ large across t'internet....
posted by Brockles at 5:37 PM on April 30, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

If you're starting from a 10K running level as a base, I really don't think you can train to that level in a year. Properly training for a marathon as a one-time event realistically takes about a year, and what you're talking about is drastically more intense.

If you want to get started, train for your first marathon, then train for monthly marathons, then weekly. You should also figure out how you're going to eat > 5000 calories / day.
posted by 0xFCAF at 5:40 PM on April 30, 2008

Oh, also, call the Terry Fox society and see about raising some money for them. No need to let such a huge effort be just for you! And look up some of the various Terry Fox public & secondary school across the country and stop at those. I'm sure they'd love to have you speak at an assembly or something if you were raising money.

And, FWIW, I think Terry Fox is probably the hugest hero that this country has ever produced. He's one of the most amazing people ever IMO. To do a cross-country run without doing something to acknowledge him would be heresy.
posted by GuyZero at 5:41 PM on April 30, 2008

People do this all the time. There are about ten people in the process of running across the US right now.

As far as I know there are no training books for Transcon runners. You might start by picking up Meditations from the Breakdown Lane by James Shapiro, which is the best book I know of about what it's like to run across North America. Shapiro says several times that his training consisted of running 20 miles days for many months in a row prior to starting the run. I have to tell you, that's hard. I'm not sure what your training volume is now, but I've consistently been running 60-70 miles/week for the past several months (which isn't that much), and the 50 miles I've done in the past three days have really worn me out. I did 20 today (6 at lunch and 14 after work), and basically the thing that gets me through these workouts is looking forward to my day off. I don't say this to be discouraging. I think if you want to run across the country, you should do it. I do think, however, that you need to think about the training as part of the deal.

Were I to start something like this, I would gradually(!) increase my mileage until I was running consistent 100 mile weeks. I'd them make a move to a couple of months of 20 mile days before the run itself. Many folks can't handle big mileage, and many more get injured by increasing their mileage too fast. Keep in mind that a marathon a day is ~180 miles/week for several months in a row, so if you can't handle 100 miles a week at home, you aren't going to be able to do it on the road.

The real place to look for information is through John Wallace's website, See John Run. He's tracking current attempts, he's got a list of past attempts, and he's done it himself. I'm sure he'd be amenable to an email. (If you have trouble getting him through the page, let me know, I can maybe dig up a more current email address.) (There's a training link on the page, but it's to his old training logs, and doesn't seem very useful.) At the very least, read some of the linked blogs, it'll give you an idea of what you're up against.

You might also consider joining the Ultra email list housed at Dartmouth. It's dedicated to ultrarunning (distances greater than 26.2 miles), and while not too many people on there do big distance training, many have experience with multi-day adventure type runs and fast hikes.

Feel free to email me if you have more specific questions. Good luck. I hope you decide to go for it.
posted by OmieWise at 5:45 PM on April 30, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

913, it seems Fonyo now lives in Surrey BC. He better than anyone (alive) can tell you what it takes to run across Canada.
posted by teg at 5:46 PM on April 30, 2008

Ultralist.

Meditations from the Breakdown Lane.

I'd consider staying away from Karnazes's book. He hypes the amount of pain endurance running takes (in my view for self-aggrandisement). Read the Shapiro and see what you think, it's an infinitely better book, even if you buy Karnazes's schtick.
posted by OmieWise at 5:49 PM on April 30, 2008

I'd consider staying away from Karnazes's book.

Absolutely not!

Now, I wouldn't take his advice on anything or model anything I do on what he does, but I found the book to be unintentionally hilarious. And his level of self-aggrandizement is unparalleled. Plus he talks about how to eat a pizza and a cheesecake at the same time, while running. Comedy gold. Absolutely you should read Karnazes's book. But not as a training guide.

Personally I would suggest biking because you're not going to blow out you knees and you'll be able to do it in a reasonable amount of time. And it's not like going over the Rockies on a bike is so easy or anything - it'll still be a hell of an accomplishment. Though coming out of the mountains will be a bit of a free ride.
posted by GuyZero at 5:55 PM on April 30, 2008

Fair enough.
posted by OmieWise at 6:17 PM on April 30, 2008

Retired ultramarathoner Al Howie still lives in Victoria, I believe.....
posted by Rumple at 7:23 PM on April 30, 2008

I think the nutrition aspect will be hardest. You'll need huge amounts of calories, but you'll need to work to ensure that they're properly balanced as well. Honestly, I'd consult a pro on that aspect, because it could wipe you out part way through.

As for the rest, I'd look not only at ultra-marathon training, but rather at special forces training. There are any number of special forces exercises that are essentially 'go walk 30 miles while wearing an 80 pound sack'. If you can get yourself such that you can do a marathon with a weighted sack, you could likely do a hell of a lot more without one.
posted by Project F at 10:11 PM on April 30, 2008

Anyway... Although OmieWise seems to consistently kick my ass on the MeFi challenge, I'm another reasonably high mileage runner and I think this is a fine idea if you prepare properly. You're going to have a tough time going from 10k to the type of endurance you'll need, but I'm constantly amazed what people can do when they get super serious about this kinda stuff.

But... make no mistake. Doing this a year from now would take total dedication. To put this in perspective -- I just finished a 50 mile ultramarathon and I certainly wouldn't feel ready to undertake a task like that. But... I'm not necessarily as fanatical as I could be in terms of training, diet, sleep, etc... (Nor do I have friends who would follow me in a van for 140 days.) Don't discount that support could work out to be more difficult than you think.

A friend of a friend just pushed some kind of cart across the USA... but I betcha all the people who do this stuff keep blogs these days, though.

I wouldn't hesitate to contact 'em directly -- just about everyone I've met in the serious endurance world is totally cool and happy to help seriously interested people of all skill levels.
posted by ph00dz at 10:18 PM on April 30, 2008

After thinking about it overnight, I realized that my training comments above are sort of an incomplete thought, and I want to clarify.

Starting to train for a run like this will give you a lot of information about whether or not you want to do it. As I said, I don't know how much volume you do now, but if you aren't running more than 50 miles/week, then you probably don't have enough information about how you handle lots of volume to make a decision about this. Training takes time and effort, mental and emotional dedication, and the physical ability to run lots of miles without breaking down.

I find my own training interesting in this regard, because it's only about halfway to the training volume that you would probably need, and yet it consumes a huge part of my life. I ran six times in the past three days, at lunch each day and then again when I got home. I'm not very fast, so over those days I put in a total of about 8 hours running. That doesn't include changing, showering, icing a few things I'm holding together right now...And despite the amount I've been running for the past several months, running that much isn't easy. I'm physically and emotionally very tired. (As Rob DeCastillo once said, endurance athletes wake up tired and go to bed exhausted.) Still, the thing that's most crazy to me is how few miles I run compared to people who consistently run big volume in training. It's hard for me to imagine what a 100 mile week looks like, mostly because I just can't imagine finding the time to get all the running done.

So, if you're serious about doing this, I would start training right now. The training itself will tell you a lot about what you can and can't do, and what you may or may not want to do.
posted by OmieWise at 4:18 AM on May 1, 2008

Properly training for a marathon as a one-time event realistically takes about a year

That's preposterous. Training programs for charity marathon runners (often, people who have never even done a 10K and only plan to get to the finish line) are about five months at most.

913, the first thing you'd have to do is train for a marathon, which from your starting point would probably take 3-4 months. Then you'd have to take it easy for a month or so, and slowly build up again after that. At that point, you could assess whether you'd be up for something on the order of what you're proposing. A lot of people, after finishing their first marathon, say, "That was amazing, but I'M NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN."
posted by kittyprecious at 7:25 AM on May 1, 2008

913, since you currently run 10K's you have some basic understanding of how to ramp up your mileage for distance training for a single run. You might already be fit enough that you could probably train for a single marathon in a few months or less.

But to train for 140 consecutive marathons when your currently weekly mileage is probably no more than 30mi/wk ought to take you at least a couple of years if everything goes perfectly.

You'll need, for starters, a professional coach. You'll need a doctor to assist you with the health implications - and likely recurring injuries. You'll need sponsors because you probably won't be able to work while doing this. You'll need to knock out a few actual marathons and/or ultra-marathons to develop your psychological fitness. That's what I can think of, just for starters. I would definitely set intermediate goals for yourself with the long view that someday, if everything goes right, you'll be able to build up to the cross-continent run.
posted by mikewas at 7:44 AM on May 1, 2008

You should train for this beforehand. However, I don't think that there is really any way for you to realistically train for this beforehand.

With that said, here's how I would approach it. I once rode my bike around Lake Erie, did 850 miles in 8 days. So I averaged over 100 miles a day on the bike, which is probably a similar effort to what you're trying to do for what, 140 days? So what I'm going to say about that has some relevance and some things I obviously have no idea about.

I started out by doing 50 miles on the first day. I was a person who rode a lot, I considered myself very in shape and active, but the first 50 miles got me so tired it was incredible. Maybe the adrenaline of starting the trip had something to do with it. I slept 12 hours that night. I worked up in mileage, eventually hitting a high day of 136 miles. By that point, it was easy. I could ride all day no problem.

The way that I got there was starting and stopping. I didn't try to ride 100 miles a day without stopping. That would have been stupid. Instead, I rode 20 miles, stopped and got a candy bar at a gas station, rode 20 more, stopped and enjoyed the scenery on the lakeside, rode 10 more, stopped and talked to some people who wanted to know about my bike trailer, etc.

So here's how I would approach this, if I was running that much. Running is an impact sport. I currently am in training, and have run as much as 90 miles a week for a while in college. You can't just run 180 miles a week off of no ramp up and expect it to be okay. However, if you do it SLOW enough, and you do it with enough breaks, you can probably run 90, 100 miles per week right off the bat from 10k training without getting hurt (I'm assuming a certain competitiveness level of 10k training here).

At first, start out by running the 26.2 miles, and taking all day to do it. I mean, run 30 minutes, rest 30 minutes. And run SLOWLY. This is key. Arthur Lydiard (arguably the most successful distance running coach in the history of the Western world) once said that the key to building up mileage is not to take days off, but just to run slower. If you are sore, run slower. If you are tired, and you will be, trust me, run slower. Seriously, no one's going to care that you walked part of your trans Canada trip in the first month. The thing you have to understand about running, and if you are seriously training for 10k's, you do, is that it wears on your tendons and ligaments. These are what cause you trouble in the long run.

You're going to get physically beat up, and if you can do it, I would definitely recommend having a way to ice the crap out of yourself to keep inflammation down. But from where I stand, if you do this, I'll be extremely jealous. In fact, maybe I'd do it with you if you asked me :-).
posted by zhivota at 8:12 AM on May 1, 2008

You'll need, for starters, a professional coach. You'll need a doctor to assist you with the health implications - and likely recurring injuries.

This just isn't true. If you start to run you can do this just fine. It will take training and dedication, but it won't take anything more special than that. I know hundreds of people who train for ultras and multi-day races with no coaching and no trips to the doctor. I suspect that people who suggest that this is something for which a huge apparatus of support is needed are either 1) thinking of this as a competitive enterprise (the truth is you won't have to do any fast running to get this done, either in training or on the road, greatly reducing the risk of injury and the complexity of your training plan), or 2) are unfamiliar with just plugging away at running in a workmanlike way.

I run 100 mile races. That's my distance. I run one or two a year. It's a strange thing to talk about because despite an incredulous reaction from most people I mention it to, I basically think it's prosaic. All it really takes to be able to do it is the desire to do it. Not many people have that (for all kinds of good reasons), and so the absolute number of participants is relatively low, but the people I know from ultrarunning come in all shapes and sizes and ability levels. That it's a slightly unusual pursuit tends to make people who do not do it overestimate the difficulty.

If you want to run distance, basically all you have to do is run distance. Don't increase your mileage more than 10% a week, scale back your volume every fourth week by about 20%, restrict fast mileage to 10% of total mileage per week, do a long run every week of 3+ hours at a very moderate pace, get plenty of rest, and take some time off if you get injured. That's it, that's the formula for covering distance. I know, and know of, literally 100s of normal runners who finish 100 mile and/or multi-day races using this kind of training. Almost anyone can do it, you just have to want to do it. All it requires are many pairs of shoes, a fanny pack, and a couple of water bottles. Don't over think it.
posted by OmieWise at 8:20 AM on May 1, 2008

Lots of great comments on a truly amazing undertaking. I am going to run accross Canada next summer. Leaving from cape spear new foundland on the saturday of may 2-4 weekend. Maybe we can work together on this? I actually have a dream of getting every canadian to do at least 1 km with me. It's time to get this country's lazy's butt's off the couch and run for they're lives. Check out my blog to see what I want to do. I would love anyone and all's help with anything. Let's get together.

www.stevegaul.com

Read my thoughts and leave a comment. I welcome all. To the person who wrote this....stop by and we can talk about this.

Steve
posted by runforyourlife at 3:40 PM on May 18, 2008

Great point OmieWise. I have a spread wheet designed to walk myself through just that. I typed in my starting weekly mileage (km) and it plans out the rest of my year, by ading 10% each week and dropping by 50% actually every 4th week. Do you think that is too much of a drop?
posted by runforyourlife at 4:24 AM on May 21, 2008

50% is a pretty big step back every fourth week. Most things I've read recommend 20-30% less mileage. However, if you've got a long training cycle then it might make sense to really make sure you've got plenty of rest built in, and 50% might be just fine. Ultimately I don't think it would hurt your forward progress, even if it isn't necessary (and it might be necessary).
posted by OmieWise at 6:29 AM on May 21, 2008

my thoughts exactly. When your considering such a long run, you need and want to be prepared, but also not worn out.....
posted by runforyourlife at 4:06 AM on May 23, 2008