To start with context: I come into this an experienced runner (very much unlike the runner who inspired this for me), but had not done more than about 20 km per week for the past few months, with many weeks being under 10 km.
I ran 30 runs for a total of 163.04 km. I never needed to use any of my saving provisions: there was never enough rain or injury to prevent me running.
Most runs were between 5.0 and 5.5 km, but two runs were in the 6–7 km range, and on the 30th I ran over 10 km.
Ran Parkrun twice, on two new courses I had never explored before.
Every day was a unique route with at least one significantly different navigation decision. That wasn’t really part of the original plan (originally I was thinking of avoiding repeating routes more than once per week or so), but after I started, I just kept going.
- 12 out-and-backs
- 11 loops (two of which a “figure 8” shape of two loops with a short repeated section between, one of which a double figure 8, two 2.5 km figure 8s)
- 5 mixed (a loop of more than 1 km with at least 2.5 km of retraced)
- 1 one-way run (returning via a casual bike ride)
- 1 run exploring up and down a bunch of streets in a new development in the local area, adding features to OpenStreetMaps using StreetComplete on my phone. (Could probably be broadly described as a mixed run)
1 run was done as a “brick” run shortly after a lengthy bike ride. And 1 was done the same day as a blood donation.
Almost all of these runs, apart from the two Parkruns (the double figure 8 and an out-and-back). Between a 2 and 4 on perceived effort. The Parkruns were intended to be harder, but certainly not my top racing effort (I rated them 7s for perceived effort). I ended up winning one of them at a much smaller course, in about 20:30, and finishing top 10 in the other, in an only slightly slower time. One or two of my other runs, including the brick run and the one-way run, were more like 5s for perceived effort, in part due to running at a hotter time of day.
I felt completely fine, didn’t really notice any fatigue, for the first two and a half weeks. Started feeling a little fatigue after about day 18. Certainly nothing compared to the fatigue I felt when marathon training, even in earlier stages where the total weekly distance was roughly the same. I had some minor calf cramping the morning of the 20th or 21st, which I definitely felt during my runs for the next few days.
Relating to this thread I posted (unrelatedly—it just happened to be in my news feed) around the middle of the month, I had some thoughts about loops vs out-and-backs, partly gained from my experience this month.
On these easy runs where I’m exploring new routes, I definitely found out-and-back to be much easier. Less need to make new navigation decisions.
On higher intensity runs, like the out-and-back Parkrun, the act of needing to stop and turn around is so demotivating. I would much prefer a loop. The double-loop of the other Parkrun I did in September was a little demotivating, knowing I had to repeat everything I had already done, but at least it did not also involve coming effectively to a complete stop first.
Because most days I was running routes I had never run before, it’s hard to say how much this would translate to loop vs out-and-back on routes I am familiar with. I think factors like “which option is hillier”, “which option has more well-placed water fountains”, and “which option necessitates fewer road crossings” would be more relevant once you know the route, which is dependent on your location. But if all that is equal, my feeling is that loops would probably be superior.