When Brooks Running athlete Des Linden set herself the Run Destober challenge, the concept just resonated with me.. such a brilliant idea. I had to use it straight away

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Run Destober?

At the start of the pandemic, Des ran the date in miles for each day in October

So on the 1st Oct = 1mile, 2nd Oct = 2miles etc all the way to 31st = 31miles

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Think about it... from the 26th to the 31st she was running a marathon or further each day, on already tired legs.

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The pandemic brought out so many crazy cool challenges (i come up with the Dutch Mountain Marathon for example haha), but Des' challenge was my favourite. It is a crazy challenge with each day getting harder than the previous.. and the last week of the month is hell

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In the end she ran 800km / 500miles

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I immediately thought.. I wanna plog that challenge!

But I have a full time job so I tweaked it. 
(I would love to do the same, but I had to get it all done before work each day)

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My Plan: PLOGUARY

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Becuase I had to do it all before work I just couldn't do that distance in miles.

So I switched it to km (it is still a heck of a lot.. see below) 

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I would continuously plog the distance.

Let's focus on that. Normally I include plogging in my runs but like to focus on the running for a lot of the time.

By continuously plogging the time it would take doubles, even trebles. (the 28km took 5.5hrs - all before work!!!)

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I also wanted to really get a lot of trash.. I wasn't focusing on trash free routes.. I tried to different routes as much as i could (see the map below) and get as much trash as I could (normally I get 100kg per month from plogging)

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So.. continuous plogging the date in km for a whole month.. but which month?

February of course!!! it only has 28 days!

Clever huh?

Of course I chose that month mainly becuase I could change the name February into Ploguary.. honest

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It seemed like a clever plan except

- We had three crazy storms in the month! hahahahahaha

- It was winter

- It was dark! Increasing the distance meant getting up earlier, which meant more running in the dark!

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In the end I would run 406km (planned) - with the last week being 175km (over 100miles!!!)

I had only ever run a 100mile training week, once before. eek

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I did it

This is the toughest thing I have ever done.

You can see the posts on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/ploguary/

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Why so hard?

Becuase it was all during a working month

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When you do a crazy race (like Marathon des Sables, or another ultramarathon) - you have one focus; the race.

You don't worry about anything else.

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For this challenge I had to do it before work, and then get a full days work in (and it was a crazy work period too). I didn't have the luxury of a raceday focus.

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And the challenge is relentless.. each day gets longer. Each day is a bit harder.

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Here are the final stats broken down by week..