The Monster Miles JOGLE Virtual Challange

How to run 1000 miles in a year?

The Monster Miles John'O Groats Lands End Virtual Challenge is a 1093 mile personal challenge which runs over the course of a year, where each participant will complete the distance from John'O Groats to Lands End, logging miles as they complete them, and tracking progress using the interactive map.

But this is just what the challenge is - just how do you run 1000 miles in a year?

Origins of the Challenge

We created our thousand mile challenge to be an iconic challenge that would give a fitness aim to follow for a year, be something iconic, hence the JOGLE, but we have set the route to take in the three national peaks as well as the JOGLE: this increases the distance from the standard 874miles that would be taken by road, and essentially a cycling route, and travels past several landmarks and primarily the three national peaks of Ben Nevis, Scarfel Pike and Snowdon.

LEJOG or JOGLE - the typical route is to start at Lands End and to travel up to John'O Groats; but we are doing this in the opposite direction, and there is no particular reason for this other than to be different! The usual route of going northwards is mostly because the usual winds are northerly winds and so a route north is more favourable for winds: for a virtual challenge, this doesn't really impact us, and so we go the harder way: southerly.

How to complete the challenge

Split down into daily miles, a successful athlete must complete around 3 miles each day, for each of the 365 days in the year; in metric terms this would be around 5km each day.

The average person would take around 2000 steps per miles, though this will vary greatly on walking speed and height, but if you did achieve the recommended 10000 steps per day, then you would almost certainly be hitting at least 3miles a day, and more likely closer to 5miles.

30mins exercise per day In terms of time needed to complete, then 5km can be completed in 30min by an average runner, and walking would need an average of 1hour a day to walk 3miles at an average speed of 3mph. And so 1 hour of walking, or 30 minutes running per day would complete the challenge.

The real challenge

Consistency and motiviation - this is the key to completing the challenge; all of us are able to complete a 5km walk or run, and many of us are able to do this a few times a week; but to do this every day for a year, out in the rain as well as the sun, or after a hard days work, and espeically when feeling tired and just wanting to veg out in front of the television: this is where the challenge lies.

Whats next from here

Getting started on any challenge is the first and sometimes biggest step. If you are already a regular runner then you will already be used to regular running, but more often than not, most regular runners will run up to three or four times a week, and for this challenge there will be a step up to running every day.

It is not recommended to run every day from zero; and you should build up to this level of intensity over a period of time - if you do not run every day; then we really do recommend that you start with three runs a week, and add in the rest with walks or hikes, and allow for a rest day each week.

If you are a novice runner, or new to running, then build up slowly; initially split your day into two 30 minute walks, and add in runs if and as you feel able to.