Update: Des Linden completed her Destober journey on Saturday in New York City, running 31 miles.
Des Linden feels pretty good now. Ask her again in three weeks, though.
The 2018 Boston Marathon champion and her husband, Ryan, are undertaking a unique challenge called Calendar Club. They’re running at least one mile to correspond with each calendar date. So one mile on October 1, two miles on October 2, three miles on October 3.
Simple enough for two elite athletes at the beginning of the month. But when it starts getting toward October 31? Ouch. That’s going to hurt.
In all, they’re scheduled for 496 miles this month, 196 of those in the last week. (In recent years, her highest total for a single week was 130 and a single month 480.)
Linden, 37, was inspired by a friend, Travis McKenzie, who did it in July. She and Ryan started watching it every day and they’d discuss it on their runs. How do you think he’s going to do? How do you think he’s going to break up the miles?
“We got sucked in,” she said.
In the absence of any races that she really wants to do on the pandemic-shortened calendar, it seemed a good time for them to try. “It’s a super odd year, and there’s nothing going on,” she said. “There’s no other year when we can try this, and we’re fascinated by it, and we figured why not?”
Linden, who is known as a geek about running and training, isn’t taking the challenge lightly. She and Ryan were already running about 10 miles a day in preparation for it. She didn’t want to fall apart as the mileage got more arduous, and if she were to get injured, she wouldn’t hesitate to pull the plug.
Typically during marathon training, Linden runs 14 miles in the morning and a second run of about 4 on days when she doesn’t have a long run or a workout scheduled. So she thinks she’ll do something similar in the second half of the month: On October 18, it will be 14 in the morning, 4 at night. The next day? 14 and 5. Then a single long run of 20 on October 20.
On October 21, things will really start to get interesting. She hasn’t figured out how she’ll divvy up 21, 22, and 23, but she thinks 24 will be a single long run. And then some division of mileage with the bulk in the morning and a shorter run in the evening up until the final day.
On the 31st, she plans a 26-miler for the morning run, leaving a final 5 for that night. Linden has never run longer than the marathon distance in a single run.
Stay up to date with the latest running news with RW+
Stay up to date with the latest running news with RW+
Brooks, Linden’s longtime shoe sponsor, is helping build a community around the miles with the hashtag #RunDestober. She’s been happy to see middle-of-the-pack runners designing their own challenges, based on minutes, not miles, in some cases, or based on kilometers. Linden’s sister, Natalie, is adding a quarter mile each day, so by the end she’ll be up to 7.75 miles.
“There have been a lot of people [participating],” said Linden of the folks sharing their runs on Instagram and Twitter with the #RunDestober hashtag. “I the beginning it’s super fun. We’ll see how the numbers taper off. There’s pretty good momentum, just having the different levels of it. People are pretty enthused. We’ll see if they endure.”
Linden does offer a few caveats: This is not a training plan; it’s a challenge. Her coach is in no way involved. She’s not doing any formal workouts, most of the miles are just at a very slow and steady pace. Her dog, Boston, has been doing a lot of running, but he’s too fast for this challenge.
“He’s super fit right now,” she said. “He can go 6:30 pace, that’s his sweet spot. Then he spends the rest of the day sleeping on his back.”
When this is over, she’s not sure what’s next. She anticipates needing some time off after Calendar Club ends. But whatever race catches her fancy next, this much is certain: She’ll have a solid base.
Sarah Lorge Butler is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World since 2005. She is the author of two popular fitness books, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
