100k in a day

[Makgill22]

I was wondering if it was possible to walk 100,000 steps in a day. has anyone else done that? if so i was wondering how.  How long did you walk?  what did you do? please respond and if you have any tips i would love to know them. thanks!

[Dominique]

I don’t know about you, but my own average pace when brisk walking is 120 steps per minute, which is 7200 steps per hour. This means I would have to walk non-stop for almost 14 hours in order to get 100k steps. I’m not going to try. 

[GershonSurge]

@Makgill22, @Dominique

50 mile Kennedy Marches were common in the 60's. There are still some organized Kennedy marches around the world. The time limit was 20 hours.

I can't give you tips from experience because my best in the past couple years was 40,000 steps. The simplest way seems to be hiking the Appalachian Trail. Many finishers do at least one 50 mile day.

The hard part would be avoiding injuries. Almost every ultra-marathoner I've read about has had many operations. They get expensive. However, there was a time when Pedestrianism was popular. 

Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America's Favorite Spectator Sport
by Matthew Algeo
Link: http://a.co/0lzYk23

Unfortunately, they don't mention training methods.

If I were to attempt this, I'd use Jeff Galloway's Run-Walk-Run method. The general method is to walk for 30 seconds and run for 90 seconds. (You can choose a ratio for yourself.)  For 100,000 steps I'd define running as a cadence of about 135-140 bpm. Walk at around 115 to 120 bpm. The optimum for efficiency is supposedly 118 bpm according to some old marching manuals. According to these manuals, it's most efficient for the purposes of distance to march for 50 minutes and rest for 10 minutes.

I prefer to run and walk with a metronome. I use AUDACITY to make mp3's of a varied metronome beat. You will need the LAME plugin to make mp3's. If you like, you can superimpose the metronome on music or an audio book.

Rather than choosing a 50 mile route, I'd choose a route with various options for hills. I do much of my running and walking on a University Campus that allows me to change my route depending on how many hills I feel like doing. 

TIP: This applies to all running or walking activities. If something hurts even a little bit, take a few days off until it stops hurting. Otherwise a minor injury will become chronic.

You will likely go through a series of what I call constraints that will force you to take time off.

Above all, don't let anyone tell you that you can't do it.

[Bhuvana]

I think you can achieve this in a day if you do ultra marathon (Popular one is 50 K) running. My best was 45k steps when I did my both 5 k and 1/2 marathon during one of the local race. In my opinion, doing 26 k itself is tiring. (I am not going to do this again and of course I am not ready for Marathon yet) I don't know how it would be for 50 k.... 

[JenniferinFL · Accepted solution]

I think it's possible, but will probably take several attempts. 🙂

I have a 6 year old daughter who I home school and a full time job, so, I don't know if I'll ever quite manage to pull it off. 

I recently attempted a 50,000 step day, but, only got to around 31,000 or so. Granted, I had a bit too much going on that day to actually pull it off. I felt really good, I walked at a bit of a slow pace, only about 100 steps a minute. I guess I spent around 5.5 hours walking. I walked for 5000 steps at a time, then took a short break. I just walked around my house, for awhile I had a documentary going on the tv, but, that was too distracting so I switched to an audiobook. I started out walking barefoot as that's what is most comfortable for me and I was in my own home. After about 15,000 steps I thought it wise to throw on my running shoes as I was feeling a bit of a calf twinge. I had a little bit of calf pain the following day, but, nothing overly noticeable. 

I think that before I attempt it again, I would try to work up to getting 20,000 steps a day during my work week and then attempt the 50,000 steps next time I have a long weekend for some recovery time. 

I think it's doable. I'm grossly overweight and really didn't struggle with my 13 mile walk. I went ahead and double checked and it turns out I just barely ticked out of morbidly obese and into regular obese.. lol So, yeah. 

I think you have to have a certain amount of mental stubbornness too, but, not enough to be a complete fool. When I was younger, I was a complete fool. Despite my size, I would try these epic tasks that I couldn't complete. I tried to swim 4 miles with no practice and only the ability to do a doggie paddle. I made it 3.75 miles in about 7 and a half hours, but, then nearly drowned and was lucky to have a boater pick me up.. lol Oh yes, then, there was the time I decided I could paddle 27 miles on flat water having just purchased my first kayak. Made it about 18 miles and had to basically kick my kayak ashore as I couldn't lift my arms anymore.. lol You get the idea. 

Now that I'm in my thirties, I'm a bit more chicken. When I started feeling the calf twinge, I couldn't talk myself into another 20,000 steps. I got nervous about it. 

If I kept up my 100 step pace, It would take me around 17 hours to do 100,000 steps. If I started at 6 am and took a 10 minute break every hour of walking, I would finish up at about 2 am. So, to make it count as one day, I guess I would have to start walking at 4 am and hope to finish by midnight. 🙂 

It would be a pretty long day. But, you could listen to like a 1/3rd of "War and Peace" or some other classic book and finish two life goals at once...  🙂  

d Peace

[BrigitteJFrel]

Yes .. I have done it once and only once in November 2016 . Several of my friends have done it multiple times . I'm not quite as adventurous as them.  I got to 65 k the first attempt . The next time I ran  out of hours in the day and got to 80 k . It is a really long day!!

So on the next attempt .. 10 of us picked a Saturday to do it . We broke the 24 hour day into 4 blocks of 6 hours each . In each block we decided we had to get 25,000 steps.

Sooo .. at midnight when the challenge started .. the first block was 12-6 am . I hit the treadmill and walked for 25 k .. I think between 3-4 hours . I napped for the rest of that block .

Next block 6 -12pm .. changed sneakers and back on treadmill for another 25 k .. somewhere around same time frame . Ate lunch.

Next block 12-6pm ..new sneakers and decided to try walking around my subdivision for a change of scenery . Being November I maybe walked 5 miles and then back to treadmill . I found this the hardest block .. my feet were starting to hurt .. one hip was screaming at me to stop but I trudged on until the next 25k were in the book . Ate supper .. oh and a few pit stops along the way in each block  as I was trying to keep hydrated .

Last block .. 6- midnight  . Tried pacing around my house in sock feet for awhile until I had a feeling I could put my original sneakers back on . Back to treadmill and last 25 k was done at 10 pm .

Soooo .. the results were 100,000 steps ,time of  22 hours and total of  46 miles . This is just one method .. good luck in however you choose to try it 🙂

[BrigitteJFrel]

10m ago - last edited 3m 

Yes .. I have done it once and only once in November 2016 . Several of my friends have done it multiple times . I'm not quite as adventurous as them. I got to 65 k the first attempt . The next time I ran out of hours in the day and got to 80 k . It is a really long day!!

So on the next attempt .. 10 of us picked a Saturday to do it . We broke the 24 hour day into 4 blocks of 6 hours each . In each block we decided we had to get 25,000 steps.

Sooo .. at midnight when the challenge started .. the first block was 12-6 am . I hit the treadmill and walked for 25 k .. I think between 3-4 hours . I napped for the rest of that block .

Next block 6 -12pm .. changed sneakers and back on treadmill for another 25 k .. somewhere around same time frame . Ate lunch.

Next block 12-6pm ..new sneakers and decided to try walking around my subdivision for a change of scenery . Being November I maybe walked 5 miles and then back to treadmill . I found this the hardest block .. my feet were starting to hurt .. one hip was screaming at me to stop but I trudged on until the next 25k were in the book . Ate supper .. oh and a few pit stops along the way in each block as I was trying to keep hydrated .

Last block .. 6- midnight . Tried pacing around my house in sock feet for awhile until I had a feeling I could put my original sneakers back on . Back to treadmill and last 25 k was done at 10 pm .

Soooo .. the results were 100,000 steps ,time of 22 hours and total of 46 miles . This is just one method .. good luck in however you choose to try it 🙂

[Hleatherby]

Hello!  I realize this may be a bit late but I thought I would add my experience and how I did it.  I completed 100,000 steps in a day on June 24th 2017 in approximately 15.25 hours over the course of 44.4 miles with the Alta HR.   First of all, I would not recommend anyone do this unless you have been training for a while and/or are aware of how your body stands up to long periods of low impact use.  My 15 year moderately to very active background: 3 years as a Crossfit athlete, 7 years of short distance running (10k, half marathons) 10 years of mountain hiking.  If it helps, on this 100k step walk nothing on my body actually got sore until about 80,000 steps - the only soreness being in the right shin area along with some blisters that showed up after around 90,000 steps.   I cannot stress enough that, unless you know what your body can handle, please work up to it SLOWLY and do some test walks and see how you feel at 40k, 50k before attempting. 

Going into the 100k step walk, I completed 50,000 steps a week before without issue, and was logging an average of 17,000 steps per day for a few weeks, with some 25k and 30k days in there too.  I chose the Saturday after the Solstice because I knew that, in Montana, this would be pretty much the only weekend day that would be light out by 5AM and not get dark until after 10PM and the temperature looked to be a mild 80 degrees by afternoon.  The weather forecast also showed 0% change for rain, which was another factor that helped! Any hotter and this would not be ideal, and any colder in the early morning hours would not be good either. 

Started walking at 5:30AM knowing I would be walking for about 50 miles give or take, carrying only my phone in my hand, sunglasses/hat on my head and credit card/photo ID/chapstick in my pocket.   I wore an old pair of New Balance Minimus shoes, (feet will swell, so be sure to wear something older and with some extra room) comfortable shorts with nothing digging in, loose tank top, sports bra with no tags to rub and good running socks. Personally, I did not want to carry anything extra. I arranged for my friend to have some things in his truck if I needed them (extra socks, extra shoes, ibuprofen, sun block, water).  It is good to have someone you know you can reach, in case you need something or there is an unplanned event.  I planned my route so that I was never walking more than 3 hours straight without a destination spot such as a coffee shop or gas station.  It helped to have destination points to focus on, as it would have driven me nuts to do this on a treadmill or walking in circles around a neighborhood. The first stop was for an iced coffee and water, second stop was breakfast around 10AM - I had 2 cups of scrambled eggs and a lot of water.  It also helped to meet up with my friend around lunch time for a quick bite to eat.  Listening to audio books helped but it still got a bit lonely by around 11 even when walking in town.  My friend walked with me throughout the half way point which was a plus.  Keeping hydrated is key.  I was never without a bottle of water after my first stop, and coconut water proved to be a great source of energy as well. I found that personally I was not hungry at all during this entire time, and it was a chore to force myself to eat.  I realize the below food outline is going to sound like insanity for this kind of thing but it worked for me and never once did I physically feel bad or out of energy.

Physical aspect aside, the mental portion kicked in at around 80,000 after a particularly hot and quiet 10 mile stretch from one town back to my house. After having done grueling workouts and heavy training for a long time, I expected this would happen at some point.  My friend joined me to finish out the last 20,000 steps and this was perfect to have company again.  Never at any point would I have stopped after having gone that far, (unless an injury had happened of course) but after walking for so long and seeing the road moving in front of me, sometimes still things like parked cars appeared to be moving towards me, and I began to feel slightly paranoid - almost as if in a bad dream.  It was an odd thing to have happen and definitely would have been rougher if I had not expected there to be some type of mental thing to kick in - I am sure it is different for everyone, and almost non-existent for trained ultra marathoners!  But again, I had gone this far and with basically a day's worth of steps left, even this weird mental stuff was a no-brainer to push through.  

Overall, it helped me to just **decide** to do it, and get it finished with as little stopping as possible.  My lunch break was the longest at about 20 minutes, and each of the few bathroom stops were less than 10, sometimes just 5 minutes.  I did not sit down except at breakfast, lunch, restroom breaks and supper.  When things got a little tougher at the end, I kept in mind that there are distance runners who do this all the time, and for much longer.  Granted, they are running it and getting it over with faster, so a part of me thinks this kind of thing may be mentally tougher, to force yourself to walk the whole way.  I walked because my running stride is a lot longer than my walking stride, and honestly I think another key to this is to pick a sustainable pace and keep it. I didn't want to be banging myself up any more than I was already. 

Basic outline:

Start Time: 5:30 AM - walked from Belgrade MT to Bozeman using back roads.  First stop was at the coffee shop in Bozeman around 8:20 for a large iced coffee and water

Breakfast: 10:00 AM - 2 cups of scrambled eggs at the local co-op

Lunch: 11:30 AM - changed socks and had a large salad with a gluten free beer (beer sounded good, for some odd reason!).  Although I was not feeling any pain at this time, I decided to proactively take 3 ibuprofen just in case. 

Misc snacks when stopping at gas stations: (2) Coconut water, banana, hard boiled egg, Think Thin Peanut Butter protein bar, gluten free rice crispy treat : )

Supper: Walked back to Belgrade and once home, 6:30 PM Cup of Oikos yogurt, 1/4 cup raspberries. Took some ibuprofen for the shin pain which was creeping in a bit more around 87,000 steps. 

Water: I did not keep track precisely but I would guess around a gallon to gallon and a half

Finish: 9:45 PM - 44.4 miles according to Alta HR.  Not sure how accurate but it seemed about right.

Calculated break time - about 1 hour total

Physical effects: At 80,000 steps - Some pain on the right shin, enough to cause slight limping but not terrible. About 90,000 steps, could feel larger blisters forming despite sock change (expected).  These symptoms got better over the following week, completely gone after 10 days. 

After care: LOTS of fish oil to take care of any inflammation.  This is far more effective than anything else out there and I have been using it for years. In the few days after this walk, I took 2,000 - 4,000mg per day of Pure Alaska Omega.  Also a good glucosamine supplement is your friend for any joint pain if you experience it - highly recommend this as well before resorting to over the counter pain medication.

I hope this helps anyone who may be thinking about going for 100,000 steps. 

[GershonSurge]

@Hleatherby,

Sounds like you had a great walk. Congratulations!

Gershon

[Hleatherby]

Hello!  (somehow my original post looks to have been deleted)

I realize this may be a bit late but I thought I would add my experience and how I did it.  I completed 100,000 steps in a day on June 24th 2017 in approximately 15.25 hours over the course of 44.4 miles with the Alta HR.  This was on mostly FLAT FLAT ground.  First of all, I would not recommend anyone do this unless you have been training for a while and/or are aware of how your body stands up to long periods of low impact use.  My 15 year moderately to very active background: 3 years as a Crossfit athlete, 7 years of short distance running (10k, half marathons) 10 years of mountain hiking.  If it helps, on this 100k step walk nothing on my body actually got sore until about 80,000 steps - the only soreness being in the right shin area along with some blisters that showed up after around 90,000 steps.   I cannot stress enough that, unless you know what your body can handle, please work up to it SLOWLY and do some test walks and see how you feel at 40k, 50k before attempting. 

Going into the 100k step walk, I completed 50,000 steps a week before without issue, and was logging an average of 17,000 steps per day for a few weeks, with some 25k and 30k days in there too.  I chose the Saturday after the Solstice because I knew that, in Montana, this would be pretty much the only weekend day that would be light out by 5AM and not get dark until after 10PM and the temperature looked to be a mild 80 degrees by afternoon.  The weather forecast also showed 0% change for rain, which was another factor that helped! Any hotter and this would not be ideal, and any colder in the early morning hours would not be good either. 

Started walking at 5:30AM knowing I would be walking for about 50 miles give or take, carrying only my phone in my hand, sunglasses/hat on my head and credit card/photo ID/chapstick in my pocket.   I wore an old pair of New Balance Minimus shoes, (feet will swell, so be sure to wear something older and with some extra room) comfortable shorts with nothing digging in, loose tank top, sports bra with no tags to rub and good running socks. Personally, I did not want to carry anything extra. I arranged for my friend to have some things in his truck if I needed them (extra socks, extra shoes, ibuprofen, sun block, water).  It is good to have someone you know you can reach, in case you need something or there is an unplanned event.  I planned my route so that I was never walking more than 3 hours straight without a destination spot such as a coffee shop or gas station.  It helped to have destination points to focus on, as it would have driven me nuts to do this on a treadmill or walking in circles around a neighborhood. The first stop was for an iced coffee and water, second stop was breakfast around 10AM - I had 2 cups of scrambled eggs and a lot of water.  It also helped to meet up with my friend around lunch time for a quick bite to eat.  Listening to audio books helped but it still got a bit lonely by around 11 even when walking in town.  My friend walked with me throughout the half way point which was a plus.  Keeping hydrated is key.  I was never without a bottle of water after my first stop, and coconut water proved to be a great source of energy as well. I found that personally I was not hungry at all during this entire time, and it was a chore to force myself to eat.  I realize the below food outline is going to sound like insanity for this kind of thing but it worked for me and never once did I physically feel bad or out of energy.

Physical aspect aside, the mental portion kicked in at around 80,000 after a particularly hot and quiet 10 mile stretch from one town back to my house. After having done grueling workouts and heavy training for a long time, I expected this would happen at some point.  My friend joined me to finish out the last 20,000 steps and this was perfect to have company again.  Never at any point would I have stopped after having gone that far, (unless an injury had happened of course) but after walking for so long and seeing the road moving in front of me, sometimes still things like parked cars appeared to be moving towards me, and I began to feel slightly paranoid - almost as if in a bad dream.  It was an odd thing to have happen and definitely would have been rougher if I had not expected there to be some type of mental thing to kick in - I am sure it is different for everyone, and almost non-existent for trained ultra marathoners!  But again, I had gone this far and with basically a day's worth of steps left, even this weird mental stuff was a no-brainer to push through.  

Overall, it helped me to just **decide** to do it, and get it finished with as little stopping as possible.  My lunch break was the longest at about 20 minutes, and each of the few bathroom stops were less than 10, sometimes just 5 minutes.  I did not sit down except at breakfast, lunch, restroom breaks and supper.  When things got a little tougher at the end, I kept in mind that there are distance runners who do this all the time, and for much longer.  Granted, they are running it and getting it over with faster, so a part of me thinks this kind of thing may be mentally tougher, to force yourself to walk the whole way.  I walked because my running stride is a lot longer than my walking stride, and honestly I think another key to this is to pick a sustainable pace and keep it. I didn't want to be banging myself up any more than I was already. 

Basic outline:

Start Time: 5:30 AM - walked from Belgrade MT to Bozeman using back roads.  First stop was at the coffee shop in Bozeman around 8:20 for a large iced coffee and water

Breakfast: 10:00 AM - 2 cups of scrambled eggs at the local co-op

Lunch: 11:30 AM - changed socks and had a large salad with a gluten free beer (beer sounded good, for some odd reason!).  Although I was not feeling any pain at this time, I decided to proactively take 3 ibuprofen just in case. 

Misc snacks when stopping at gas stations: (2) Coconut water, banana, hard boiled egg, Think Thin Peanut Butter protein bar, gluten free rice crispy treat : )

Supper: Walked back to Belgrade and once home, 6:30 PM Cup of Oikos yogurt, 1/4 cup raspberries. Took some ibuprofen for the shin pain which was creeping in a bit more around 87,000 steps. 

Water: I did not keep track precisely but I would guess around a gallon to gallon and a half

Finish: 9:45 PM - 44.4 miles according to Alta HR.  Not sure how accurate but it seemed about right.

Calculated break time - about 1 hour total

Physical effects: At 80,000 steps - Some pain on the right shin, enough to cause slight limping but not terrible. About 90,000 steps, could feel larger blisters forming despite sock change (expected).  These symptoms got better over the following week, completely gone after 10 days. 

After care: LOTS of fish oil to take care of any inflammation.  This is far more effective than anything else out there and I have been using it for years. In the few days after this walk, I took 2,000 - 4,000mg per day of Pure Alaska Omega.  Also a good glucosamine supplement is your friend for any joint pain if you experience it - highly recommend this as well before resorting to over the counter pain medication.

I hope this helps anyone who may be thinking about going for 100,000 steps. 

[Hleatherby]

Thank you @GershonSurge

🙂

[Thisisgajanan]

I do believe that walking 100K steps isn't important. Whats important is to balance of Calories intake and burning. By walking 100K probably you will loose about 40K calories. The whole metabolism system will collapse, I recon.

[Hleatherby]

I can assure you, the metabolism system did not collapse. I am alive indeed to respond after all, and at a very lean 5'8" 145 pounds, my body was fueled by clean eating for many years leading up to this walk.   In fact, in the days afterward, I had a very strange boost in energy, clarity and cleaner vision - everything seemed brighter and clearer and I never once felt exhausted.   After walking for this long, I now understand why ancient cultures regularly did vision quests and other very long, prolonged walks and journeys.  

[Thisisgajanan]

Great to know ! Let me also set the target higher. Currently with normal activities I could reach to 20K

[Sarcastrid]

---

@Hleatherby wrote:

I can assure you, the metabolism system did not collapse. I am alive indeed to respond after all, and at a very lean 5'8" 145 pounds, my body was fueled by clean eating for many years leading up to this walk.   In fact, in the days afterward, I had a very strange boost in energy, clarity and cleaner vision - everything seemed brighter and clearer and I never once felt exhausted.   After walking for this long, I now understand why ancient cultures regularly did vision quests and other very long, prolonged walks and journeys.  

---

I did my first 35k steps last Sunday (5 3/4 hrs walk with some short breaks), and I kinda recognize what you say here. It gave me an energy boost and really cleared my head. I already planned my next long trip. Not sure if I will ever reach the 100k mark, but I definitely see your point 🙂

[essieL]

Yep! Start early, best if there is not to much elevation change, plan on a 12 hour day of walking and a little over 50 miles. It was 53.5 for me. Best of luck!

[essieL]

I really love the way you ended your comment..... armed with determination and grace. Beautiful! You go girl!

[runwalkmore]

Did it last August, plan to do it again this weekend. 19 hrs Exhilarating!

[Bill_k]

That's like 40 miles lol.

[Hleatherby]

That is excellent!! Now that you know what to expect I bet it might be a bit easier to plan.  Good luck!!