The 500 Hour Club Challenge

We're so excited to get rolling!

This challenge is extremely meaningful to me for a few reasons. A few years ago, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at a relatively young age and my mom is a Type 1 Diabetic. While I may not have hit the genetic lottery, I feel extremely lucky. Despite (or perhaps even because of) these circumstances, we as a family recognize just how important health truly is. While I love racing, the medal at the finish line isn't the true prize: it's the extra physical and mental capacity and freedom that come from living an athlete's lifestyle.

Unfortunately there are two scenarios that are all too common:

1. All or nothing: Many athletes go for a big goal like doing an Ironman, a marathon, their first 5k and overemphasize the achievement. While doing big things can be a great aim, they often lose sight of the long game. When the race is over they accomplished their current goal so they just stop training! Don't get me wrong, a break is perfectly warranted and often beneficial. The issue arises when the break in training goes from weeks to months and health and wellbeing dip. It only takes 2 weeks of inactivity to lose a majority of fitness built up over several months.

2. Racing isn't fun: There are some athletes that just don't enjoy racing. For whatever reason, it's just not their jam. Unfortunately, training in this way can be ambiguous without the structure and discipline that preparing for a specific event brings. Usually, having a deadline on the calendar helps us keep from putting things off until the next day.

These scenarios are exactly why we've launched the 500 Hour Club Challenge!

For the athletes who do enjoy big races, the 500 hour Challenge will help them keep the big picture in mind after the event is over.

For athletes who don't enjoy racing, it helps provide a bit of structure and discipline that come from having a specific target while still allowing for flexibility.

Back in high school cross country we would have a challenge to see who could run 300 miles in the 10 weeks of summer to be a part of the 300 Mile Club. The reason was simple: the real benefit of those 300 miles was the strength and speed gained to be used later on in the season, but the motivation for something so far off was a challenge.

The same principle applies here: the real purpose of accumulating 500 hours is to improve our physical and mental wellbeing, but having a singular target like 500 this makes it easier to stay committed to the process.

The reason this rings true for many is that progress is not linear. There are many days where we are trying to improve but we actually feel worse. In those moments it would be easy to get discouraged if our only goal was to increase fitness because we “should” be feeling better! But when we focus on a process goal it’s easy to see progress towards our goal. Even if we only add an extra 30, 10, or 5 minutes that day, we’ve still moved the needle forward.

Small wins add up over time, and eventually your “bad days” (you’ll still have them) will be at a level that you couldn’t reach on your best days before.

Keep showing up!

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The Rules of the 500 Hour Club Challenge are simple, but as they say, “simple ain't easy”.

THE RULES:

• Accumulate 500 hours of purposeful movement throughout the year

• Any activity at any intensity counts

• Have fun!

500 hours is roughly 10 hours a week with 2 complete rest weeks that you can slice and dice however you choose!

10 hours comes from the premise that most people feel the best and tend to stay healthiest between 8-12 hours a week.

Below this threshold and it's often not consistent enough to maintain a strong enough baseline. This makes the stress spikes from sporadic training or hard life days really challenging, even though the overall load is low.

Beyond this and you're likely training for something big and specific. Inherently there's nothing wrong with this, but we can often start cutting corners on sleep and nutrition and rely too heavily on caffeine and highly processed carbohydrates. While the training load doesn't fluctuate as much, the energy requirement for high volume is HIGH, and therefore our energy level and mood tend to vary a lot unless fueling and recovery is top notch.

I know what you're thinking, 10 hours a week is a LOT. And it's true: but because any intensity counts a brisk 10 minute walk, a pickup basketball game with friends, a quick game of pickle ball, etc. will all add up!

Plus, just because it's an average of 10 hours a week doesn't mean you have to hit 10 hours every week! Some weeks will be more, some will be less! The goal is to move consistently, but that doesn't have to mean doing the same thing every single day. Mixing things up helps prevent them from feeling stale.

You can use our upcoming programs for triathlon, running, yoga, F.I.T. For Life, and strength sessions to help you structure your weeks as well.

For those who aren't inclined to race: try planning a long bike ride or big hike in the mountains. Having 1-3 epic days scattered throughout the year that you prepare for can be a great way to not only log some hours but have truly epic experiences as well. For example: many of my athletes and friends will do Triple Bypass Bike Ride out in Colorado, which is 110 miles over three mountain passes. There's no reason to push super hard on this day, it's not a race and we typically wait for our whole crew at the top of each pass. It takes a LONG time, but it's a fun event that ends up as one of the highlights of the year. There are many other long bike rides available that usually are attached to great causes like JDRF Rides in North Florida. Hiking the grand canyon, a 14er in Colorado, or part of the Appalachian trail would all be great additions as well.

The point is: just because it’s not a race doesn’t mean you can’t plan an epic event. Get creative with how you get out there!

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Below we have two ways to keep track of your hours using either Training Peaks and/or Strava.

Strava:

Strava does requires a paid Strava account, but it makes it easy to see your progress and connect with others to give and receive encouragement.

• Go to the YOU tab on the bottom right of the app

• Scroll down to Goals

• Click on Add Goal

• Choose the following:

• All Sports

• Annual

• Time

• Type in 500 Hours

The app will then keep track for you as long as you are logging workouts with a connected watch like a Garmin, Coros, Apple Watch, or manually uploading activities.

For example: you might not want a watch on while doing a yoga class or playing basketball, but you could easily add it after. Just be sure to be honest with the time spent!

Strava will also show you if you're on track or ahead of pace to hit 500 hours assuming each day is an average day across the board.

Be sure to join our Strava Club: Forging Iron Training Squad so we can see your activities and cheer you on as well!

Training Peaks

TrainingPeaks requires a paid account as well to change your performance management charts.

• In your mobile app, click on Charts

• Click on any of the Chart Names

• Scroll to Chart Settings and click: Add Chart

• Pick Report under the Fitness Summary block

• Change Title to: 500 Hour Club Challenge

• Select:

• All Workout Types

• Date Range: This year

This will now show all the training hours you've logged in the current year! When you open the app you can see the chart at any time.

The difficulty with this option is that you can't set it as a specific goal, so you have to do a little math to see if you're on track.

Both options are fairly easy to see! Our suggestion is to screenshot it each month, record it on a google sheet for your own records and even post it and tag us @forgingirontraining.fit on Instagram so we can give you a shoutout!

Our coming online program will have Monthly Check Ins where you can share your progress and highlights along the way.

Remember: the purpose is to make the most out of your year, your way!

Build discipline in your daily life so that you can do more of the things you love this year and years to come! A good goal challenges us to improve even if we don't achieve it. For example: if you hit 499 hours, that's a huge win and you'll have had a fantastic year and established a wonderful health and fitness baseline for the years to come.

Of course, we want to hit that target and for the ones that do, we'll send you something extra special!

If you have any questions, just let me know! Any and all are welcome to participate. We’ll hope to get the web platform up and running soon!

We’re excited to cheer you on in this challenge.

Happy training!