100-Up Looks Vaguely Familiar
A couple of weeks ago Chris McDougall caused another little stir in the barefoot/minimalist running world with an article for The New York Times entitled The Once and Future Way to Run. Within this article he mentions something called the 100-Up exercise...
Earlier this year, I may have found it. I was leafing through the back of an out-of-print book, a collection of runners’ biographies called “The Five Kings of Distance,” when I came across a three-page essay from 1908 titled “W. G. George’s Own Account From the 100-Up Exercise.” According to legend, this single drill turned a 16-year-old with almost no running experience into the foremost racer of his day.
I read George’s words: “By its constant practice and regular use alone, I have myself established many records on the running path and won more amateur track-championships than any other individual.” And it was safe, George said: the 100-Up is “incapable of harm when practiced discreetly.”
Could it be that simple? That day, I began experimenting on myself.