This site came about as a result of a discussion over food, wine and beer and the eventual setting of a challenge. The challenge was to run back to my home in Elwood from every Metro train station within the Melbourne network. I had already run a couple of the local stations as variations to my local running routes, but the challenge to do all 209 (later became 210 after Southland Station opened in Nov 2017) was conceived in early 2017 at a restaurant in Williamstown.
Finishing the challenge in March 2019, I decided I needed another challenge to motivate me to maintain my fitness. I have always enjoyed the half marathon distance, so the decision to run 100 halves in a year seemed logical. So on May 3rd 2019 I started running half marathons with the intent to learn about the variables to drive performance - but not in a serious way. I also wanted a theme to each run and each one had to be a different course to see more of Melbourne. And beyond as it turns out.
With 101 half marathons completed in a calendar year I have now moved onto the next challenge. This one involves a 10 km run completely within the borders of each page of the 2020 Edition of the Melways maps. That’s about 435 separate runs, mainly in Melbourne but stretching in all directions.
The Metro Train Runner section has been organised into blogs on each individual Metro line and as such are not in chronological order. The order in each blog reflects the order of stations going away from the city. The original runs were logged manually in a diary and the maps plotted on RunningAhead. I am now slowly moving the maps into my Garmin account and writing the blogs.
The 100 Halves blog is in the order that each run was done. The first was on 29/4/2019 and the 101st was done on 26/4/2020. After the Train Station runs I bought a Garmin so that the routes were automatically captured. That saved me a lot of time.
The Melways Challenge. The runs are in chronological order and each post represents one week of the challenge. The Elevation score is an indicator of the "hilliness" of the course. The higher the number the hillier the course.