What do you need to run an ultramarathon?
Next week we are heading out to South America, we’ll spend a few days in Buenos Aires to visit family before heading out of the city and into the mountains to race the Patagonia Run 110k, this will be my first race of the 2023 season.
Two of my athletes will also be getting ready to step up to ultramarathon start lines for the first time in 2023 to run their first 50-mile events. The South Downs Way 50 in the UK and Lake Sonoma 50 in the US. Both of these events are iconic 50-mile events with a completely different set of demands.
The ultrarunning landscape is a broad one, there is a huge spectrum of different types of events. With everything from 50K road races to 200+ mile multi day ultramarathons and everything in between. And this year I'll be supporting athletes to the start line of first time 50K races to the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB), the pinnacle of the world trail running scene.
As events are hotting up and ultramarathon season is just getting started, I wanted to share with you four things you need to run an ultramarathon. Whilst this isn’t a blog post from a practical perspective on what should be in your kit bag (i’ll save that for another day), this rings true no matter how beginner or experienced you think you are.
1. Your reason WHY
What motivates an athlete is a very individual thing but getting clear on what that motivation for training and racing is can help athletes at 3am when they are 25 miles in of their 100-mile race or when they need to get out of the door at 6am for that pre-work training run.
Finding this motivation for training and racing must come from a deeper place, I see so many athletes make the mistake of signing up for multiple events without any real reason other than checking another tick box.
Your ‘why’ helps to establish that emotional connection with your race so you can preserve motivation during training and contingency plan when the tough times roll in during your ultramarathon, because trust me they will inevitably will.
Perhaps you are raising money for a particular charity, maybe it’s a race that’s been on your bucket list for years or maybe you have some sort of connection to the race location. Either you studied there or it’s a place that you grew up and holds a lot of memories. Either way you must be emotionally invested because ultramarathons are hard.
2. Train the mental not just the physical
The mental side of training is often validated as being extremely important, but when it comes to scheduling this into your programme, I see many athletes make the mistake of neglecting this completely or scrambling in the final week of taper without having tried any real strategies in training. You often hear this quote but how much mental training do you honestly do?
“The challenge of ultrarunning is 90% mental and the other 10% is all in our heads.”
Mental training is commonly used to familiarise yourself with critical sections of a race, contingency plan for when things go awry, reduce race day or long run anxiety, support motivation and so much more. And if you’ve finished an ultramarathon or even marathon before, you are likely to have used some of these mental strategies to get you through the race whether you were intentionally aware of it or not.
Imagery is a way of mentally rehearsing real life scenarios during your event and is one of my favourite ways to get started if your event is looming. Whether that's visualising critical and unfamiliar sections of a race, imaging pushing through fatigue on the final climb or exiting an aid station getting everything you need.
So next time you are starting to increase your training volume or intensity start to think about how you can include some of these strategies, don’t leave it until the taper tantrums set in.
3. Practice eating a lot
This rule not only applies to your race day scenario but making good food choices daily to ensure you have the energy to manage a day at work and meet the demands of your ultramarathon training. All that being said, I still see so many athletes who are quick to dismiss nutrition on recovery days, during injury and in the aftermath of days once their event is over.
Whilst there are certain nutritional guidelines you should be targeting for endurance activities, ultramarathon fuelling is not a one size fits all approach and there is a lot of value in practising what you’ll be eating on race day during training.
A recent observational study on sleep and nutritional profile of endurance and ultra endurance running athletes found that 100% of athletes failed to consume the recommended amount of total energy or carbohydrates during their event. This comes as no surprise that ultrarunners are likely not eating enough during races.
Nutrition doesn’t need to be complicated and as leading sports Dietitian Reene McGregor says:
“Fundamentally what the message should be is if you move more, eat more.”
4. Long haul approach
Ultramarathon success takes time, and the quicker you can accept this the more enjoyment you are going to find in the day to day process of training rather than focusing on your event as a means to an end.
From that time you do a workout to the time you might see an improvement from that one particular workout is roughly 30-45 days. So anyone that tells you that you can finish an ultramarathon with little or no dedicated training time, what they mean is you’ll probably get to the start line but you sure enough won’t find out that you’re truly capable of.
Cramming for an event will only increase your chance of overtraining and getting injured. Unlike marathons, ultramarathons have many stressors on race day and your ultramarathon success has far more to do with your ability to cope with all of these stressors rather than the capacity of your cardiovascular system alone.
You need dedicated training time to include vertical specificity, terrain specificity, practising fuelling, adaptation to environmental stressors like heat and altitude, familiarisation with equipment like packs and poles and other considerations not routinely considered in marathon training. Of course this will vary from race to race but you get the idea. That’s why I get so excited when athletes come to me with long term goal(s), one, two or even three years out.
Need help with the above? I’d love to be in your corner and support you towards your next ultrarunning goal(s).
Ultrarunning Coaching
I help women find their confidence on the trails, realise their full potential and show up to the start line of their ultramarathon leaving no stone unturned.
Whether it’s your first 50K or a 250KM multi day stag race, i’d love to be in your corner and support you towards your next ultrarunning goal(s).
Find out more about Ultrarunning Coaching together here.