Starting Ultra Training: Tips

You've found your race, so now its time to start training.  If you've been doing marathons, you already know there are a plethora of training plans out there.  Every marathon plan is slightly different, but almost all good plans are structured in a very similar manner.  You'll find more targeted speed work, higher/lower mileage, etc, but almost all of them will be 16-18 weeks and will top out at around 20-22 miles.  If you've done a google search looking for ultra training plans, you've probably realized by now that there aren't many out there.

Ask 5 ultra runners how to train for a race, and you'll likely get 5 different responses.  There doesn't seem to be a standard plan, as everyone's body tends to react differently to extending the distance beyond the marathon.  Add in the family time, jobs, personal life, etc and it results in people balancing the training load quite differently.  There are, however, some common denominators in ultra training.  I'll touch on some of those and talk about some of my preferences in ultra training.

The first thing to consider is mileage vs time on your feet (TOYF).  I tend to prefer the time on your feet method over running mileage.  Its completely a personal preference, but I find it easier to just zone out and run, not worrying about my route.  When I run a set mileage, I find myself poring over every mile, and the run seems to take forever.  Another positive I find in TOYF is that regardless of how I'm feeling, I'm out for the same amount of time.  If I'm feeling great and I have a 4 hour run,  I get in a few more miles.  However, if you feel bad and you have 30 miles scheduled, you might be out for a lot longer than you were expecting. Again, its all personal preference.  For some, seeing a 5 hour run on your schedule seem much more daunting to some that seeing 33 miles.  Try it both ways and see what works best for you.

I feel like one of the key contributors to my success in ultra training is the back-to-back long run, regardless of your choice in training method.  Doing a second long run in a weekend really helps to give practice running not only on tired legs, but in a fatigued state.  The first few times you try it, that second day is not easy. Eventually, you will notice your recovery time shorten and that second long run will come much easier.  I usually do my two long runs at different distances, and I usually prefer to do my longer of the two long runs on the first day.  The easiest way I've found to transition to this is to actually start with the short run on the first day and then slowly adjust.

Let's pretend you already have a pretty good mileage base and you can do a long run of three hours.  Start with doing an hour on Saturday and then doing your three hour long run on Sunday.  Then move to doing an hour and a half on Saturday and 2.5 hours on Sunday.  Then split the weekend with two, two hour runs.  Then move to a three hour on Saturday followed by a 1 hour on Sunday.  Once you can do that, you can start adding more mileage to the Sunday run and even bringing the first day mileage up, depending on what distance you are training for.

As with everything there are some drawbacks to the above approach, but I feel like its worth the effort.  The biggest complaint is that you kill a chunk of both of your weekend days with back-to-backs.  This is true, however, this approach also shortens the time commitment each day, while increasing the overall mileage/time on the weekend.  You don't have to do back-to-backs every weekend.  Try it once a month or every other week.

As you are building up your endurance, don't feel bad if you need to walk, especially if you are running hilly courses/trails.  Almost everyone walks at some point in the actual race.  Yes, even the people up front. If you need to walk during training, go for it.  Just keep moving forward.  You'll find that as you build your endurance, you'll walk less.  Maybe on race day you'll even be able to push through the entire race, although as your distance increases, the likelihood of walking increases.

So what should your week look like?  There are many factors that will dictate your training schedule, but here's what I like to do.  I go easy on Monday to recover from the weekend.  I'll usually do double, or a little more, of my Monday distance/time on Tuesday.  On Wednesday I'll typically do a longer run (roughly 1/2 the distance/time of the shorter of my two weekend runs), then Thursday I'll usually repeat my Tuesday run.  And lastly, I take Friday off.  I obviously tweak it depending on what I have going on in my work/personal life, but that's typically the structure I use.

In the end, the biggest thing to remember is that training for an ultra is as much training your mind as it is training your body.  If you don't train your mind, you'll fail when your body fatigues and says "no."  You can only train your body so much, after that its your mental toughness that allows you to persevere.