50 things you need to know(but may not want to know) about running 50 miles, Part 2

The next topic you need to know about is the physical aspects of running 50 miles.  Our bodies can do a lot of interesting things, and when you run for 8 straight hours you learn a lot about your body - both what it can and cannot do.  Running an ultra takes a toll on your body, but not always the way you'd expect. 

11.  Surprisingly, training for an ultra will not get you into the best shape of your life.  You'll get really good at running long, slow miles, but that's about it.  Sure, by the end of your training schedule, you'll find that a 5 mile run feels like a jog around the block, but that doesn't make you a physical specimen.  Your endurance will be great, but your overall strength and speed will take a big hit - you might even end up having to ask your wife to open that jar of pickles for you.

12.  When you run at such a slow pace for long periods of time, your muscles aren't the worst thing to get sore - its your joints and tendons.  You'd expect to have pains in your quads, calves and hammys.  But when your running for several hours at a time, the next day you'll feel it in all the joints in your feet, ankles, knees and hips.  Getting out of bed the next day makes you feel like your about 80 years old. 

13. As far as the muscles in your legs go, they get heavy, not sore, but heavy.  Its hard to explain, but my legs weren't really crampy and stiff, like you'd expect after an intense workout.  Its kind of a weird sensation, but they just felt like they were 20 lbs heavier than normal.  The day after long training runs, I usually felt slow and sluggish.   

14.  At some point(or many points) during a 50 mile run, your body will cramp, and your muscles seize up, but you can run through it.  One time, I got an odd cramp in my foot about 10 miles into a long training run once.  I drank some pedialyte and kept going.  Eventually it went away and I ran another 20 miles without a problem. 
     During the ultra I battled several cramps, mainly in my hamstrings and calves, throughout the last 18 miles of the race.  After the 31 mile mark I started cramping badly.  I'd stop to stretch for a couple minutes, then continued on.  I mixed in a lot more walking to give the muscles a break.  Around mile 38, it got to the point where I could only run for a couple strides at a time before I'd cramp up and have to walk.  I'd set tiny goals for myself like "run to the next bend in the trail" or "run to that tree."  Eventually I drank enough fluids and did enough stretching and walking that the cramping spells became fewer and farther between.  Finally around mile 45, I felt a lot better.  I think that knowing the end was near really helped, because I was able to run the last 3 miles of the race without having to stop.

15. When you've gotta go, you've gotta go.  "Do marathoners poop themselves?" was a surprising text message I received from my most sophisticated sister-in-law about a year ago.  She was watching the Chicago marathon at the time, and that's how the question came up.  We continued texting about poo for about 30 minutes(about 29.5 minutes longer than any poo conversation should last).  Likewise, I could dedicate an entire post about this topic, so I'll try to keep it as short as possible.
     An odd phenomena that occurs when you run for several continuous hours is that when your bowels decide its time to empty themselves, they don't give you much warning - at all.  I'd never had this issue before I started training for the ultra, but had witnessed it at a couple of marathons.  I will admit that while I was on some of my long 4am training runs, I suddenly got hit with the "runner's trots."   If I was within a mile or two of the house, I'd try to make it back.  If not, I'd try to find a construction site with a porta-potty.  If it hit me really bad, I'd settle for the nearest ditch or tree I could find!  
     During the ultra I ran with a guy who was having major issues with this.  We met up around mile 18.  He said he'd already shat like 3 times during the race and didn't know if he'd make it to the next aid station with a restroom.  I told him I'd been on training runs before and that I'd just go outside if necessary.  He said he didn't think he could do it outside like that.  When we got to about mile 23 he said he'd need to go again soon.  About 15 steps later, he stopped dead in his tracks and bent forward, clutching his side.  His eyes were squinted and his teeth were clinched tight(his butt cheeks probably clinched even tighter).  I told him to run off the side of the trail and take care of his business.  Thankfully, he swallowed his pride and did the deed.  I was glad because I enjoyed his company, and I didn't want to run with a guy who had poo all over him.

16.  When running 50 miles, blisters are your worst enemy. I found out during my training runs that its really easy to develop a blister when you run for 4 hours at a time.  To remedy the situation, I always wore dri-fit running socks, used body glide on my feet, changed shoes and socks during my long runs(and during the race) and always stopped to "clean out" my shoes if any debris got in.  It may seem counter productive to stop during a run to change shoes or dump out a tiny piece of gravel, but it beats the alternative.  You'd be surprised how quickly a wet sock or small pebble will turn into  a golf ball sized blister. 

This must feel like breastfeeding
minus the joy and bond of
nurturing your child.

17. Body glide is your best friend.  I'm sure we've all seen someone at the end of a marathon or half marathon with bloody nipples.  I've never had trouble with nipple trauma, but have become chafed and blistered on other parts of my body.  A good rule of thumb when running 50 miles is to apply body glide to any part of your body that doesn't tan during the summer.

18.  Your mind starts to shut down before your body does.  This is more mental than physical, but it has to do with the body, so I'm including it on this list.  After running for about 35 miles or so, your mind starts to play tricks on you.  I was battling some cramps and doing a lot of walking, but still making forward progress. The miles were going by much slower at that point, and even with my GPS watch I still kept losing track of what mile I was on.  I started having a bunch of negative thoughts about not finishing the race.  A little voice in the back of my mind, I think its called common sense, kept telling me that I needed to stop.  I really had to focus my mind on simple goals like getting to the next tree or just putting one foot in front of the other.   
     I've read about ultramarathoners who do 100 mile races that hallucinate after hours of running on lack of sleep.  I won't say that I hallucinated, but during that awful stretch around mile 35, I'm pretty sure I saw a black squirrel.  I'd never seen a black squirrel before in my life, so I was really confused.  Maybe it was a skunk, maybe it was a regular brown or grey squirrel, or maybe it never existed, I will never know.  A little while later, I saw a snake on the trail.  I thought it was just a stick, and didn't realize it was a snake until I almost stepped on it!  It scared the heck out of me, and the adrenaline rush woke me up from my daze and kept me sane until the end.

19.  You'll probably lose inventory of some of your body's functions.  No, we're not talking about poo again.  After several hours of running you get so distracted with finishing the race and focusing your mind to overcome major physical issues, that you'll tend to overlook some of the little things.  For me, it was my body temperature. 
     It was still dark outside when I arrived at the race site and it was a cold fall morning(in the 30s).  After I got my race packet and timing chip, I huddled around a campfire with about 20 other runners.  We were shivering, and couldn't wait for the race to begin.  When the gun went off at 7am, the sun had just come up, and it was still cold outside.  I was finally generating some body heat so the temp didn't bother me anymore.  As the day wore on, the sun came up and the temp eventually reached the 50s.  I didn't notice the temperature change until after the race.  I still felt cold even after finished.  I didn't realize it until gave Maren a hug, but I was completely covered in sweat from head to toe.  I didn't ever realize I was getting hot during the race, but apparently my body did. 

20.  Recovering from a 50 mile run takes a long time.  The day of the race and the day after don't feel too much different than recovering from a normal marathon.  However, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th days after you still feel stiff and sluggish.  I didn't start to feel 'normal' again until about a week and half after the ultra.  Maybe the longer recovery time was due to 50 miles of running or maybe its because I'm in my 30's now - and that's just what happens when you get old!  Another odd phenomena that occurred during my recovery is for about 2 weeks after the race, my toes went numb.  When I arrived home the second night after the race, I realized I didn't have any feeling in my toes.  They had no feeling at all for a couple days, but gradually over the next two weeks they returned back to normal. 

That brings us to 20 things you should know about running a 50 mile race.  Blisters, bowels, chafing, cramping, mental breakdown...who's ready to sign up?  The hard part is out of the way.  Once you learn to cope with the physical stress, you can sit back and enjoy some of the experiences and benefits endurance running provides. 

50 things you need to know(but may not want to know) about running 50 miles, Part 1

Since the journey to running a race always starts with training,  I'll start there.  For me the training is really what running a race is all about.  I'm never competing to win races, so for me the race day is a reward for all the hard work I've done.  Its also the most boring/mundane part to talk about, so I've decided to get these out of the way first.  Without further ado, here are the first 10 things I'd like to share with you about running 50 miles...

1.  Surprisingly, you don't need to train a whole lot more for an ultra than you do for a regular marathon.  My weekday workouts were about the same: rest or cross Train on Mon, 6-8 miles on Tues, 5 miles on Wed, 6-8 miles on Thurs, rest or cross train on Fri.  The difference was I didn't focus too much on speed and pace as much as I did on running efficiently with proper form. 

2.  The key for my training strategy was back to back long runs on the weekends.  For a normal marathon training weekend, I'd do a light run of just a couple miles one day, then do a long 16-22 mile run the other day.  When training for the ultra, my focus was less about pace and more about spending time on my feet - getting used to keeping my legs moving for long periods of time.  My normal weekend runs didn't focus on specific mileage, but more about time: 2 to 2.5 hours on Sat, then 3.5 to 5 hours Sun - which at my training speed was about equivalent to a 1/2 marathon(or longer) on Saturday and a marathon(sometimes a little longer) on Sunday.  Several people asked what was the distance of my longest training run.  The longest continuous run I did was 33 miles. 

3.  To train for a 50 miler you have to strike a balance between family time and training time.  For me that meant getting up to run at 4am or waiting until about 8pm after the girls went to sleep.  I could have run at a more "civilized" time, but I would have felt guilty for cutting out time with my girls.  Plus I would have felt even more guilty for pushing off all the responsibility to Maren of getting the girls ready every morning or putting them to bed at night.  Waking up early didn't really bother me too much, and it provided me with some very interesting insight and experiences...(more to come on that topic in a future post).

4.  The focus on training for an ultra is spending time on your feet and to keep moving on tired legs, so some of my rest days were "active rest days."  By active rest, I mean that I didn't do an actual workout per se, but would find ways to keep my body moving when it was tired. We'd go on family walks, family bike rides, go to a playground to chase Emry, do some stretching or light yoga.  All of these activities allowed me to incorporate Maren and the girls into my training, so they played a big part in helping me prepare for the ultra.

5.  There is a fine line between dedicated and obsessive, and training for a 50 mile ultra will give you plenty of opportunities to toe that line.  When training for an event this big, you feel like every workout is important, and don't want to fall behind.  With the amount of time you have to spend training, you also have to keep everything else in your life in perspective.  When it comes to sticking to your workout schedule or compromising something in your personal life, a decision needs to be made.  It all goes back to keeping the balance.  Another area where this struggle between dedicated and obsessive comes into play is with your overall health.  Again, you don't want to fall behind in your training, so you try not to miss any workouts.  But having been injured before, I knew an injury would set me further back than missing the occasional workout.  I made sure to listen to my body when it was telling me not to do anything at all.  Occasionally, I'd take a day off from one of my weekday workouts if I had a pain that was hurting too bad. 

6.  Even experienced runners will fall from time to time.  I was on one early morning run and my shoe got caught on an uneven piece of concrete next to a curb which sent me sprawled out on the asphalt like Pete Rose doing a headfirst slide into second base.  I was in a particularly good mood that day and despite getting some pretty bad road rash on my palms, elbows and knees, I surprised myself by laughing about it.  As I was laying sprawled out on the ground, I actually thought, "I can make fun of myself by putting this on the blog!"

7.  When training for an ultra its important to gain experience running on the type of surface that your race is run on - for me it was trails.  I made sure to mix in a couple of trail runs and even entered a trail marathon as part of my training.  The biggest thing I learned is that when you're running on a trail, you're always one step away from ending your race.  I saw several runners trip on tree roots, loose rocks, etc.  You really have to watch where you step or you could easily end up with a sprained ankle - or worse. 

8.  Doubling your pleasure.  With work, family, etc you sometimes struggle to find a time to run 8 straight miles on a weekday.  To remedy the problem, some days I'd do a "double" - go for two runs on the same day.  On weekdays I would sometimes run 3-4 miles in the morning, then squeeze in 4 or 5 miles at the gym during my lunch hour.  With the amount of time your long weekend workouts take, you can't always find 4 or 5 continuous hours in a day to dedicate to running.  My favorite "double" story came from the last intense weekend of my training schedule.  On Saturday we had yardwork to do in the morning then a birthday in the afternoon.  I had to wait until we got home from the party and put the girls to bed before I could do my (16mi) workout that day.  On Sunday we were volunteering at our church all day(8am-6pm), so I had to split up my 5 hour training run that day.  I woke up at 4am Sunday morning and ran the first half of my workout (17mi), volunteered at church all day, came home for a quick dinner, helped put the girls to bed and finished off my Sunday workout with 16 more miles that night.  Altogether I ended up running 49 miles in 26 hour period.

9.  Training for an ultra is a lot more boring than training for a marathon.  This is the first time I've trained for an event with my sole goal being:  just finish.  Therefore I didn't have a lot of variation in my workouts.  My training goals were basically to:  1. Spend time on my feet and 2. Log the mileage necessary for me to know I could finish the race.  Every other marathon or 1/2 marathon I've done I had a goal to finish under a certain time.  So I'd do a lot of interval training, speed workouts and tempo runs to improve my speed and focus on my pace.  Although the workouts for the ultra weren't exciting, they did give me a lot of time to think and to appreciate each run.     

10.  When I did mix in other workouts I typically did hill workouts.  I did do some interval training and tempo runs occasionally, but if I really wanted to give my legs a test, I'd head for the hills.  We have one hill near our house and it is a long, steep incline about .4 of a mile long.  I would run hard up one side and continue the intensity down the other.  When I got to the bottom, I'd run on the flat ground for a couple minutes until my heart rate slowed down.  Then I'd turn around and do it all over again.  The constant uphill and downhill running trashed my quads and recruited different muscles that running on flat ground didn't.  The hill workouts really helped my confidence in running on tired legs.

Unless you are really into running or just curious about what goes into training for an ultra, then I'm sure this first list was pretty boring to read(as promised.)  I know, it seems like it was painful to get through these 10, and there are still 40 more tips, stories and things you should know about running 50 miles to come.  It may seem daunting, but just be glad its only 40 things you have to read and not 40 more miles you have to run!  I promise the list gets a lot more interesting from here.