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 hill
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.
Can't wait for part 2! Feel like I got a work out just reading this one...
ReplyDelete