Going the Distance

After pain management and nutrition strategies are fairly well developed the question turns to distance. How far should I go on my training runs?

And just like your pain handling and nutritional needs, so too will your training be very unique as it is custom tailored to your body and your schedule.

Many people do ultras after training no further than half to two-thirds of the overall race distance. I would say that just half is probably the bare minimum to think about doing the ultra. If you've run a marathon, you know that only running up to 13 miles in advance is not sufficient training. Sure, you might be able to tough it out a few extra hours on race day, but the odds of success are not in your favour. You simply don't know what is going to hit you when you add another 13 (or 40) miles to your already worn out body.

Heading into unknown territory on race day is the thing you want to keep to a minimum - not the training.

I will feel comfortable once I know I can comfortably handle something a lot closer to the distance I will face on race day. Part of that is due to the fact that I am not training in the same mountainous conditions that I will face on race day, so it is my way of making sure I at least hit half to two-thirds of EFFORT.

I am anticipating my ultra marathon race will take me about 22 hours, give or take a couple hours. So I would like to train up to 11-15 hour long runs. My current longest run in this year's training cycle is 10.5 hours, and 12 hours is my longest single run ever. In both cases I felt great at the end and know that I could have kept going.

But that is a lot different than knowing I could have kept going another 10 to 12 hours!!!