Training for a Fall Ultramarathon
By Eric Grossman
Main IMTR Page
If you are thinking of running a 50-miler this Fall, it’s time to start growing some hay. Here’s a crash
course in getting your body ready for an awesome one-day test of endurance.
- Publicly commit to the race(s) of your
choice. I’m writing this because I’m directing the Iron Mountain 50
mile Trail Run on October 4th. See, I’m publicly committed – so there is
no backing down without a pretty heavy cost. (In your case just sign up
and then tell your friends, family, and co-workers about it.)
- Find out about the race course(s).
Ultramarathon RDs are accessible and eager to
talk about their course. That’s why we do it!
- Start running. We’ll work on the
details in a bit – but the point is if you haven’t run anything yet today
you really should do something before we go any further!
- Run comfortably. This is the easy
part. You need this foundation for your training. No matter your overall
condition. Find any non-paved surface for this, and choose places to run
that help keep you motivated. If you’re buff, running shirtless on a beach
may be the ticket. If you are introspective, a nice woodland trail is the
perfect place to be alone with your thoughts. If you are a thrill seeker,
find a rugged mountain trail. You get the idea. The hardest part of
starting any training is structuring it for continued motivation. Don’t
force yourself into a regimen that isn’t self-sustaining. Many people
enjoy running with others. The key is to find a group that runs at the
right pace for your needs. Your slow mileage needs to be easy – so don’t
run with people who will push you during these runs!
- Differentiate. This is the hard
part. Running 50 miles in a day is
a problem that you want your body to solve. You might be able to just
ratchet up your mileage on a weekly run until it approached 50 miles – but
you don’t have that much time or energy – and even if you did this
strategy might just break you down. It would be like climbing Mt. Everest by starting at sea level
and walking, one step at a time, to the peak. Smart training means
separating out the different components of the 50-mile problem, and then
training your body for those components on separate runs! So here’s a
rundown of 6 training components you could employ to solve the ultramarathon problem:
- Slow
comfortable running. We already started this, right? Thankfully
these runs hit several components required during the actual event. The
most basic requirement may be strengthening the connective tissues of the
hips, knees, and feet that have to hold up to an all-day beating. Another
very basic problem, though, is the metabolism of a steady supply of energy
that will be rapidly diminished by your efforts on race day. The “total accumulated volume” of running, including your slow
comfortable running, will correlate with strengthened connective tissue
and expansion of energy metabolism (largely through fat-burning!) If your
slow running is not so comfortable, break it up. If you are starting from
scratch it is perfectly acceptable to mix walking and running. You can
also split the slow running into different times of day – 15 minutes in
the morning and another 15 in the evening, for example.
- The
long run. You will need to immediately begin to lengthen one of
your runs each week – so that it stands out as “the long run.” Although
you may be starting with a 20 minute long run, this run should gradually
increase to at least 4 hours(!) when you are
about a month away from the big event. This run works on your aerobic
capacity, demanding the sustained rapid delivery of energy and nutrients
throughout your body. Use this run
to practice eating and hydrating the way you will during the big event.
You do not have to stick to the one-long-run-per-week idea, though that is
the most common strategy. You can get by with one every other week –
especially if the run is very long. You can also do back-to-back long runs
on consecutive days.
- The
fast run. This is one that many would like to overlook. It’s also
known as the “threshold” or “tempo” run. It
basically involves running hard but steady at a pace you are just able to
sustain for a given period of time. Starting from scratch you might try 10
minutes. The goal will be to lengthen this run to a full 60 minutes of
leg-pounding, heart-thumping fun before your training peaks. Very fit
individuals may stretch this to 90 minutes. Do your fast
run once per week. More than that and you won’t recover, fewer than that
and you won’t improve. A road race can serve as your fast run for the
week, but don’t do one of those every week. The excitement around road
racing can really engage your nervous system and wear you down over time.
- Intervals.
Interval training can stimulate rapid improvements in your performance on
all your training runs. It seems to
target the neuro-muscular system, prompting
nerve connections and synchronization that opens up the throttle for other
runs. In other words, I’m not sure how it works! Do one interval workout
per week, starting 8 weeks before your first big event. Intervals should
be short and intense, but otherwise you can be creative. You should NOT
start these until you have a good fitness base – which I would ballpark at
8 weeks of running if you start from scratch. You might start with 6
intervals of 2 minutes each and work up to 10 intervals of 4 minutes each.
Give enough time between intervals so that your heart slows to a
reasonable rate – usually 2 minutes will suffice.
- The
uneven run. You should run on technical or uneven terrain least
once every two weeks. Once a week is better, and I prefer twice a week!
This kind of running targets your core postural muscles. This run can
overlap with your slow and/or long runs.
- Rest.
You’ve heard it before – the body must be given time to re-build after you
have worked to tear it down. One or two days a
week should be rest days. Starting from scratch this means don’t run on
rest days. When you are fit a slow
comfortable run can count as rest. In addition to weekly rest, you should
also allow a longer rest period between phases of your training. After 6
weeks of solid training, give yourself a week of fewer miles and lighter
workouts. It can be hard to slow yourself down when you see improvement –
but better to slow yourself down than have an injury do it for you!
Many runners find it motivating to keep a log that shows
mileages and times for workouts. You can easily identify fitness gains if you
time yourself for set distances, for example, and then find that you can cover
that distance more and more quickly. You can chart out a calendar that projects
runs you would like to do, and then use that calendar to record the runs you
actually do.
Here is a sample week as it might look when you hit peak
training about 4 weeks before your event:
|
Monday
rest
|
Tuesday
Morning
30 minutes easy
Afternoon
Intervals
8 x 4 minutes
|
Wednesday
60 minutes easy
|
Thursday
Morning
30 minutes easy
Afternoon
60 minutes hard
|
Friday
30 minutes easy
|
Saturday
90 minutes uneven
|
Sunday
4 hours
long
|
If you are registered to run Iron Mountain
and would like help individualizing a training program so that you will succeed
at this run, let me know!
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