TRAINING FOR AN ULTRAMARATHON

Sports Direct caught wind that by late May I will be flying over to Newfoundland, Canada, to run between 400-435 miles in 10 days and asked that I share some insight into my preparation. I may have crammed in 100 marathons by the time I was 24 years old, but this will be my first running challenge in four years and it's certainly not an official event or a chase for a world record. There are enough people out there going down that route! We are, however, creating a short film piece – so really, we're still pretty clichéd! Just picture a Winnebago, a few friends and some insane wildlife… Over the coming blog posts, I'll aim to provide some insight into how I have been getting my body tuned for this adventure. But first I thought a fun place to start would be to share three quick points on how training for an ultramarathon may vary from that of a more classic distance i.e. 10k or 21.1k etc.

The dream would be that for any of you reading this who are interested in the unknown of ultra running, you walk away from this a little more clued up on how best to prepare. These points are relevant for all ultra distances. Multi-day events, 50 milers or 100 and beyond – I've got you covered.

LEARN TO FUEL ON THE GO

Bruce Bogtrotter. In case you haven't read Matilda or seen the film, Bruce steals a slice of Miss Trunchbull's cake and is punished by being forced to eat a whole 18-inch chocolate cake in front of the entire school. This needs to be your energy! An ultra-runner is only as good as the food they can devour en route. Getting good at snacking on food whilst on the move can be the difference between making it round or not. It sounds really silly but practising this during your training block is paramount because yes, it is a skill. Just ask Bruce.

I'm not going to lecture you on the exact number of grams you need to consume, or the perfect foods to eat, because we are all different. Personally, I love snacking on pasta, pizza and pineapple deep into runs on the go. I find that these go down easily for me. I'd advise you to find the foods or gels that work for you. Word of caution however – if you're used to relying solely on gels for shorter races – you're going to want to switch that up for these longer distances! When running a half marathon or marathon – you might find that taking on a gel every 7km or so is just about right. When distances creep over that 30-mile mark, your body is going to want more than your usual gels. Utilise the odd training run to take on a few small mouthfuls of food every 20 minutes or so and just graze away.

SIMULATE RACE DAY

You've just completed a long run. The stairs are a little difficult to navigate the next day. Soreness is rife. Then you're told to get back out there to clock some more (easier) miles. Whilst this isn't something I'd encourage you to do every week, or even every other week for that matter, I would advise you to make sure there are at least four times during your training block where you familiarise yourself with running on tired legs. In other words – race day simulation.

For shorter distances, this isn't essential and you could be easily forgiven for never including these back-to-back sessions in a training block. When training for an event, it's vital that training gets you prepared for what's to come on race day. Therefore, for ultra distances, it would be helpful to get your body used to having to move forward even though your legs have had a long day's graft in them already. When you get round to the real thing, muscle memory will kick in and it won't feel as traumatic! An example of this in practice is that I have a client of mine running the London to Brighton 100km next month. Next weekend I have tasked her with running 22km on Saturday and then 20km on the Sunday. We're not setting the world alight – but it's enough to mimic the race conditions. Another approach is to start utilising double session days. For example, I'll frequently run something like 6 miles in the morning and then the same again in the evening.

PUT IN THE WORK

You just can't hide from the work unfortunately. To be confident in your body delivering over longer distances, it's not a case of constantly having to prove your fitness with the aforementioned tough back-to-back sessions. The hard yards, the runs that count the most, are the simple daily sessions. That slight increase in frequency, which leads to a slight increase in volume. Those 30-mile weeks suddenly creeping into 50+ mile weeks due to these subtle changes – this is where the magic is. Being consistent with your training and looking to find gaps in your days/weeks where you can squeeze in more mileage cannot be underestimated. Whilst most of us aren't capable or able to get the volume in like a Dauwalter or a Walmsley, we can do our best to do our mini version of that. I have coached hundreds of runners, and generally, my style is to try and elicit the best performance out of someone with the minimum amount of miles required. Because, let's face it, we are busy folk and running isn't always the centre of our universe. That being said, the event should be respected, and as with any solid relationship, compromise is key. More miles and time on feet will be a game changer.

*All images featured are taken from *@runwithfin Instagram