The pillars of ultramarathon training
It’s been longer than I would have liked since my first post but here is my next post! Having been put on the sidelines due to an ongoing foot issue for the past few months, I am patiently waiting until I am up and running again. When I start up again, there are always some key things that I include in my training for both increased performance and longevity. This post aims to share some of these principles that I use in the hope that you can maybe apply something from here to your own training.
I first thought of the analogy between running training and cars a couple of years ago when I started taking running a bit more seriously. The basic idea was that when building a car from the bottom up, there are some key steps in the process. Firstly, one should make sure that the foundations of the car, that is the frame an the chassis, are strong enough to both hold key parts, like the engine, but also to withstand any unforeseen impacts. Secondly, once the chassis is built, the next key part is the engine. And lastly, once these have been developed for strength and performance, one needs both fuel, to power the car, and a driver, to control the car.
Basic tips
Before I jump into some general advice on things that have worked for me, here are three things to keep in mind whilst reading.
10% rule - don’t increase your weekly mileage by more than 10% of the previous week’s mileage from one week to the next.
80:20 rule - aim for 80% of your training being easy and 20% of it hard.
Easy days easy, hard days hard - this is perhaps the most important of them. Be honest with yourself, make sure your easy days are easy (conversational pace) and that your hard days are hard (threshold/anaerobic).
These are merely rough guides to follow. Remember, what works for someone else might not work for you, vice versa.
Chassis
Having a strong body is fundamental to being able to run to your full potential - without a strong body, it doesn’t matter what your engine is like. You must build strength and aim to be more balanced so that you can train without picking up an injury.
Strength work
Perhaps the key running specific areas one should focus on in their strength training are single leg exercises and core strength/stability exercises. The single leg exercises will allow your legs to work similar muscles to those used when running and will also help to balance out any imbalances in your body. This is key for injury prevention as injuries often arise due to one part of your body compensating for a weakness elsewhere. Core stability is just as important as it is the foundation of good running form. Remember, everything is connected, so if your hips and core are weak, this will affect your running stride, which could lead to injury. Aim to perform some basic core exercises at least a couple of times after your runs.
On the topic of strength work, runners often neglect upper body strength work. In my opinion, this is a bad move, especially for the longer stuff. I think runners, especially marathon runners, often think that anything above the core is just extra weight that will slow them down. Although this may be somewhat true for the shorter stuff, for ultramarathons, I think that being strong all around is helpful as it brings more balance to the body. Don’t worry about hitting ‘race weight’ for an ultra, so long as you nail the fundamentals in training, your body should naturally adapt to what is best for you. Some simple, yet effective, upper body exercises are push ups, dips, and pull ups. If done with good form, you really can grow a lot of strength from them, and they are free to do!
Mobility work
There is not much point getting stronger if you don’t have the mobility to run with good form. This is an aspect that I have personally started to take more seriously this year and I would strongly suggest any runners who don’t incorporate a mobility/stretching routine into their training to do so.
Just like with the strength work, doing less more regularly is the way to go - aim to build a short 10-20 minute daily routine of running specific movements as well as other movements that are designed to counteract the stiffness we develop from sitting down too much. There are plenty of free routines online that you can follow and use to build up your own routine!
A key point to note here is that 10-15 minutes of strength and mobility work nearly every day can make a huge difference when it comes to injury prevention. Too often, runners only start implementing these habits after they pick up an injury, but the key is to incorporate this work into your training now, before you pick up an injury. Here is a good, basic mobility routine for runners: [1].
Running workouts
The next tool that both myself and a lot of other ultrarunners use to build strength are hills. Hills are great for two reasons - they help improve your running stride by strengthening the small core and leg muscles and they are also fun! In terms of hills, there are two key types of sessions that I would recommend:
Hill sprints - great for explosive work and for working your fast twitch muscle fibers. These should be relatively short reps, no longer than ~1 minute, above threshold. They are great for getting the body used to having to surge up hill, but also force your body to recruit parts that it might not use when running slow and/or on the flat.
Long, aerobic hills - these are key to gain leg strength and to help get your body used to working against gravity for long periods of time. Aim to stay aerobic, taking short steps on your forefoot. Too achieve different stimulus, switch to a ‘power hiking’ type technique when the terrain gets steeper. Being able to tell when power hiking is more efficient than running uphill can save you a lot of energy and time during an ultra.
Engine
Running workouts
The next fundamental when it comes to running training is to build your engine - both the low-end (endurance) and the high-end (speed) of the spectrum. As you can guess, when running for 50-200+ km, good endurance is key, however, many runners neglect the so-called ‘base building’ phase of training. Before focusing on any ultrarunning/race specifics, make sure you spend some time running easy and spending a lot of time on your feet. This requires patience, but is key. To make it more exciting, explore new routes, get lost, or even just go hiking in the mountains for a whole day - so long as you stay aerobic during these runs, your endurance will benefit greatly.
Long runs are key, but what I have learned from experience, is that speed workouts are also important. If you wish to be competitive, incorporating a weekly speed session in your training could make that difference when racing as they will allow your body to get used to the speed, making it easier to kick either during or at the end of a race.
For me, my favorite, and key workout, is a threshold long run. Here, I run my usual long run distance during peak training, but at threshold. I believe that this has massively helped me become faster over the longer stuff as I am training my body to push through the pain and to flush out lactic quicker. But be careful, there is a fine line between getting immense benefits and over-training here.
Cross training
As well as using these workouts to improve your speed and endurance, cross training can be a very effective way of increasing volume without too much added injury risk. Good cross training activities include cycling, rowing, swimming, and just about anything else that works your body using different muscles to running. One effective method you could use to increase the volume of your biggest weekends is to do your long run and then hop on the bike for a couple of hours immediately after.
Before moving on, something I have tried to do more recently is not to get hung up on whether something constitutes ‘good training’. Just prioritise movement and have fun. Go and play football, do some yoga, or go and mess around in the park. Ultimately, this will pay off and your physical and mental health will be better for it.
Race specific work
The last piece of the puzzle is making sure that you are aware of the terrain of your goal race. There’s no point taking an Aston Martin to drive over some mountains. Closer to your race, maybe around 10-8 weeks out, start to implement runs that aim to emulate terrain similar to what you will face on race day. If it is mountainous, try and spend some long days in the mountains. If it is a long road ultra, get used to pounding your joints on concrete for long periods of time.
Driver (& Fuel)
Finally, the last piece of the puzzle is the driver and the fuel. It’s all well and good having a good chassis (strength) and engine (endurance and speed), but if you don’t have it up there, then that could be it during an ultra. For me, the easiest way to improve on your mental game during an ultra is to just get comfortable being uncomfortable and when your thoughts start to wander, have some sort of action plan in place. At the end of the day, your body is far more capable than you think and despite how cliche it sounds, it is all in the head. This is why long runs are important - being able to practice what you plan to do on race day in terms of pacing and nutrition can be huge for the mental game.
This takes me to the next important point - the fuel. There is no point having a diesel car and putting petrol in it. Although many runners will agree that fueling is important, I believe that it is still far more important than people think, from the perspective of both your running and recovery. Food is fuel, but not all food is equal fuel. A common misconception many runners and athletes have is that to fuel yourself for optimal performance and endurance, you must eat lots of carbohydrates - they are what gives you energy at the end of the day, right? This is a whole other topic that deserves its own blog post but I fundamentally believe that to maximise performance and endurance for ultrarunning, you must eat a clean diet, containing high amounts of dietary fats, with very limited simple carbohydrates. When running for a long time, you will mostly be in an aerobic heart rate zone, meaning that you will predominately be burning fat as fuel. Therefore, why would you rely mainly on carbs when training and racing for these long distances? For me, it seems like a no brainer to increase dietary fats and to decrease simple carbohydrates (which are themselves inflammatory). I digress, if you are interested in learning more about this, take a look at Dr. Phil Maffetone [2] and Prof. Tim Noakes’ work [3]. Personally, changing to foods higher in healthy fats and cutting out simple carbohydrates has improved both my running and my day to day life.
One point I would like to emphasise here is the fact that I don’t think the word diet is either healthy or sustainable, as it often refers to eating certain types of foods for a certain amount of time. Instead, view all of these things collectively as little things that combine to form part of a healthy lifestyle. In terms of food, just aim for plenty of protein, healthy fats, and fruits and vegetables.
Although I think that this sort of lifestyle is best for longevity, consistency, and staying injury-free in your running, there is a case for eating carbohydrates during a run. From this point of view, try to experiment with different ‘snacks’ during your long runs and make sure that they contain an adequate amount of carbohydrates, but also fats and a little protein - what works for you might not work for someone else on this front too. There are many running fuel brands that sell gels and bars at very high prices, but homemade snacks can be just as good and save you a lot of money. For me, during my long runs and races, my fueling looks similar to what’s below.
Run fueling
Here are some of the things that I eat during my long runs and races.
- Bananas with nut butter.
- Oat fatbombs: rolled oats, coconut flakes, coconut oil and/or olive, nut butter, honey, chia seeds, dark chocolate or cocoa powder - melt and mix until the right texture to form into balls and then chill in the fridge until you need them for your runs.
- Salted nuts: any kind works but the salt is key as a tool to help fight against cramps.
- Avocado: a weird one, but if you can stomach it, it is great fuel.
- Water: I personally only drink water during my long runs but I am aware of top athletes who mix in maple syrup or honey for the extra carbohydrates.
The last thing that I would like to note here is the importance of hydration. Make sure to practice taking on enough water during training so that you are used to it when it comes to race day. Getting your hydration wrong by either drinking too much or too little can end your race, so find what works for you and stick to the plan!
And that’s it, those are in my opinion, some of the fundamentals of ulramarathon training. By no means is this a complete guide, nor am I saying that these are more important than some other aspects, but these should serve as a good base to build your training off. I hope you enjoyed this post and the analogy between a car and running training. Please comment any thoughts that you have!
References
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4ZJXhCmORA
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4ZJXhCmORA
[3] https://www.amazon.com/Lore-Running-4th-Timothy-Noakes/dp/0873229592