Thursday – 7.5 miles
Friday – Rest
Following my efforts on Wednesday night I was back on easy running for the rest of the week as I wait for this Saturday’s 10k. I am not going to tell you all about how I hate tapering and hate missing training on a Thursday, because everyone knows how much I do.
So, I thought I would talk a little about training for ultra marathons. With the MDS now only 250 (ish) days away I have to start thinking about my training. Currently, my focus is the Amsterdam marathon in October, but I can’t just wake up the Monday morning after that marathon and wonder how to train for an ultra. I need to prepare long before that. With that in mind I have begun reading about and talking to those in the know about ultra marathons and races.
This Wednesday I had lunch with Adrian Stott, The Manager of Run and Become in Edinburgh and an extremely experienced ultra marathon runner. His success includes running the 95 mile West Highland Way race 8 times, the quickest being 19 hours 49 minutes. At 24 hours he has represented Great Britain at European and world level, with a personal best of 143 miles 849 yards whilst finishing 8th in the 2000 European Championships, where GB also won team bronze. It’s safe to say he knows a thing or two about this game, so armed with a note pad and pen I went to learn.
Adrian started off by telling me that it takes about 2 years to experiment and learn to find your optimum training level for ultra marathons. Oh dear, I will have approximately 22 weeks after I finish Amsterdam. Adrian did seem quite impressed that I am already doing 90+ mile weeks and the odd 100 mile weeks and agreed that this would be a very good base or ultra marathon training.
Adrian informed me that his training involved a 4 week cycle of building up to a 100 miles and then dropping back to a gentler week. He would do a 4-5 hour run once on a weekend, as part of that. This he said, was about all his body could handle. Anymore and he would get injured and break down. As many of you know, I like running lots of miles. I think it’s a comfort thing, I feel fitter and faster the more miles I run. I genuinely thought that to be successful at ultra marathons and running you would need to put in even more miles than marathon training, so I was quite surprised to hear that many ultra marathon runners do not regularly run 100 mile weeks. William Sichel, Orkney’s world record holder of numerous age-related ultra distances including running 1000 miles in less than 14 days, does it on a 60mile training week. There also of course plenty of research and text to say that more is better too. Adrian pointed out that consistency is the key and that when it comes to mileage it is whatever your body can handle. I think I will see how I get on with my ambitious marathon training programme and then build from there.
He also made a very good point that, “Distance never killed anyone, it’s the pace that does it!”. He seemed very confident in saying that I could probably go out and do a 50 mile run tomorrow, but it would have to be slow, very slow in order to do it without breaking down. The long run is crucial to ultra distance training. Going out for 4, 5 or even 6 hours on a Saturday is not uncommon. It is also not uncommon for these runs to be walked in places too. The key, I learnt, was spending time on your feet. Many 40mile plus runs see competitors on their feet for many hours and that is why it is important to have built up that experience. I have also entered a couple of ultra marathon events in between now and the MDS so I will get that experience too.
For the long runs Adrian suggested just packing a light pack with food, drink and money and just heading off somewhere and then getting the train back to Edinburgh, which sounds both fun and a bit of an adventure too. I am already looking forward to these runs. I wonder where I can get myself too!
One of the things I was really surprised to hear was the importance of maintaining interval training, as part of ultra marathon training. This is to help maintain your body’s ability to burn different types of fat. When I first signed up to the MDS I thought I would have to give up interval training in favour of many more long steady runs. Turns out this is far from the way things should be done. I had heard tales of ultra marathon runners doing some interval training, but Adrian told me that I really should be doing 2 interval sessions a week. He also told me that I can pad them out by doing extra miles at the end of each session. This is actually something I usually do anyway, so who knows maybe I’ll make them even longer now!! Interestingly, several ultra marathon runners have gone on to get PBs at 10k, half-marathon and marathon distances following a sustained period of ultra running. Simon Pride, Scottish ultra marathon and 1999 World Champion at 100km got PBs at all those distances the year he won the World Championship. Maybe something else for me to look forward to!
Something I have learnt during my normal training is how important it is to have a strong core. This helps keep your body stable while running, as well as help with running efficiency, strength and posture. For ultra marathons this even more important and I have already upped my game here with 2minute planks!
The thing about ultra marathons is that they are long, very long! The more you can replicate the conditions towards the end of such a race the better prepared you will be when you get there. Again, Adrian emphasised to me that this is very much down to experimentation and finding out what works for me. One way he used to help prepare his body for dealing with a lack of food stores and dehydration was to not eat and drink in the morning before a run so the body started on empty. He would eat and drink on route, but by starting on empty it replicated (to some extent) the latter part of the race. He told me the first time he did this on a long run he was sick! However, every time he did it after and during races he didn’t, so that first training run clearly helped his body adapt.
Another misconception I had built up about ultras was around tapering. I was fairly certain that because speed isn’t too much of a factor in ultras that tapering wasn’t too important and that probably only a few days rest would be enough. The same rules apply for ultras as do for marathons. Three week tapers, cutting out quantity and leaving the quality, is the way to prepare. I hate tapering, but I guess I’ll have to do it!
However, I think the most important thing Adrian told me was something I already know, but it is worth hearing over and over again, and that is the most important thing in an ultra race is the mind. I discovered in marathon running that your legs only take you so far, the mind takes you the rest of the way. In every marathon I have ever run the last three miles have been run on strength of mind rather than legs, so it makes sense that ultras are the same. In fact, I am sure that the need for a strong mind and will power will be needed a hundred times more for the MDS than any marathon I will run. How do I train for that? Well I plan to take my personal determination, will power and drive to succeed in this race and ingrain it into my psyche. I plan to pull it out on every race, every rep, and every training run where I feel a moment’s weakness between now and the MDS, so that when I get to that race it will have become second nature to me.
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