The Ultra Recipe
If running an ultra was like baking a cake, which ingredients are the flour and butter, and which are sprinkles and chocolate sauce?
When I write training plans for ultra distances, it’s a bit more like being a chef than it is following a recipe. Which ingredients does this athlete need for success? It’s not the same for everyone, just as some of us can’t get enough chilli, and others find Cumberland sausages too spicy.
To create a good recipe for yourself you need to consider the demands of your race against what your current skills, strengths and competencies are, and where the gaps are. Here’s a menu of ingredients for you to pick from. I see these as the core ‘cake’; there are more (icing, sprinkles!) we could argue make it even tastier, but without these there is no cake.
Fit and fast (for you!)
I’m a big believer in staying as fast as you can be when you train for ultras. Think of your pace as a house (bear with me!), with your fastest speed up by the ceiling and your easy ultra-shuffle pace down by the floor. Often when we train for long distance we focus on lots and lots of easy pace, and the load of that mileage can mean there’s less space for focused speed work. Gradually, the ceiling of the house starts to drop downwards, and it can start to become harder to maintain the ‘floor’ pace, so that may drop too. Training for ultras doesn’t mean cutting out fast running.
Strong and durable
On the other hand…! Ultra distance necessarily involves being able to move efficiently and without overuse injury over big distances. One way of acquiring that ability is (surprise!) to run more. I recommend spreading the volume throughout the week rather than over-emphasising big miles at the weekend (keep your long run, but it doesn’t need to be epic every week). If you’ve been around here a little while, you’ll also know that I’m a big fan of adventure days and fastpacking - mixed run/hike days which let you accumulate miles without continuous running. Bear in mind that running more isn’t the only way. Almost all of my ultra distance athletes take their strength training really seriously (those who don’t usually have an excellent reason, such as a physical job which provides all the strength training they need). If you’re struggling to up the mileage without developing niggles, fatigue or soreness, consider adding gym work before you add more miles, and remember also that you need to eat and sleep enough for your body to respond positively to what you’re adding.
Balancing these two ingredients can involve compromise. You can’t do everything, all at once. If you’re coming into ultra running from a background of shorter, faster races, you’ll probably need to focus on building durability for a season or few. If you’re an ultra veteran, you’ve probably become pretty durable, and might benefit from scaling back your mega-long days (yes, those ones you love!) to make space to work on speed.
Resilient and good at problem-solving
Mental toughness in races has more to do with feeling confident and competent than it does with being able to white-knuckle your way through horrible things. Yes; it’s hard, and there will be points when you’re managing both internal and external discomfort. But see your approach more as a big mental toolkit to select from than the single massive hammer of ‘MORE GRIT!’. Self-efficacy is a useful concept; it captures the sense of feeling capable, that you can meet the challenges being presented to you and deal with them competently. Self-efficacy has been related to mental toughness; it’s a factor in being able to tolerate discomfort, regulate negative emotions, and keep persisting. You can develop self-efficacy by gradually exposing yourself to more challenge, and increasing the range of situations and problems you feel competent to tackle. In our ultra running context, this probably involves long days out on your feet - it’s the adventure days again. Counterintuitively, I often prescribe longer training days for first-time ultra runners than I do for experienced ones. We make the pace very easy; sometimes it’s just a long hike. The purpose of the day isn’t physiological; it’s about developing psychological skills and the confidence that you can take care of yourself.
Good at eating
Being able to keep fuel going into the engine is an important performance factor too, and one which, like everything else, you can get better at. Consider your target fuelling plan (what, how much, how often) well in advance of your target event, and try it out in training. If something doesn’t work perfectly, consider trying once or twice more before you conclude it’s not for you. The gut takes time to adapt just as the rest of your body does, and you can train it to do more. While most of us don’t need to fuel like pros, the principle of training fuelling as a specific skill is one we absolutely should adopt.
Developing the recipe that’s right for you takes time and patience, and it’s likely you’ll also need to compromise, at times - most of us don’t have capacity for a plan that does everything all at once. You may need to be honest with yourself if you recognise a need to work on an ingredient you’re less fond of, but remember that something you can’t do right now is an exciting opportunity to do something you can’t do yet.
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