How I Ran My First Ultra

“You have to love the process.” “What?” “The process. You’re going to spend a hell of a lot more time training for that race then you will actually racing it, so you better embrace the preparation. You know what “they” say, “Life’s a journey, not a destination.”” And so, my training began. These words came from the guy at the running store after I asked him if he had any advice for someone training for their first Ultra. I had just signed up for the Firenze Urban Trail Ultra Challenge. This is a race in Florence, Italy and the challenge was run 13 km’s (8 miles) Saturday night at 9 pm and then 45 km’s (28 miles) Sunday morning at 8:30 am. For the two runs the total vertical climb would be 4600 ft. For me, this was a step up from the Marathon game. It was a mix of road and trail and the vertical climbing was all new.

Taking the advice of the experienced runner, I went home and started my preparation. After the typical path of Google and reading some books on preparing for your first Ultra, I started to sketch out my plan. Based on what I had read, I knew that I wanted to mimic as much as possible every aspect of the race during my training. So, I brainstormed a list and came up with the skeleton for my path forward.

• There will be back to back runs of 13 km’s one day followed by 45 km’s the next, so I need to do back to back runs to get used to running on tired legs.

• I plan on running the flats and downhills and power hiking the uphills, so I need to do reverse hill training to bulletproof the quads.

• Don’t worry about speed, focus on “time on feet”, so let’s add some power hiking to the mix on rest days.

• Need to strengthen my core, push-up time. (I was a little late with this one, but I am convinced that this is very important now; more later.)

• To meet my nutritional needs I will be wearing a vest, so I need to practice long runs with that.

• If all goes well this will take 5 to 6 hours, so I’ll be eating while I run. Add that to the party!

From the acorn grows the mighty oak. This was the outline and from here I went into detailed planning. I started my training the week of January 2nd, right after the holidays. Having run the Florence Marathon, the last week of November combined with some maintenance running throughout December, I still had some fitness, so I wasn’t starting from scratch. This gave me nine weeks to peak. A typical week looked like this:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Easy Run between 10k to 15k (6.2 to 9.4 miles)
Wednesday: Reverse Hills 10k (6.2 miles) Fast Downhill, Power Hike Up
Thursday: Tempo Run 15k (9.4 miles)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 15k Easy (9.4 miles)
Sunday: Long Run 21k to 35k (13 to 21.7 miles)

As an example, the last week before I started my taper was 90.6k (56.2 miles), 3900 ft. of climbing, and 1000 push-ups. You can see all of the elements from the outline are included. Reverse hill training, which in my opinion is not talked about enough. This replicates what you will be doing in the race. If you are going to run the downhills, you need to beat up your quads in training. This does just that. The back to back runs on the weekend, running with my vest and food on Sunday to practice carrying the nutrition and eating while on the move. Push-ups to strengthen the core. And rest. I literally plan my rest because I feel that it’s that important. Your body needs to recover. I normally hike on those days, but I do not run.

Just a minute to discuss why I do the push-ups. As I’ve increased my distances to now exceeding the marathon distance, I was feeling kind of weak for lack of a better word, as the miles were adding up. There would be runs where I would try to reach a little deeper and push, and I was coming up a little empty. It was like I had nothing to “push” against. That is the best way I can put it. Obviously, I knew that core training should be a part of my training, but I was not really having issues until I started to layer in the miles AND the vertical climbing. So, I started doing push-ups, and within a couple of weeks I could feel a big difference on my runs. Therefore, I am a convert. I am trying to do 20,000 push-ups between now and October 21st when I run the 40 mile Triple Lakes Trail Ultra Marathon in Greensboro, NC.

I ate “clean” for these nine weeks. No alcohol, lots of vegetables, fruits, lean meats, fish, nuts and dried fruit, and yogurt. With no cheating. Don’t feel bad for me, I had a very nice December that included plenty of indulgences, but this was training time! I was fueling and eating what my body needed.

When the gentleman at the running store said that I would spend a lot more time training then racing, that was no joke. Race = 36 miles and 4600 ft. of climbing; training = 416 miles and 32,500 ft. of climbing and 3,000 push-ups thrown in for good measure. You better enjoy the process!

As the race approached I created a plan for that as well. By now you probably guessed that I am a plan guy. You know what “they” say “If you don’t have a plan, you have planned to fail.” I would love to meet “they” one day, “they” have a lot of great advice! Using the event website, I printed the elevation profile for the race and then highlighted it in phases by elevation and distance. For the flats and downhills, I planned six minutes per kilometer and for the uphills ten minutes per kilometer. This would bring us in under the cutoffs with plenty of room to spare. And holy crap, it worked! In the end, all of the training and planning and replicating worked! Who’d of thunk it?

There it is. That is how I ran 28 miles and completed the Firenze Urban Trail Ultra Challenge. I’m the kind of guy that will stick to something if it works, you know what “they” say, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Like I said, “they” is one smart dude. So, my training for the 40 miler in October has started and I’m working a very similar plan. The only difference is that I have a lot more time to prepare, so the miles, vertical climbing, and push-ups will be much greater. With all of that extra time, I should be prepared. That’s the great thing about this, the test is always definitive. You have either done enough to get it done or not. Kind of like life huh?

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