Mile 48 heading towards the Golden Gate bridge on the Marin Ultra Challenge

Four years ago my running buddy told me his brother ran 50 miles. It was beyond comprehension, 50 miles was not a distance anyone runs. The sheer absurdity drew me in, we agreed to run an ultra-marathon.

Time passed and my buddy bailed. A few years later the unfinished run hung over me; you cannot give up easily on something so audacious. One December evening I paid my entry into the Marin Ultra Challenge, 50 miles of trail running starting and ending at the Golden Gate Bridge.

Three months later I’m at the 6.30am start line wearing a head torch, jumping to keep warm. I remember so much about the day; its little joys, struggles, the great people, the unexpected challenges, the end. Ultra lets you look into your own abyss. You see how you break, and how you put yourself back together. It’s a celebration of positivity more than athleticism.

As the sun set on the Pacific I crossed a dimly lit finish line. My friends bundled me into their car and we drove back across the bridge.

This article is about how a pretty average person ran an ultra, and hopefully it might help you run one as well.

Set a date

Once you’re interested in doing an ultra-marathon the next steps are daunting. They seem so big. Where does one start?

I had to start with a small step. I signed up to a race. Pay $125, put it in my calendar. Tell everyone the date I’d be doing it. This helped me a lot: I had to accept the race was happening. All I could do was plan how to use the three months until the race.

There are great resources online to find a race near you. If you want to run an ultra, stop reading this and sign up to a race now. Choose one that’s close enough to scare you into taking further action.

Countdown to race day

Great, now you’ve signed up to an ultra. I honestly believe that’s the biggest step; so much of long distance running is simply not giving into boredom or convenience. Being enthusiastic about doing it and believing you can do it are the biggest enablers to long distance running.

For me knowing I had to run 50 miles in three months was a great encouragement to do some training. At that point I’d never run much more than a marathon, and never run on trail. Therefore I had a simple training plan: get comfortable running marathons on hilly trails. If that was ok, then doubling the distance would be possible, albeit rough.

People get really into training plans. Taking a training plan from an expert and following it religiously gives a feeling of certainty and satisfies OCD tendencies. Discussing, strategising and spreadsheeting training plans is much easier than training and feels like progress. I err on simplicity (and encourage you to also).

There are a couple of general training principles I find useful to guide me:

Do activities similar to the goal. e.g. you should go running

Listen to your body. Training weakens, rest strengthens. Make sure you rest enough. I found that doing one big run every one or two weeks increased my ability and didn’t overload my body.

Increase the load over time, and decrease it substantially in the period right before the race. For me this meant aiming to run trail marathons on the weekends, although the first few I didn’t make it to the end. I did no running or crossfit during the two weeks before the race, I did things like yoga and gentle cycles.

Learn what pace works for you for a given distance. Between walking and sprinting there is a maximum pace at which you can cover any given distance. The longer the distance the slower it gets. The more you train the faster it gets. You’ll get to know what pace makes you flame out on mile 22, and what pace lets you cover the miles.

My total training was poor. I ran a flat trail marathon, a hilly trail marathon, bonked out at mile 22 of an organised trail marathon and had some other short runs. Yet it turned out that this was enough physical preparation.

What to do whilst running all those miles

Some weekends a lot of my Saturday would be taken up with running. I’d get on an early train, arrive in San Francisco, run over the bridge into the headlands and continue alone until 26 miles were covered (or I flamed out). Then go for dinner/to a house party to make my life feel more normal.

I realised that one of the challenges was that the miles can get boring. As you get bored and tired your mind encourages you to give up. My favourite things to combat this:

Get some epic long music sets. Electronic Daisy Carnival was my favourite. Possibly my favourite moment of the whole year was the drop of an epic set whilst pushing high up into the hills looking back over San Francisco.

Find a trail you’ve not done before. I usually didn’t consult maps so I had the fun of not knowing where I was going or how I’d get back, which kept it more interesting.

Mindful running (that is, switching off your train of thought) worked for an early stint of 6 miles for me. When things were tough I could not be mindful.

Have some rewards at the end. Dreaming of Gatorade got me through about 6 miles. Having some people I was really looking forward to seeing that night also helped.

Reciting long poetry. I memorised T.S. Elliot’s ‘The Wasteland’ and would shout it as I ran. This was when I was finding things tough, so I looked a bit wild.

I would endlessly repeat to myself “if you can stand up then you can take another step”.

I’ve never received so many (or any) compliments for my clothing as this day. Every tenth runner told me how much they liked the tye-dye. And this is California, there is no sarcasm. This was a 50km run later in the year.

Nutrition

Like training plans, nutrition is a topic people enjoy debating endlessly. I embraced a simple approach: whatever felt good and worked on my training runs. It seems that different things work for different runners.

Things that worked for me:

Grinding down quarter Cliff Bars when I noticed I was at all below normal energy levels helped keep energy levels stable.

Grinding Cliff Bars also stopped me from the urge to throw up when running uphill many miles in.

Fast release glucose stuff (goo/gels/candy/Gatorade) gave me a peak then a crash. I avoided it for as long as possible, trying to rely on my initial energy reserves. After many miles I’d run out of energy reserves and resort to sports candy, it’d keep me moving but I’d be no better from it.

Potatoes dipped in salt are a nice easy to eat carb source.

Tailwind (a gut friendly electrolyte with a bit of glucose) was a welcome drink mid-race.

Coca-cola and Mountain Dew helped me keep going when things felt tough.

Watermelon slices always bring happiness.

I’d always wear a pack with a water bladder and easy to reach snacks. This let me continually top up my water and food needs. An additional benefit was that I never worried about aid station locations, nor had to stop at stations (risking a small revolt from my muscles).

It’s finally race day

You’ve done the epic weekend runs. You’ve worked out how to get to the start line at some horribly early start time. You’ve picked the greatest running lycra and/or costume. Now you just need to run.

At this point (mile 40 of the Marin Ultra Challenge) I took off my shoes and socks and ran into the sea, telling my friends I’d buy them ice-cream. Oli Zeldin came to have his second (very effective) “You’re a failure of a friend” talk with me.

I learnt some surprising things about myself on the first ultra. I found out that I’m poor at motivation, and twice gave up on the race out of boredom/having no reason to continue. I found out that the only thing that motivates me in that situation is my friends telling me that I’d wasted their time and I sucked. I found out having a friend waiting at the next aid station gave me no motivation to get there. I found that despite giving up twice I had enough energy reserves to happily sprint towards the finish over the last two miles. I learnt that another runner’s spirit and positivity can inspire me to do much more than I thought I could.

The day after the first ultra was awesome. I woke up more exhausted than I’ve ever felt before; a deep satisfying exhaustion: one is perfectly awake but without energy. I curled up in bed and had the best day off of my life, because it felt so justified.

Ultra-marathons are strange things. I both curse every one I do and crave to do another tougher one. The feeling of personal oblivion is scary and transfixing. The magnitude of effort is distinct and memorable, a milestone upon your year or life. They bring a focussed purpose. They are useless. Being high up on trails in beautiful scenery, with a positive crowd of people and swirling endorphins is a moving experience. Ultras remind you that no matter how much you ask of your body, it can always do more, and that our mental limits are so far below our capabilities.

Ultra-marathons are the experience of positivity winning over your own mental limits. In short, I’d recommend one.