What it really takes to train for your first multi-stage ultramarathon
On Saturday 20th August 2022 Project: Breaking 250 crossed the finish line of RacingThePlanet: Lapland. A 250km self-supported multi-stage ultramarathon above the Artic Circle, carrying everything we needed to survive on our backs for the 7 days of the race.
I am so very grateful to have been able to support the group through this journey and to celebrate the incredible accomplishments. Finally meeting the group in person in Finland, who we had trained with (virtually) since the start of the year was something magical and I know I am not speaking alone when I say it was a completely and utterly life changing experience.
Let’s be clear this was a group of ordinary women taking on this insurmountable extraordinary feat of a challenge. It was a journey to put it lightly and that journey together started back in January 2022.
Today I wanted to share with you the sexy or rather the unsexy truths behind training for your first multi-stage ultramarathon. I want to debunk some of the myths and really be honest with you by opening the training logs (anonymously of course!) from the Breaking 250 group who successfully completed RacingThePlanet: Lapland 2022 last month.
Training for your first multi-stage ultra-marathon can often feel scary and intimidating. There will be doubts, wobbles, throw in a touch of imposter syndrome but that’s where we come in. A team of female trail blazers in your back pocket whenever you need us most. Whether it’s a pick me up you need or some advice of the next piece of lightweight fancy kit on your shopping list, we’ve got your back.
The training is the easy part, believe it or not. Often what feels like the hardest part is the indecision in committing and entering the race itself because you’re not totally clear on the scope of undertaking this type of challenge, how on earth you’re supposed to approach and plan for it around the daily juggle of everyday life.
I want to open and share our training logs with you because I want you to know you are wildly capable of achieving something like this no matter where you are right now. I absolutely believe that everyone should sign up for a multistage ultramarathon at least one in their life, and as cliché as it sounds, it truly is so much more than a race.
Let’s look at the 5 juicy findings from our training logs.
1. 30% of workouts were strength training or cross training
There are two types of runners, those who strength train and those who do not. Athletes, especially endurance athletes use strength training for a myriad of reasons. They get stronger to enhance their performance and increase their resilience to injury not to get stronger so they can lift a heavier back squat with their gym buddies.
My own strength training journey started back in 2015 when I walked into my physiotherapist’s office (yet again) with another niggle. At the time I was solely running and not following any real plan. After being reluctantly persuaded to join the newly opened CrossFit box, I was hooked. Since the beginning of 2021, I’ve been studying the FRC training method and am now qualitied in both Functional Range Conditioning (FRC) and Functional Range Assessment (FRA). Let’s just say strength and mobility practice is a non-negotiable part of my weekly training routine.
No one really knows how much strength is sufficient for endurance athletes but if there is one thing for sure it’s that menopause demands a different approach to strength training. Since the average age of the Breaking 250 group this year was 45 so we had women who were approaching this phase, currently in and already through their menopausal years. The reality is, both men and women naturally loose muscle and strength with age and if you do nothing about it you can expect to lose 8% each decade after your thirtieth birthday so it’s never too early to start thinking about this.
I often see women falling into this habit of lifting lighter weights for higher rep because you have this nagging voice in the back of your head telling you that if you lift heavy sh*t you will get bulky, and this will slow them down on the trails. If you do nothing else, do this and lift heavy sh*t and by this, I mean lifting for pure strength, that’s six reps or less with as much weight as possible. Ideally you should be strength training two to three days a week and combining these with some sprint interval training (SIT) to reap the best rewards.
2. 9 hours of training weekly across all workout types
Women are busy, let’s just put it out there. This year you were spending hours travelling into the city for work, studying for a master’s degrees, project managing your entire house renovation, being a stay-at-home mum, all whilst trying to save the world oh and train for a 250km ultramarathon whilst you’re at it.
One of the biggest things I hear when I spoke to the group at the very beginning of our journey was, they were nervous about making the leap because of the time (away) they thought it would take for training. Not just the weekend long runs but fitting in strength training around the daily juggle of work and family life. There was definitely an overriding feeling of guilt about taking time out for yourself because you know it takes away time spent with loved ones.
But running for you is more than just physical, it gives you that headspace and sense of fulfilment you crave. So, you can be a better human being when you’re back at your desk, playing with your kids or have you head buried in your thesis.
1 hour 20 minutes of training daily seems more than manageable right? Remember this is an average across all activities, looking solely at running and hiking workouts this is less than 60 minutes daily. Of course, there were weeks when this was much lower. In the first 8 weeks training cycle this was no more than 60 minutes daily across all workout types and in the later stages this averaged out at 1 hour 45 minutes with the peak week topping out at 2 hours daily for 4 consecutive weeks.
It’s hard enough for you to cram in time to do all the training you want and need to do. My advice, make it count. Don’t waste your time doing pointless sh*t that doesn’t serve you, like running your easy runs too hard, hard runs too easy and following the latest IG workout.
3. 50km was the longest single training session
On average the longest single training session from the Breaking 250 group was 50km. There were some who only reached 30km, but we utilised back-to-back training sessions and others who got up to 50 miles, which is usually the equivalent distance to the long march on day 5 of any multi-stage ultra-marathon. Dubbed the double marathon day.
Factors such as previous training history, injury, other scheduled races, and confidence are all deciding factors on how long these sessions end up being. The least total time any one athlete in the group spent on their single longest training session was just shy of 5 hours, which equated for an average of nine hours of time spent on feet.
Back-to-back sessions can sometimes get a bad rap in the ultra-running world about whether they are really necessary. I want to give you my take on them, why I’m a huge advocate for them (if used sparingly and scheduled in at the right time!).
First off, they are useful if you have family and life commitments on the weekend and can’t afford to go out and run long runs of 20, 30, 40 miles or more every weekend. Unless you’re an elite runner, my guess is you don’t have that sort of time to dedicate to running.Splitting the distances and getting it out of the way in the morning means you have the rest of the day to spend with family and friends.
And more importantly the mental part of running on tired legs is huge. Back-to-back long runs give you lots of confidence in your legs for come race day because you know how it’s going to feel in the latter stages if your event and more importantly you know you’re capable of pushing through and going again the day after.
4. 2 planned rest days each week
Rest days, strength training and taper – the three words you should avoid at all costs when talking to an ultrarunner, in fact at runner. Whilst you’ll often feel restless and counterproductive on rest days, it’s tempting to skip them. More hour’s training can only be a good thing, right?
Rest days allow your body and mind to recovery from the workouts. The hours and days following a workout are when the body responds and adapts to the training so it should come as no surprise that what you do or don’t do during this time can directly impact your body’s response to the training stress.
Forget the expensive fancy gadgets and latest supplements, when it comes to recovering from training, the basics always win. Factors such as adequate sleep, proper nutrition and hydration, and stretching/massage are instrumental to the recovery process when training for a multi-stage ultramarathon because come race day you will to get up and do it all over on day 2, 3 and so on.
There is no magic formula to calculate the number of rest days each athlete needs, and it’s affected by so many things including how stressful your everyday life is. Whilst some of the Breaking 250 group this year were fine with one planned rest day a week, there were weeks when some had four planned rest days scheduled. As a rule, those who are newer to structured training should take two or three rest days whilst more experienced athletes may be fine with one or two.
I hope that sharing this with you has given you a lovely little confidence boost and squashed your previously held beliefs that training for your first ultramarathon is possible and doesn’t have to be scary, intimidating and all consuming.
Did you find that helpful? Was there anything that surprised you about what it really takes to train for your first multi-stage ultramarathon?