Ultra Running

"marathonman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I'm planning to run my first ultra marathon. I have run over 30
marathons. I'm looking for some training advice. I normallly run about
60 - 70 per week when training for a marathon. I have began to back
off my pace to a comfortable pace that I can hold for a couple hours
without my heartrate becoming elevated. I am planning to do an ultra
in Wakefield Ma. I plan on upping my mileage to 80 -90 miles. When
training for marathons my long run pace was around 7 minute pace. I
have slowed my runs to 7:30 ppm to prevent fatigue. Any comments and
suggestions welcome.

What race,what distance, what elevation? When running ultras start
thinking about running for hours and in elevation and forget miles. 20
miles on a rail trail is not the same as 20 with 4,000 feet of up and
down, What is you goal for your first, to finish, top ten, don't allow a
female in front, beat all the 60 year olds?

You may just find that the 60-70 miles when run with lots of elevation
is all you'll need or all you can handle. Then again if the race is the
24 hour around the lake(pancake flat) , you have just an extended road
race and a different animal. A little more info will help.

-Doug

"marathonman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I'm planning to run my first ultra marathon. I have run over 30
marathons. I'm looking for some training advice. I normallly run about
60 - 70 per week when training for a marathon. I have began to back
off my pace to a comfortable pace that I can hold for a couple hours
without my heartrate becoming elevated. I am planning to do an ultra
in Wakefield Ma. I plan on upping my mileage to 80 -90 miles. When
training for marathons my long run pace was around 7 minute pace. I
have slowed my runs to 7:30 ppm to prevent fatigue. Any comments and
suggestions welcome.
Scott

I'd echo Doug's comments, and only add that if you're looking to run a
fairly flat 50k, you might want to keep the bulk of your marathon training
program, and just do slightly longer runs. Add much elevation, and up the
distance to 50 miles or more, and you might want to make more substantial
changes.

-Tony

Doug Freese said:

What race,what distance, what elevation?

He mentioned Wakefield, MA - dunno how many umtras they have there tho'

PS My Grandma was from Wakefield, West Riding of Yorkshire :-P

steve common said:

Doug Freese said:

What race,what distance, what elevation?

He mentioned Wakefield, MA - dunno how many umtras they have there tho'

PS My Grandma was from Wakefield, West Riding of Yorkshire :-P

Could be a 24-hr on a "Certified marathon course MA99018RN, 3.16 mile,
scenic, flat loop course around Lake Quannapowitt"
http://www.srr.org/
Click on 24-hr race under Annual events (menu on left). Then course
description.

Or there could be other ultras there.

Dot

--
"The goal is training and adaptation, not destruction and injury."
- John Hardy
http://www.mountainrunning.coolrunning.com.au/misc/training.shtml

Dot dot.h@#duh?att.net said:

steve common said:

"Doug Freese" <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

What race,what distance, what elevation?

Quoted message said:

He mentioned Wakefield, MA - dunno how many umtras they have there tho'

Quoted message said:

PS My Grandma was from Wakefield, West Riding of Yorkshire :-P

Could be a 24-hr on a "Certified marathon course MA99018RN, 3.16 mile,
scenic, flat loop course around Lake Quannapowitt"http://www.srr.org/
Click on 24-hr race under Annual events (menu on left). Then course
description.

Or there could be other ultras there.

Dot

--
"The goal is training and adaptation, not destruction and injury."
- John Hardyhttp://www.mountainrunning.coolrunning.com.au/misc/training.shtml

It is a pancake flat course. My goal is to do as many mile as I can. I
have good marathon time 2:51.
Scott

"marathonman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

It is a pancake flat course. My goal is to do as many mile as I can. I
have good marathon time 2:51.

We had some fun with marathon bests vs. ultra finishes on the ultra
forum just recently. While speedy marathon times will suggest some
approximation to finish times in a hundred, it's just one of many. It's
seems in some races the 2:30 person dusts the 2:14 in a trail race. Just
a fun point.

Running in a circle on a flat course for 24/48/72 hours is a whole
different animal even in the ultra world. The most difficult aspect is
finding a run/walk proportion to get you through the 24 hours. Hopefully
you/re not anticipating running every single mile. You are using the
same muscles for the entire time and they only way you can keep from
frying your muscles is to use walking for a break and to keep you
moving. If it was a trail race per se, walking all or at least the
harshest ups is how that we insert some energy(glycogen) conservation.
Without hills you need to resort to some time or mileage scenario and
there are no hard and fast ratios.

I still think you will need to have a strength base, meaning runs some
hills as part of your training, but you will also need to do some
long(hours) flat runs(say on a track) to experience the specificity of
the race. You will then need to learn to eat, drink and have a damn good
idea how much salt you will need during these training runs.

Good luck! This might be one type of race where I might actually use
and Ipod. Please promise yourself to try a trail ultra at some future
point - they are a different type of fun.

-Doug

marathonman said:

It is a pancake flat course. My goal is to do as many mile as I can. I
have good marathon time 2:51.
Scott

How relevant is that pace to running over 8 times that duration? Or put
another way, how long can you maintain that?

That was just a question to put a 24-hr race into perspective - and
participating throughout the race.

As Doug mentioned consider a run/walk strategy and also a strategy for
hydration, electrolytes, and fuel. The run/walk is frequently faster and
easier to train for for many runners, including the faster ones (those
winning US natl champs, at least some years, not sure about in general).
As Doug mentions, it uses muscles differently, but the run pace will
be closer to something you might already run at. The walking break gives
some recovery and time for digestion - generally at least 3 min, iirc.
Some better trained runners use run 25 / walk 5 for ease of keeping
track and the numbers seem to work out ok for transitions, eating, etc.
Others do much shorter run/walk ratios.

At least your loop is over 3 mi and not on a track. In more typical
ultras with hilly terrain, the terrain dictates the walk breaks. So you
may find the strategies for a 24-hr race different from those for
finishing a 100-mi mountainous ultra in 24 hr.

Good luck.

Dot

--
"The goal is training and adaptation, not destruction and injury."
- John Hardy
http://www.mountainrunning.coolrunning.com.au/misc/training.shtml

Dot dot.h@#duh?att.net said:

marathonman said:

It is a pancake flat course. My goal is to do as many mile as I can. I
have good marathon time 2:51.
Scott

How relevant is that pace to running over 8 times that duration? Or put
another way, how long can you maintain that?

That was just a question to put a 24-hr race into perspective - and
participating throughout the race.

As Doug mentioned consider a run/walk strategy and also a strategy for
hydration, electrolytes, and fuel. The run/walk is frequently faster and
easier to train for for many runners, including the faster ones (those
winning US natl champs, at least some years, not sure about in general).
As Doug mentions, it uses muscles differently, but the run pace will
be closer to something you might already run at. The walking break gives
some recovery and time for digestion - generally at least 3 min, iirc.
Some better trained runners use run 25 / walk 5 for ease of keeping
track and the numbers seem to work out ok for transitions, eating, etc.
Others do much shorter run/walk ratios.

At least your loop is over 3 mi and not on a track. In more typical
ultras with hilly terrain, the terrain dictates the walk breaks. So you
may find the strategies for a 24-hr race different from those for
finishing a 100-mi mountainous ultra in 24 hr.

Good luck.

Dot

--
"The goal is training and adaptation, not destruction and injury."
- John Hardyhttp://www.mountainrunning.coolrunning.com.au/misc/training.shtml

Dot and Doug,
thanks for your input. I have to start seeing what types of foods are
easiely disgested for me. I know that when I ran a trail marathon,
(monster marathon) ,pretzels worked good for sodium. Besides all the
other goodies they had on the course. i couldn't see doing a 24 hour
ultra on a track. But I have run a marathon that was 8 loops before
and didn't have any problems with that.
Scott

Hey Scott, never chatted with ya, pleasure to meet you, as Pendejo and
others might note, I know a great deal about these Ultras. The
neatest thing about them as per this article that was published just
today, 1) those in them tend to be less competitive and 2) the average
age of a typical runner is 45. So if you are like your namesake & God
of the endeavor, Scott Jurek (basically a pup amongst old guys, you
can clean up and dominate no problem as you've got no competition out
there). Could translate into some nice medals and it's about time
someone on rec.running other than Mark H capture some awards! Go for
it and let us know how it turns out! BTW, Pendejo Classic in less
than 72 hours, 13.1 in Brooklyn!

L Smith
Harlem 26.2
http://harlemrunner.blogspot.com/
(sunday Harlem saluted New Zealand, Lydiard & Snell & the Kiwis loved
it)

____
By Cindy Billhartz Gregorian
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
4/11/07

ST. LOUIS - It's a sport so grueling that even marathoners scratch
their heads in bewilderment and ask, "What? Running 26.2 miles isn't
enough?"

The answer: Nope, not for some people.

Extreme fatigue, black toenails, hallucinations ... that's when those
people know for sure that they've met their challenge.

Recent years have seen the ballyhoo surrounding ultramarathoner and
author Dean Karnazes, who once ran 350 miles virtually nonstop and
recently finished 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days.
But Karnazes isn't the oddity that he'd have you believe.

Gwen Heist-Hall ran her first marathon in 1997 and says she felt great
at the end.

"So I thought, 'Let's see what I can do that's harder than this,' and
I found it," she said.

Heist-Hall, 40, of Wildwood, Mo., was referring to the Brew-to-Brew
ultramarathon, a 44-mile romp from a microbrewery in Kansas City to a
microbrewery in Lawrence, Kan. Since then, she's run dozens more
ultramarathons, including three 100-mile races. She didn't finish one
of them because of a stress fracture.

Jan Ryerse had run several dozen marathons when he decided they were
becoming too competitive for his taste.

"Then I heard about these people who were doing longer runs than
marathons, and around that time U.S. Track & Field held their U.S.
Championship 50K (about 31 miles) race, so I signed up. That was
December 1989," says Ryerse, 61, of Manchester, Mo. The extra five
miles were so hard that Ryerse didn't revisit the ultradistance for
several years. Seven years later, he gave it another shot and has run
more than 50 ultramarathons, including two dozen 100-mile races since
then.

"People tend to be less competitive in ultramarathons; they go at it
at a relaxed pace," he says. "When you come to a big hill, you don't
run up the hill, you walk up the hill. It's more of a personal
challenge because you're not competing as much against other people as
you are yourself."

Ryerse and Heist-Hall are among a growing number of marathoners, both
locally and nationally, who have joined Karnazes in ultrarunning. Some
ultramarathons are based on pre-determined distances. The most common
are 30-, 50- and 100-mile events. Other races give runners specified
amounts of time, ranging from a few hours up to several days to cover
as many miles as possible. The runner who goes the farthest wins. They
run on roads, trails, tracks, even treadmills. Some run through
deserts and up into high altitudes.

The recent growth of the St. Louis Ultrarunners Group is a testament
to the sport's rise in popularity. It has 110 members, more than three
times as many as four years ago, when David White took over as
president. They've also expanded their repertoire of area races from
two to four to accommodate everyone who wants to do them.

"Our races are filling up months in advance," says White, 47, of
Chamois, Mo. "There's been a big increase in the number of people
doing marathons, and after they run a few of those, they want to see
what they can do next. People just want to test their limits."

OLDER MAY BE BETTER

To outsiders, ultrarunners may sound nutty or obsessive. But most are
highly educated and highly motivated individuals. White, who has run
19 or 20 ultramarathons (he's lost count), says that the average age
of ultrarunners is 45 and that almost as many women as men run them.

"Women seem to do better over longer distances than men," he says.
"It's not unusual to see women win ultramarathons outright or to place
in the top five."

Ryerse, a professor in microscopy at St. Louis University, says older
runners have an advantage over younger ones because they're more
patient, which is crucial for pacing. He typically starts an
ultramarathon at 5 to 5.5 miles an hour, several minutes per mile
slower than what he's capable of doing in shorter races.

His patience has paid off.

Three years ago, Ryerse won a 72-hour run in Phoenix called "Across
the Year," which starts a couple of days before New Year's and
finishes the morning of Jan. 1. For a while, he also held the USA
Track & Field distance record for masters for running 121 miles in 24
hours. It's since been broken.

Heist-Hall points out that no one is going to win an ultramarathon in
the first 10 miles, but a runner can certainly lose it there by going
out too fast and then hitting the wall three-quarters of the way into
the race. She thinks the pacing aspect can be hard for younger runners
to accept.

"Plus, most of them don't want to put in the training you need to
finish one of these races," says Heist-Hall, a veterinarian. "They
don't want to do the back-to-back training runs that take eight to 10
hours each. Honestly, if I had small children at home and was trying
to get a family started, it would be difficult to devote the amount of
training that you need to do these races."

Heist-Hall and Ryerse acknowledge that their first ultramarathons were
much harder than they had anticipated. For one thing, there was little
information on how to train. Today, there are books, magazines and
websites with training schedules and nutritional advice.

Ryerse, who runs as many as 85 miles a week during peak training for a
100-mile race, says the lengths of his long runs each weekend ebb and
flow. One week, he'll do a 25-mile run, the next weekend a 40-miler
and then a 25-mile run the third weekend. Other weekends he'll do
several back-to-back long runs, which allow him to get used to running
on tired legs.

"I might do 15 miles on Friday, 30 on Saturday and then 15 on Sunday.
But I don't do that every week," he says.

Ryerse and his ultrarunning buddies train regularly at Queeny Park in
Manchester, where they practice eating while they run.

"Every four miles when we pass our cars, we grab a sandwich or a piece
of cold pizza and practice walking and eating," he says. "You have to
get your body used to eating (and digesting) while running."

This is especially important for runners who want to finish a 100-mile
race in less than 24 hours, which is considered really good, or even
30 hours, which is respectable and often required to qualify as a
finisher.

"You can spend a lot of time in aid stations, and there's nothing
wrong with that," he says. "Some people even lie down and sleep a
while.

"But if you have a specific goal, you need to keep moving."

In a typical 100-mile race, Ryerse will drink 40 to 60 ounces of
fluids each hour and eat sandwiches, soups and fruit at aid stations,
which are about six miles apart.

HEALTH ISSUES

Loopiness is one of many side effects of pushing the body to such
extraordinary limits, and it's only the start of what happens when
sleep is ignored in pursuit of an exhaustive physical goal. Many
runners hallucinate.

Ryerse remembers a 48-hour race in which he thought he saw snakes
slithering through cracks in the track and sparkly lights coming from
a grove of trees.

"One guy fell asleep while running, and rather than turning on the
curve of the track, he went straight into a field," he says.

Because ultrarunning is so new, researchers have yet to figure out the
full range of effects that it has on the body. What they do know comes
from studying marathoners.

Todd Cade, assistant professor of physical therapy and medicine at
Washington University, says distance running promotes cardiopulmonary
health while lowering blood pressure and lipids. It also raises HDL,
the good cholesterol, and has a powerful positive effect on bone-
mineral density and body mass index.

"But once you start running more than 10 miles at a time, there are
some negative effects," he says. "Evidence suggests that there's
musculo-skeletal damage, cartilage damage and increased whole-body
inflammatory markers. The immune system is weakened immediately after
a marathon, and there appears to be cardiac muscle damage and
diminished cardiac function immediately afterward. Liver enzymes also
increase, which can lead to liver damage."

Cade says no one knows whether there's a sustained long-term effect,
nor whether there's an exponential impact on the body the farther one
runs.

"Is there a plateau after you reach marathon level? I don't know,"
Cade says, "because the research is so new."

Ryerse, Heist-Hall and White have been derailed by typical running
injuries, including plantar fasciitis, tendinitis and lower back pain.
Heist-Hall suffered a stress fracture so bad that she had to quit
running for several months.

"It's like auto racing," Heist-Hall says. "You never know what
redlining is until you reach it. You think that if you train harder,
you'll do better, but I found my breakdown point. I've tempered my
training since then."

Ryerse, who estimates he's run more than 50,000 miles, also says
ultrarunning gives him a profound sense of well-being. It helps him
sleep better and raises his energy.

But, he says, an ultrarunner's body will do some strange things in an
ultramarathon. For instance, hands and feet swell to the point where a
runner may have to change into larger shoes. And they frequently lose
toenails.

"They get black from pounding into the top of your shoes," Ryerse
says. "I have a toenail necklace. From a distance it looks kind of
nice. It looks like it's made of seashells."

Most ultrarunners will tell you that the shared experience of mentally
and physically battling the incomprehensible is by far the biggest
draw.

Heist-Hall says that when you become an ultrarunner, you develop an
extended family and that, unlike with marathons, there is no sense of
elitism among the top runners.

"They'll wait at the finish line and cheer on the people at the back
of the pack in an ultra," she says. "They realize that we're all out
there getting the same distance done. It's just that they get it done
faster and go to bed a lot earlier than the rest of us."---

"marathonman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Dot and Doug,
thanks for your input. I have to start seeing what types of foods are
easiely disgested for me. I know that when I ran a trail marathon,
(monster marathon)

Did the MM once to help a friend train for his first 50 mile - loved the
course and it was a good eye opener for my rookie friend. BTW, the
Finger Lake folks are a fun bunch. Do you live in thid part of state?

Quoted message said:

,pretzels worked good for sodium.

Careful, pretzels are woefully short on salt and if you eat too many and
get sick of the taste, you're in a Catch-22. Take a look at S!caps at
http://www.succeedscaps.com/index.html

Quoted message said:

But I have run a marathon that was 8 loops before and didn't have
any problems with that.

I did a 50k using a 5k loop and found it fun watching the race from
within the race.

Take long look at http://www.ultrunr.com/ and
http://www.run100s.com/ for some good reading.

-Doug

"LSmith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hey Scott, never chatted with ya, pleasure to meet you, as Pendejo and
others might note, I know a great deal about these Ultras. The
neatest thing about them as per this article that was published just
today, 1) those in them tend to be less competitive and

This would be great for people that are not competitive. Like people that
can't break 3 hrs in a marathon for example.

Doug Freese said:

"marathonman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Dot and Doug,
thanks for your input. I have to start seeing what types of foods are
easiely disgested for me. I know that when I ran a trail marathon,
(monster marathon)

Did the MM once to help a friend train for his first 50 mile - loved the
course and it was a good eye opener for my rookie friend. BTW, the
Finger Lake folks are a fun bunch. Do you live in thid part of state?

Quoted message said:

,pretzels worked good for sodium.

Careful, pretzels are woefully short on salt and if you eat too many and
get sick of the taste, you're in a Catch-22. Take a look at S!caps athttp://www.succeedscaps.com/index.html

Quoted message said:

But I have run a marathon that was 8 loops before and didn't have
any problems with that.

I did a 50k using a 5k loop and found it fun watching the race from
within the race.

Take long look athttp://www.ultrunr.com/ andhttp://www.run100s.com/ for some good reading.

-Doug

Doug,
I live in northeastern Connecticut. I agree that running loops you can
watch the race within the race. It's alot of fun, seeing running you
normally doesn't seee during a race.
Thanks,
Scott

"LSmith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
| BTW, Pendejo Classic in less than 72 hours, 13.1 in Brooklyn!
|
He has been very quiet lately, couple of responses were 'weird' as other
wreck.runners have pointed out. This leads me to suspect he is into some
secret rituals to get a HM PR on bad ankle and to finish ahead of you, if
you somehow show up at the race. 8-)
Good luck to both!

I2Run said:

[Pendejo] has been very quiet lately, couple of responses
were 'weird'

No offense, I2, but you're not discovering anything new here. I've
always been a little nutty.

Quoted message said:

This leads me to suspect he is into some secret rituals to get
a HM PR on bad ankle and to finish ahead of you, if you somehow
show up at the race.

Um - no, I had no plans to injure either of my ankles. And the notion
of my running anywhere near a PR is ludicrous.

Where your story even approaches the truth: I've got what seems to be
a not-too-bad-yet case of PF in my right foot. And that's only inches
from my right ankle. In fact I can touch the bottom of my right foot
to my left ankle. Maybe that will infect it.

And yes, I am still planning to run the race. Though I'm about 98%
less excited about it than I was a few months ago, anticipating weeks
of really good training and shedding of winter weight to put me in a
great position to slaughter my 1:30:xx course PR and threaten my
1:23:47 distance PR. As it happens, I've just been jogging and at
drastically reduced volume and frequency. The notion that I've even
been "training" lately is laughable: what I've managed is less than I
can really use just for sanity / stress reduction purposes, let alone
race performance! And my weight hovers around 148, eight pounds
fattier than my lean summer/fall racing weight.

So, seriously, I have no performance goals for this race. If Lance
were to show, sure I'd get a kick out of trying to beat him, though I
wouldn't count on it by any means. And if I find myself on pace in
the later miles to beat last year's 1:30:xx, then sure, I'd make a
goal of that.

But really. Unlike some, I don't and wouldn't do super secret
training to try and spring a surprise on y'all. If I'm excited about
a race and feel I have any chance of performing well, you hear about
it. Ad naueseum, in fact. Just rewind to the 2005 and 2006 fall
marathon buildups for a reminder.

Quoted message said:

Good luck to both!

Thanks I2, I will take that. Mostly I need good luck in getting my
sleepy early-morning ass out the door on time.

Only superheroes should be using "ultra" in everyday conversation.

My Dad used that word often, and as a kid he seemed like a superhero to
me.

I later grew to realize he was just a drunk in a cape.

"Miss Anne Thrope" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Only superheroes should be using "ultra" in everyday conversation.

My Dad used that word often, and as a kid he seemed like a superhero to
me.

I later grew to realize he was just a drunk in a cape.

So you are related to Doug Freese.

Quoted message said:

Salim said:

"Miss Anne Thrope" <[email hidden]> wrote in messagenews:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Only superheroes should be using "ultra" in everyday conversation.

Quoted message said:

My Dad used that word often, and as a kid he seemed like a superhero to
me.

Quoted message said:

I later grew to realize he was just a drunk in a cape.

So you are related to Doug Freese.

- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

No, I'm no related to Doug.

"marathonman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

No, I'm no related to Doug.

Can work on an adoption?

-DF

Doug Freese said:

"marathonman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

No, I'm no related to Doug.

Can work on an adoption?

I think he's gonna have to fight pakihaki22 for you

Cheers,
--
Elflord