ULTRAMARATHON FOR BEGINNERS SERIES ARTICLE #2

Building Your Ultramarathon Training Foundation

From plan to practice

Smiling again after running through a cold and stormy night in Sweden. Picture by “Der Sportfotograf”

Note: This is part II of the Ultrarunning for Beginners series. Click here for part I.

So you decided to run an ultra.

You (more or less carefully) selected your first race, marked the date on your calendar, and convinced yourself that spending most of your weekends running would be fun.

But now that you have gotten your new pair of running shoes, a shiny GPS watch, and excessive amounts of candy to get you through those training runs, reality sets in.

You have no idea how to trick your body into running that long.

And while Courtney Dauwalter — one of the greatest ultrarunners of our time — stacks up win after win without having a structured plan and just going by feel in her training, the truth is us far less talented runners can’t get away with “winging it” if we want to achieve our ultrarunning goals.

Beyond Winging It: The Case for Structured Ultra Training