MASTERING LONG-DISTANCE RUNNING
I booked several events at the start of the year including my first ultra marathon in February at Lulworth Cove. This was a 34-mile coastal trail run with 7,106ft elevation. After getting my first marathon ticked off three weeks earlier I went into it feeling confident.
At best I was naive, more likely out of my depth as after 19 miles my quads cramped up like never before and I struggled to walk, let alone run.
To put things into perspective, 7,106ft is like going up Snowden - twice.
What made this tougher was the conditions. The ground was soddened from a wet winter and most of the day was spent battling the mud and sliding down hills.
With my quads and calves cramping up constantly, I very nearly pulled out at mile 27 but managed to find some inner resilience I’d never met before, finally finishing eight hours after starting.
After a grueling test on the Dorset Coast, the marathon in March felt as comfortable as a marathon could be and come April I had the best piece of advice that changed everything of what I thought would be possible.
I’d booked my place at The Railway Children/ C2C/ XNRG event, running 50-miles from Upminster Station to Southend-on-Sea in June. I also had a 35-mile ultramarathon planned in May and I hadn’t figured out how to effectively train for such long distances.
My event in April was a trail marathon and the organiser provided a leader as we split into groups for the run. He gave me the advice that I’d been looking for, to get up to the longer distances (35-miles, 50-miles+), you need to go back-to-back.
Sounds so simple but what this means is that your training now goes from 20-30 miles per week to 40-60 miles per week.
After training like this for a month, I went into May’s 35-miler feeling confident. The weather had finally warmed up and it was a very hot 28C, but I finished strong and was ready for the next challenge.
