To celebrate the launch of our training plans for 2024, we sat down with Stephanie Davis, Olympic marathoner and Runna coach, to discuss how to go about preparing your body for an ultramarathon.
Steph was Team GB’s fastest female marathon runner at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. With a PB time of 2:27:16, she knows a thing or two about how to train effectively and is an experienced coach for athletes of all abilities.
Check out our training plans here: https://www.thresholdtrailseries.com/ultramarathon-training-plans/
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Hello everyone and welcome to uh this webinar brought to you by the threshold trail series and runner on how to train for an ultra marathon um I’m delighted today to be joined by a couple of very special guests one of whom is currently pasted across the screen here um and I
Will be introducing them in just a moment um but before I do I’m just going to give a couple of a couple of seconds more people join I can see people flooding in um great to see so many amazing locations we someone zling in from Germany someone from Watford which
Is actually where I grew up very exciting uh people from Reading Bournemouth Bryon which is thresholds uh home as well fantastic to see so many of you uh dialing in um so as as I said today’s webinar is all about how to train for an outra and we are delighted
To welcome a very very special guest to the call Stephanie Davis uh Stephanie is a a GB Olympic marathoner took part in the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics representing Great Britain and was the fastest woman across the line um Stephanie how are you doing this evening yeah I’m good yeah good for a Tuesday
I’m excited to be here fantastic have you done a run today no run today for me I had a swim session which is why I look absolutely it’s just the goggle marks they seem to last for hours okay well good to know that you done for one because we can discuss some
Of the Cross um Steph’s PB for anyone’s interested because obviously we’ve got to say it step PB is 227 uh and change which is frankly uh obscene uh I’m also joined by face you recognize if you joined us for the previous webinar my friend and colleague Alex who is another
Member of the threshold team Alex how are you doing this evening very well thanks Ed yeah looking forward to this yeah it’s great to have you Alex as well as being a member of the team at threshold he’s also very experienced Ultra Runner and uh he joining us to
Discuss some of the more Ultra specific aspects of training um so that’s who we are a little bit of a a outline of the structure we’re going to be chatting through today so today’s webinar is all focused on the physical side of training for an ultramarathon uh Sunday just gone
Was 16 weeks to go until Race To The King which is the first of our two big Ultras this year taking place on the beautiful South D and South Coast uh and 16 weeks is is the length of many training plans including our training plans which I will uh introduce you to
In just a moment hence we thought it was appropriate to uh dive a little bit into the into the details of how to train for an ultra um we’re going to talk through where you might want to be at this point in time if you’re taking on an ultra in
16 weeks how you want to be approaching the start of your training block uh we’re going to go into the details a bit of how to structure your training on both a day-by-day basis and also how you want to build week by week we’re going
To talk a bit about the three key runs that form the basis of most training plans and uh the training plans that we have had put together for us by The Fabulous team at Runner we are going to discuss cross training as well so that’s any kind of exercise apart from running
That you can use to supplement your training as well as the importance of strength work and time in the gym we’re going to briefly chat about training your stomach which is obviously a very big part of ultra running is being able to digest food and calories on the Run
Um and then we are going to have an open Q&A we asked um we let you guys submit questions in advance and we had an enormous number of questions come in um so we are going to spend a bit of time uh just answering as many of those as we
Can get through um we’ve also tried to sort of seed those questions throughout the um the webinar today uh and we will try and address those as we go um so do drop questions in the chat if you uh if you do have any um and we will try and get
Round to those as we go Clemy is on the call uh and we’ll be uh seing those questions as well so as I mentioned the training plans that um Rona have so brilliantly put together for us they are available now if you head to the threshold trail series website uh and go
To the participant Hub uh at the top right hand menu you can click through to the training plans um there are a number of plans available for all abilities they’re broken down uh into beginner intermediate and advanced for both 50k and 100K distances um and we’ve also got
Them available in miles and kilometers uh for those of you who like to work in either of those we also have some walk plans available um those are put together for us by CLA over at Wild Ginger running so if you’re planning on walking the entire event there are
Training plans for you um but if you do want a personalize plan uh and you you want to get something that’s a bit more um as I say personalized to your particular uh situation then you can use the Fantastic Runner app which will generate a completely personalized training plan um including uh strength
Workouts that are designed around your um setup uh and if you use the code threshold you can get two weeks free of Runner which we highly recommend so we’re going to dive into some of the principles that underpin uh these training plans and uh these principles are sort of built into the
Plan so if you follow the plans letter for letter you’re going to be taking off most of these principles that we discussed today um but the plans are very much a guide rather than uh you know a tight SC um so let’s start by talking about
Where you might want to be at this point in time um if you are taking on an ultra uh in 20124 particularly if you’re taking on one in about 16 weeks um so obviously this is hugely dependent on your goals and also your levels of experience um if you head to our
Training plans on the website you’ll see we provided some definitions which might be a bit hard to read on the screen here but I’ll I’ll outline some of them so if you’re taking on a 50 km uh event with us and you uh what we have defined as a
Beginner runner in that regard uh is that you have uh you are used to exercising not necessarily running but you’re used to exercising three to four times a week and you’ve completed at least one 10 km run in the past that might seem like a pretty low bar for 50k
Um but we pride ourselves on being a very inclusive um event organizer and our generous cut off time and our our support mean that we we see people who who meet that threshold maybe they’ve only done a 10 km run in the past and they come and they do
50k if we go to the other end of the spectrum all the way up to the 100K Advanced Runner uh we Define that as you’ve exercised um four to five times a week and you’ve completed at least one Ultra in the past an ultra being anything longer than a marathan so these
Definitions are really quite broad um and they are sort of specific to the distance 100 km beginner Runner is going to be a different thing from 50 Kil beginner runner for instance um but the whole point of outlining these is we think that these distances are more achievable than most people might think
Uh they may think that you have to wait years and years before stepping up say from a marathon to a 50k or 100K but actually we don’t believe that’s the case um but let’s let’s open this up a bit um Steph in your experience as a
Coach do you think people um where do you think people should really be fitness-wise if they’re considering taking on an ultra this year I think your definitions are kind of spot on for the type of events and what the event offers I think having some background in exercise whether
That’s on another sport whether it’s you’re a gym Gore CrossFit cycling whatever is is beneficial so I think being relatively active before you take this on is is good but I think anyone can can really go for it it’s just about then being realistic what you expect
From the day and from the run and not maybe setting your sites too high if you’re not really that active and you’ve never run before you’ve not run much before but it doesn’t mean that you can’t embark on this training plan and and go for it as you say like it’s not
Really no one’s really limited just because it sounds a bit like daunting and crazy and it’s definitely achievable Alex you’re a relatively experience Ultra and what’s your what’s your take yeah I think um you know I I did my first Ultra having relatively little experience of of other distances um had
Done one marathon before and and did that uh kind of not really knowing what I was doing for for the marathon I think the distances can can seem scary but they just you just need to approach it sensibly and I think that’s you know that’s why we’ve we offer these you know
Six different plans across the two across the two distances um that should cater cater for for anyone dep regardless of where you are in your journey with running um I think like you said earlier there are barriers to any form of exercise in any sport but um
It’s easy to kind of break them down and just approach it approach it in a sensible way yeah and it’s important to note these these guidelines that we’ve outlined here they are um intended to be applicable to you if you want to finish the race so a 50 kilometer beginner
Runner you know if you’ve done a 10K in the past we wouldn’t say you could Rock up run 50k and you know have the performance of your life uh or or the fastest you could ever possibly go across that distance that’s not going to be the case but we certainly believe
It’s possible for you to finish and to finish strong uh if you meet that threshold so that’s where the plan sort of start from um and hopefully that’s uh that’s relatively straightforward for everyone to follow so in terms of structuring your training um and again these are kind of built built into the
Plans um a weekly routine is going to be massively helpful you can see this is a actually the first four weeks of the 50k beginner plan uh and straight out the bat you can see that there’s a clear structure to each week so in this instance Wednesday Friday and Sunday are
Rest days and we’ll talk a bit about the importance of rest in a moment and then on Monday Tuesday and Saturday you’ve got easy runs uh or long runs indicated in green and then you’ve got a workout or a structured uh session on the Thursday now these are guidelines these
Training plans they are not intended to be uh followed to absolutely you know 100% accuracy um but structure and routine are going to be massive massively helpful for you when you’re when you’re taking on a challenge like this um Steph you’ve you’ve run the uh Marathon to a comp comptitive level how
Important for your training programs is sort of routine structure uh and repetition when it comes to to building Fitness it’s it’s the most crucial thing I think knowing what you’re going to have on each day is just really beneficial and that might not be the specifics of the session but just
Knowing that Monday is going to be an easy day Wednesday in this case is going to be a resty it just helps plan your life and other things around it and the more you get into the swing of things and into the routine it’s easier
Then to tick off each day um and just having the training plan there outlining that structure just helps hold you accountable as well but sometimes training like when it comes down to it it can feel on paper it might look quite boring because there are there is a lot
Of repetition but that is the key to consistency and the key to getting where you want to be is just ticking off those sessions and um you yet not trying to like push too much CU that’s where injuries will occur it’s just staying within your parameters and you’re more
Likely to do that if you’ve got a training plan and you have routine and you have the structure and because doing too much and taking risks will only lead potentially to injuries and and not getting to R stay healthy so it’s all like yeah a process but having the
Structure in that process just makes it easier and if you’re following a training plan it’s just one less thing for you to think about you can just switch off and do the runs and not think about oh what how far should I go today how hard should I run that’s all set out
For you so um yeah it definitely helps kind of motivate me and hold me accountable absolutely um in terms of the the as it were the gaps in the training plan those rest days it might be easy to look at those and think you know relatively obvious what that means
But I think it’s something that might be overlooked a bit so um it would be great to just hear a bit about the importance of rest from your perspective as someone who’s who’s performed at that higher level yeah it’s it is another training day rest especially it might seem like
You don’t feel you need them at the start of the Block in week one week two and this case in this example the long runs are kind of 8 10K but you’re going to see some really really long runs as you progress through your plan and if
You don’t have those rest days then you’re not going to recover you won’t adapt and it will have knock on effect onto your other sessions now in this example and the the plans that are set out there are three rest days but I think as well this is where it would be
Beneficial to kind of sign up to run and have a more individualized plan because if you’re more experienced Runner you might know how much load you can tolerate and you might need less rest days than that but I would still encourage you always to take one rest
Day a week because not only from a physical perspective for allowing your body to recover and then absorb the load and then adapt and get stronger and fitter but it also is just like mentally like a really good reset because it’s quite tiring sometimes following a training plan mentally as well
Especially when it does get halfway through the plan and it’s getting a bit tougher and just to have that rest day there just allows you to relax do something a bit different switch off from training so I’d always yeah encourage you to to take them um and if
If you’re completely new to running then this is your first one then you definitely want those three rest days in there um I’ve just spotted a bit of a technical question from Phil in the chat so I thought I’d just address this now uh it Phil asks how do I do for instance
7 kilometer and hill repeats three times 200 meters so that in each training plan fill there’s a key on each page that kind of breaks down how to interpret these workouts um in this instance 200 meters is the length of the Hill repeat so you do three 200 meter hill repeats
Hopefully that’s that’s cleared that up I think as well the seven kmers in that situation is probably the total length of the session once you have the full breakdown all it it will include your warm up and cool down yes exactly so for instance on this instance you’d run 200
Meters up the hill jog or walk back down the same distance and do that two more times so you do total of 600 meters of hard running and 600 meters of recovery inside your 7K run hopefully that’s more straightforward um we do have some technical questions as well just that
We’re submitted in advance um obviously everyone’s got specific situations that they’re dealing with so we’re not going to be able to necessarily dive into the details but there’s some some broad advice that we can dish out so um Kim asks can you train for an ultra on three
Runs a week um my gut instinct to that would be yes I’d be curious to know Alex what would be your take on on that three runs I think yes is the short answer I think um I would be interested to understand what those three runs look
Like um for me there’s there’s a priority on certain types of runs if you’re only able to fit in um a lower amount of volume in terms of numbers of runs a week which a lot of us you know a lot of us are balancing and juggling
Life alongside what for for kind of 99% of us is is a hobby um so if three runs is all that is manageable then absolutely you can um you can train for an ultra but I mean I I would say one of those needs to be a
Long run um another of those needs I would say should be an easy run and then the third Up For Debate probably but me personally I would say throw in some intensity into the third one and then you’ve got a nice a nice little um kind of menu of different stimulus that I
Personally think is kind of important to any distance but will help you will help you tackle an ultra um I think if distances maybe if you’re you know threshold we we go to 50 50k and 100K I think if you’re looking beyond that 100 miles three runs you might have to step
Up to to a few more but um yeah if if you’re coming along to a threshold event I think you’d be all right with three runs think it all boils down to what your goals are as well and your level of experience um but the great thing about
The runner app and correct if I’m wrong on this St but I believe you can say how many runs you’d like to be doing each week um and it will adjust the plan accordingly yeah exactly you can tell the app how many runs a week you’d like
To do and you can also set the schedule yourself so you can put those runs on what every day suits you it will kind of advise what they think’s best but um yeah it just means like if a Wednesday rest day isn’t actually suitable for you
And it’s better to take on a Monday than you can you can move that around in the app and all the workouts as well will sync to your watch or you can run with your phone and there you can put your headphones in and it will talk you
Through all the paces and and things like that so that’s quite handy too yeah Susan just asked us run a feed into Garmin I think sash just answered that yes it does um so obviously day byday structure is very important and then if we zoom out a little bit and look at the
Week by- week this is actually the sort of weekly mileage of the 50k beginner plan um and as you can see across the 16 weeks it builds nice and gradually um starting from just under 30k a week which I think if you just starting a training plan and you’re really raring
To go you might be finding that not enough but the whole point is that you’re building gradually and gently giving your body chance to adapt uh to the new stimulus that you’re putting through it the the principle of not building might more than 10% a week it
It does of course depend upon your level of experience if you are a more experienced Runner and you know your body well enough you may be able to to sort of adj build by more than that but that principle is certainly going to keep you on the safe side of of loading
Um also built into the plan as you can see are these cutback weeks weeks so every fourth week the plan reduces in volume and gives you essentially the weekly equivalent of a rest day so you’ll still be doing uh a run and the runs will probably stick to the schedule
That you’re used to but the overall mileage will be less and that will hopefully give your body a chance to recover ahead of building a bit more and then lastly uh if you’re not familiar with the concept of a taper you can see in the last few weeks before the 16 the
Race week which is week 16 and gold there uh the mileage gradually reduces and that’s called a tap and usually they take the form of about 3 we decrease in volume similar to a rest week just to let you um let you adjust so hopefully that gives you a sense of the importance
Of structure uh and the use the fact that structure is built into our training plans um and will help you get to the Finish Line nice and healthy now Alex kind of alluded to this next Point around the three kind of key runs that you might want to consider and but we’re
Just going to talk through them one by one because by Far and Away the most questions we had submitted in advance was on uh was on the last of these three um but let’s start with uh the the easy run which forms the sort of bread and
Butter of the week um Steph you’re a faster runner than most of us what would be your definition of an easy run that everyone could use to um apply to their training this like with an easy run you want to just almost be ignoring the
Watch so if you do download a run a plan it will tell you kind of uh no faster than Pace but you really want to just be going on field cuz it’s going to vary day-to- day depending on how tired you are but the key thing for that easy run
Is you want it to feel conversational so you should be able to go for run with someone else and be able to have a chat as you’re going along um the reason why the pace is going to vary is depending on the terrain the weather the elevation
If you’re just tired one day compared to another day it’s just going to be slower and that’s why I tell people like not to fix it on a pace your easy runs are there just to get you moving really good for you aerobically really good for your recovery they’re
Not a session where you need to push yourself so if and doubt just go a bit slower do you use things like heart rate perceived efforts Pace what what how do you gauge that is it just a matter of overtime learning what it looks like yeah i’ say overtime learning I me I’m
Not like a big fan of RP of perceived effort because I find it really hard to kind of dial into what is a five out of 10 effort um especially if you’ve only got one Pace in a run I find that quite a hard one so that’s where I would tend
To use the conversational thing I also do use heart rate for my easy runs because that does just hold me accountable but it’s more that I’m not like Bound by that I’ll just be keeping an eye on it um especially if you’re having one of those days where you just
Don’t really know how you’re going to feel um but it’s just trying to stay relaxed like even if your legs feel heavy some days your easy run Pace might be a bit slower you just it just just veryy massively so I think it’s just trying not to get fixated on a specific
Pace and using things if you do if you know your what your heart rate should be then yeah follow that it’s very individual so I can’t tell you what heart rate to aim for and if you do want to aim for RP with zero being rest 10
Being Max effort you want to probably keep it like a five out of 10 um but I would always dial back to that that chatty run grab a friend Catherine in the well Katherine in the chat says that she had a great chat with the Sheep
The other day just to check that she was running easy so I think that’s a exactly perfect think um I think a good a good hack that I’ve found whil I’ve learned more about training and how to do easy runs properly is um sometimes I’ll cover
My watch uh I’m not quite ready to take it off and go running without it but um I’ll I’ll cover it cover it up and just run without looking at any of the data that that your watch can can give you um or I have a screen set up on my watch
That is just just time the a timer so no other Pace distance heart rate yeah anything that will allow me to work out how long it’s taken me to do that particular mile or kilometer literally just um a stopwatch it just helps you helps you run for the reason in you’re
Running yeah and it’s worth saying easy runs are easily overlooked but they are sort of 80 to 90% of most of our training plans in terms of volume and they’re where you’re going to build most of your aerobic capacity and spend most of your time in training so don’t
Overlook them and do run them easy there’s a common adage uh relevant to the next point which is that you should run your easy runs easy and your hard runs hard and uh speaking of hard runs let’s talk about workouts so a lot of people when they’re training for an
Ultramarathon might be tempted to neglect speed workk and that’s fine if your if your goals don’t center around performance or you’re just not interested in doing it you can absolutely finish without any speed work but it might be tempting to not do it because you don’t think it’s relevant to
An ultra and that’s really not the case um obviously it speed work and workouts will introduce a bit of variety into your training they work different muscles different Energy Systems um and they’ll have the effect of raising your easy running pace um which is obviously good thing in terms of getting faster
Obviously they are more taxing on your body uh and so we do recommend limiting your workouts to one or potentially two workouts a week but not really much more than that because you really do need the time to recover from them um we had a question submitted in advance from Siri
Apologies for I’m pronouncing your name wrong which I thought was a really interesting one Alex given your background in both Ultras but also some uh pretty fast Marathon running what is the most important workout for an Ultra I don’t know if there’s a one-sized fits
All but I wondered if you had a take on that so definitely not one-sized fits-all um when I’m training for an ultra I will do more Hill repetitions as a as a workout whereas I I am guilty of not doing that quite so much if I’m
Training for a flat Road Marathon um so something like uh you know going I don’t know two and a half kilometers find finding a nice um short and or Long Hills so in my training in in the past you get I’ve learned that you can get um different stimulus from different types
Of Hill trainings so short Shar 22nd kind of full full beans up up a shorter Hill and then back down um will tra really train that kind of fast twitch um or longer kind of up to three where my where my family live down in cornall there are long six minute 7 minute
Trudges which although horrific at the time um you only need to do a few of them and you are getting some real real training effect um going up and down those so yeah I think uh Hills will form more of my my intervals when I’m training for an ultra however I do like
To to to mix it up so one week I will I’ll do Hills or perhaps two weeks on the trop then I’ll go back to doing something like the you know the standard kind of kilometer repeats um nothing to nothing too complicated for to if if I’m
Kind of feeling if I’m in the the meat of my training I’ll go up to 10 um with anywhere between 90 and three minutes rest again depending on what I’m what I’m looking to get out of the session I mean it’s worth mentioning that one of the massive benefits of
Workouts can just be doing something a bit different step if you’re doing a lot of easy running I can imagine in Olympic marathon training you are doing a lot of a lot of mileage so to have the chance to just mix up the pace a bit must be a
Bit of a relief in some ways yeah I really enjoy the variety of like an interval session as well as like what Alex was saying there’s so many different types of interval sessions as well whether it’s like short reps long reps where you’re on a track whether
You’re on the hills in a park doing more like Temple Loops I just really like the the variety of it um and yeah it just challenges you a bit more but also just breaking up the run it just is something sometimes actually a bit easier to get
Through like for me my worst run of the week is actually one of my easy runs um it’s the day after I do my track session I’ve worked hard I’m then so tired the next day so I always just feel like my legs are like lad um whereas the the
Session the day before almost feels like a bit easier because you just break it down into intervals and yeah get through it so I really really enjoy them for the variety and just the the buzz it gives you and obviously the as we were saying like the massive Fitness benefits even
For an ultra those sessions yeah shouldn’t be overlooked absolutely um Apologies by the way to anyone who struggled to join for the first few minutes of the webinar hopefully we’ve addressed that issue and it looks like you guys have made it in so um thanks for bearing with us on that
One um the last kind of type of run and the one which as I said by far on a way we received the most questions about is of course the long run uh it’s a vital part of training it’s a big part of training for an ultra um the question
That came up the most and I think it’s one we should tackle kind of head on is how long should my longest run be um it’s a really common question obviously if if you’re going 50k or 100K uh the long run can feel like a chance to
Practice that um I would I think Alex I’ll defer to you on this but I think the short answer from my perspective is that it’s kind of the wrong question to be asking and the reason for that is that your longest to long run is if you
Add up all your mileage probably between two and three maybe four% of your entire training so to spend a huge amount of sort of psychological effort focusing on that run and and how that Run’s going to go and what that run should be um is is kind of neglecting you know the vast
Majority of your actual training which um you know the most important thing in any training plan is consistency rather than any single run um Alex I don’t know what your your take would be on that are you’ve done you know up to the 100 mile distance and um you know how how what’s
Your take on long runs and particularly that last long run how long it should go um so I’d hate I I wouldn’t like for people to get fixated on a number um which I mean I did the exact thing that I did when I trained for my first Ultra which was
Race of the stones uh I felt like I needed to get to 50K and I got 50k twice in the in the buildup um I wanted to get to 50K because I wanted to know what it felt like to tick off half of the distance that I was training for which
Was 100K so for me it was more of a mental test primarily SEC secondary obviously physically to see if I could get to to half the distance but um when I’m when I talk with um yeah when I chat with Ed and when I chat with guys in the office
And and other guys and girls like I run with we don’t always need to talk about distance we can also talk about time especially with ultramarathons um during the last webinar that we did we had some interesting questions about those who might take on the trail let’s say an
Hour hour and a half if not more to do 10 kilometers so you know if we’re if we’re then throwing out the prospect of perhaps running 50 kilometers that is a huge amount of time to be spent um and you know and you’re you really only get
Slower uh as you go further in these things so let’s not fix it over distance um sometimes just to look at time time go out for a go out and spend two and a half hours on the Hills um running running in some in some green spaces and
That will be just as valuable to your Fitness and to your um to your kind of mental side of of ultra training as it you as it would be to go and just try and hit an arbitrary number um ultimately in my opinion you can if you if you prepared well enough which
Doesn’t mean hitting 50 60 kilom it means you know getting to at least 20 miles um you’ll you’ll get there it becomes more kind of up here with the ultra game you know if you if you’ve got it in the legs up to a point you just
Need to make sure that you’re you’re tuned in in between the years to make sure that you can kind of carry on and I think it also really boils down to personal kind of temperament and also physical temperament I mean uh a Cas in point would be you went up to 50K for
Your first 100K for my first 100 mile I didn’t run longer than 20 miles in training um and that might sound crazy but I just knew that if for me if I go beyond that if I go beyond sort of three and a half four hours I’m just really
Going to take a long time to recover and that’s just me listening to my body and learning how it behaves Steph I don’t know what’s your take on this the longest long run are we at risk of extrapolating a principle from marathon training which is that you should do you
Know two thirds of the distance or something and then applying that to an ultra does it does it C no it doesn’t carry and I think unfortunately with this there’s just not one answer you can give because it’s just so individual and if you’re someone that’s new to this you’re better just to
Error on the side of caution and get to the race healthy and not overcook it in training because that’s where you’re going to get fatigued or injured whereas yeah if you just push it too hard or you have this figure in your head that you
Think is you need to take off and in order to get there then then you might not I think if you’re a more experienced Runner you’ll know what you can handle um so then you can kind of adapt maybe what’s in a plan and and do what you
Know you can do but I think again like one experience Runner versus another is still going to be so different like even myself as a professional marathon runner the mileage I run compared to my competitors is so low and it’s really hard sometimes when you’re constantly comparing to other people that you’re
Like oh I need to do more I need to do more but I’ve learned the hard way more than once that by taking that risk I just end up injured and it’s not worth it so I’ve had to find a different way that that I can train and just try and
Stay in my own lane and stick to that and not think oh everyone else is doing XY Z I should do that too because I just won’t get to the race if that’s if that’s the case yeah 100% it’s very personal I mean speaking of of elite
Athletes another um Elite athlete in the ultra World Camille Heron who I believe has the the women’s 48 hour record and 24 potentially as well uh she is said that she never runs further than 22 miles which for her is about three hours um maybe a bit less and instead she
Focuses on volume and consistency that’s camil Heron you you you’re not camil Heron so whatever whatever you find works for you it’s deeply personal but as as Steph said her on the side of caution the the the sort of numerical answer is that our training plans all
Build up to a 32 km or 20 M long run for the 50ks and a 50 km or 31 mile long run for the 100ks but again they are purely advisory and they’re based on the fact that we know a lot of people doing 100K will want to have done the 50k in
Training um if you’re going to go out and do that 50k take it slow it might take all day it probably will be uh much slower than your 50k race Pace as it were um but by no means do you have to do that I I really do think that 32
Kilometers 20 miles is is a very uh very adequate maximum for for most distances um a couple of questions that we had on this um Laura says what’s the best way to build in the long run to increase stamina without going too long and having to build in recovery time
Well I suppose we’ve kind of answered that in terms of not overdoing it on the long run hopefully that helps Laura Lisa says is it better to train walk slun for long runs for an ultra um Lisa I suppose that depends on your pacing strategy but if you’re the
Kind of if you’re thinking that you’re going to be doing a fair amount of walking in the race then I would definitely say it’s a good idea to walk in training um I think you’d agree Alex yeah I think even the even the guys and girls at the you know front end of
Of any Altra they’re they’re walking so yeah don’t be ashamed to to be spending as much time as you need walking and Hiking as as you are running yeah absolutely um couple of questions that have come in on the chat uh PPP says for 50k would you recommend
Doing a double run day I think I think maybe need a back-to-back rund day so 20 miles and then 10 the next day um Steph what’s your take on on back-to-back long runs they’re quite popular in some circles I I think for the 50k it’s not
Essential if you can do a 20 mile long run then I think that will set you up well for the 100 key you potentially want to think about doing it especially if you maybe don’t want to do a 50k long run it might actually be easier for you
To break that into two days um but I would still do it like 30 20 rather than half and half or 35 15 just where you have one that’s just a bit of a longer stimulus and as well I’d only do it if you’re experienced if you’re new to running don’t bother trying
It yeah I think all of our training plans for the 100K or certainly the intermediate and advanced they do sort of finish a few weeks out from the race before the 50k long run there is a back there is a single back toback run but as
Steph says if you feel like that’s going to be a more useful strategy for you than doing a 50k um it’s something something you can experiment with but do be careful with it okay so we’ve ched through long runs as I said there’s a lot of questions on
Those hopefully we’ve addressed some of them we’re going to talk a bit about um cross training now cross training and strength training um so cross training is just a a fancy way of saying anything that isn’t the exercise or the sport that you’re training for so if you’re a
Cyclist running might be your cross training if you’re a runner often the cross training that people turn to is cycling or uh swimming um but also um strength work hugely important um we’ve had some questions come in on this um that we’ll just uh jump straight to so
James has asked what strength training exercise do you complete how do you fit this into your daily routine uh similar question what is the single best leg strength in exercise to promote resilience Steph is strength training a big part of your program what do you recommend to people who are perhaps new
To to training in a structured way yeah so it is a big part of my training and I would do kind of two like heavy strength sessions in a week and unless it’s like kind of the five six weeks before I would Whittle it down to one because you
Then really want to be focusing your energy on the running and not having that extra fatigue from strength the way I do it and the way I kind of encourage people I coach to do it is to do your strength day either the same day as your
Hard run day so in Ideal World you could do your hard run in the morning or at lunchtime and then a bit of strength in the evening um appreciate two sessions a day is not going to work for everyone so I would then do it the kind of the day
After your hard run but just make sure then the following day is an easy day and it’s not another hard run session or a long run you just want then a recovery day whether that’s rest an easy run or easy cross train to recover from those two harder workouts because if you’re
Lifting heavy then a strength session is deemed to be more of a hard session if you’re you don’t have access to a gym or the time to get to a gym there is loads of stuff you can do with kind of body weight I’d probably encourage you if
You’re at home to buy some resistance band you can get them for like a five off Amazon and there’s in loads of kind of strength routines that you can follow long at Runner we actually have that as part of the app as well so you can tell
The app what equipment you have whether that’s a fully equipped gym or it’s just at home with a chair and some resistance bands and it will build a plan for you in terms of what exercise should be in that plan I I mean the the kind of key
Olympic lifts are probably your go-to if you’re looking for advice but again like they can be quite specific to you like my strength program is kind of geared towards weak spots that I know that I have like particularly around my hips if you are new and you’ve not been exposed
To an injury before so you don’t know what those weak spots are then you really want to be doing exercises that are going to really give you strong glutes strong hips um calves as well I’d say are the key ones and if you can work those those key exercise key muscles as
Well your core then that will kind of set you up well and give you a strong foundation and and hopefully protect you against injury I think a really common thing that um people struggle with um in all sports but uh in our in our sport is um
Being time poor or at least feeling that they’re time poor um and there’s the two points on the screen here that kind of direct directly reference that sometime in the gym or indeed at home with the equipment you have is better than none um I’ve had plans in the past where I’ve spent
30 minutes a week in the gym and I felt an enormous benefit from that and also working with the time and resources you have um this goes beyond just cross training uh but also running Alex you’re uh a young father you’ve got another baby on the way you got a busy job um
How how does all that sort of play into training and hitting the volume that you you want to be hitting for for your training plans yeah so it’s just about being reactive to life um I said it earlier I run because I because I want to um because it’s a
It’s a hobby of mine that I that I enjoy and so it’s up to me to make make time for that but it’s it’s you know secondary obviously to um you know being a being a dad to my daughter and a husband to my wife and um and you know
Obviously forming at work and and everything else that you know makes the world world go around so for me personally it’ll be different for everyone but you know my my hours at work at 9:00 to 5 I will train in the morning I am fine with that I’ll get up
At I get up at 6 out the door by 6:30 I’ll run for however long I need or want to run on that day back to take my um my daughter to nursery and then into the office for nine um I incorporate gym sessions into my into my weekly training
They happen at lunchtime uh I spend 30 minutes in the gym three or four times three three or four times a week um and yeah that’s just that’s how it works for me and and that that’s how I choose to spend my lunch break but you know I I am
A stronger Runner and and kind of you know casual athlete because I go to the gym um it’s definitely helping it’s definitely something that um coming from a coming from a um team sport background playing rugby my whole life before I started running I’ve only I’ve only seen benefits from
Being able to even fit in you know even if you can only go for 10 or 15 minutes just to do something do something move your body um make it stronger just for a short amount of time is better than than um no time but yeah to go back to to
Your question about juggling juggling kind of life with life with running uh it’s just about knowing what works for you everyone will be different I we I have a you know I work well with with my wife about when she wants to go out and
Exercise when I want to we kind of have a good good thing going on but it’s important to it’s important to to balance this with everyone else that’s kind of involved in it in your life Alex has been known to run parkrun with a
Pram yes with a child in it I should say not just yeah running running to parron sometimes without the child and the pram is being there has been been strange um but yeah as as Stephan Alex said it is deeply personal um and we would always advise that if
You can get a get a PT or get get a professional to work with you at least to set up some exercises because you don’t want to walk into a gym and uh you know make some mistakes in terms of how you’re doing things you can obviously hurt
Yourself um let’s talk lastly before we jump out to a a Q&A uh about training your stomach um again massively personal but nutrition and hydration are a massive part of success in Ultras the distances just demand that you do take on calories um and that you do it well
Um a lot of people will cross the finish line of an ultra and the success is not really so much to do with their legs holding out as their stomach holding out um it’s probably the most common reason we see people drop out of the race so
It’s worth um it’s worth putting in some time on it um a few questions came in around what food will be available at threshold trail series events so we have a couple of nutrition Partners principally high five you can see here on the left who provide all of our gels
Um and sort of isotonic uh sachet and things like that so all the Sports Nutrition we also have peria who provides uh these very delicious cereal bars which we are all a big fan of in the office these are the foods that um will be available as well as you know
Things like fruits uh crisps Coke um standard standard snacks that you’d expect at Ultra so if you want to train with the food that you’re going to be able to get hold of on race day which is always what we’ advise never try anything new on race day this is uh
These are the foods to look out for um if you head to the website under our partners page which is under Community um you can see Pages for each of these Brands and there there’s discount codes and things so that you can get a hold of some
Goodies um but in terms of the actual uh nutrition sort of strategy side of things um we had a question here from dawn how often should you be eating on long runs similar question from Rory what’s the best way to fuel uh and factor in training to prep your stomach
Um Alex we’ve discussed this a bit briefly in the office how deeply personal this is I’ve I’ve run marathons eating only two gels and you’ve run marathons eating seemingly a hundred um in terms of like how frequently people should be eating uh during an ultra what’s your sort of what’s your your
Brief take on that um so I could I can tell you what I do um like you have kind of set this up saying it will be different for everyone um I will try so I I set a um I set a not an alarm but a
Thing that shouts at me from my watch to tell me to take nutrition um on my training runs every kind of 35 minutes um depending on on the intensity but I will take on say if I’m um fueling with gels I’ll try and take on a gel kind of
Every 35 to 40 minutes on a on a particularly long run um I’ll give you I’ll give you an example of how I how I fueled race the stones when when I ran it this year uh I had a carb mix so high five do high five
Do a kind of a carb fluid mix 500 Ms in each of my soft flasks um and I also had gels as well and I would try and get through one 500 mil soft flask per hour um which would give me my carbohydrates my electrolytes um that I
Needed across the hour and I would supplement that with a with one gel as well and and that just works that works for me there is there is a lot of science that can go behind fueling um and I know people in this game who will
Know exactly how many carbs you need and and step you probably you probably do and and I have known but there’s I know other people um who have pies uh at each aid station or don’t fuel at all so um for me it’s a it’s a making sure I
Remember to fuel and that is done through a notification on my watch and if I’m doing it with just fluid I’ll try and get 500 Ms of carbohydrate fueled um fluid an hour or two probably about two gels two gels an hour Steph at the Tokyo Olympics were there any pies
Ingested there were no pies ingested um just gels and yeah I a carb drink as well which I am not the best at being able to run and drink at the same time but I did use a lot of water and stuff to put on me because it was very hot and
I’m pretty good at taking my gels I actually don’t ever really forget to take my gels because for me it’s a way that I break up the run so if I know that I’d like to take my gels every six to sevenk for me I’m just like right
Getting the next 6K done and then I start thinking about having my gel and I’ve never had any issues with gels on my stomach so so it’s just that’s always what I’ve stuck to I know some people might prefer like little chews or sweets or yeah carb drinks um for a marathon
Anyway you’re probably not going to take on um um solid food unless it’s a really like high elevation Marathon a trail marathon it’s going to take you a lot longer that’s different game but for a road Marathon you’re probably not going to take on solid food and but it is just
What your stomach can handle like everyone’s very individual like I have clients that just really struggle to find gels that work for them so we try to come up with kind of different approaches and different things that they can fuel with um I’d say if you’re
Using more of a kind of walk run approach you could um definitely introduce Some solid food in there and just make sure you’re having it at periods where you’re walking for a little bit so you’re it has time to kind of sit properly in your stomach um not
Jiggle around as you’re running but it is like try it practice it from training practice it from like day one in your long runs even if that’s just you’ve got 10K long run train your stomach have a gel halfway through to see how that settles and see how you go from there
But if you’re new to nutrition I would definitely start off with these products because if they work for you it will be absolutely amazing because you can just carry a little bit less as well on you and you don’t have to worry about not having enough because you know that
These products work for you 100% I mean there’s there’s a few questions people had around you know struggling to eat Beyond 20 miles cramping things like that um it’s deeply personal and it is a journey for everyone I would say from experience there’s something to be said
For sort of resilience training on your stomach I my first few when I was training for my first 50 miler I did a series of runs each weekend that were sort of 30 to 35k and the first few every single time at 30k my stomach just
Went and I couldn’t figure out why it was happening I couldn’t stop it from happening and then after a few weeks suddenly it just didn’t happen um and I I can only put that down to my stomach sort of clocking that this is something
We do now we run for this length of time and we’re going to learn to ingest on the run so there is something to be said for just going through the motions a little bit um but if it’s a consistent issue and you are struggling with the
Same thing happening every time um it’s probably worth speaking to a sports nutritionist someone who’s who’s really clued up on the science of this stuff because it might be that there’s some particular issue you know to do with the rate at which you fense electrolytes all
That kind of stuff that um that is that is holding you back but practice really does make perfect another thing is to practice running on a full stomach not necessarily after a curry but going for a little jog after you’ve had you know a bowl of porridge or some toast or
Something like that it’s going to help you simulate um what it’s going to be like on race day don’t go out and do a workout on it but by all means um you know do do a gentle easy run on it because actually that’s a better
Simulation of what’s going to be like on race day you’re not going to be um feeling completely you know empty and light on race day you’re going to you’re going to have to ingest food on the way I would um also just to add to the point
That we were talking about with the with the solid food because eating solid food does become a thing in ultramarathons especially when you’re getting up to the 100K distance and I would just say to everyone use use the aid stations to your advantage so they’re uh they’re there for you to
Stock up um but they’re also there for you to kind of reset um and so what I do with Aid stations is I’ll go in I’ll take some things to put in for later but then I’ll also keep things that I’ll keep out into my hands and as I’m
Walking out so key is walk out of the Aid Station and use that walking time as time to re refuel restock your your um your energy basically and also the hills so yeah the majority of the majority of people will be walking up hills that is
An excellent time to be to be taking in fuel especially the especially the um solid food which is which is very hard to digest if you’re running so use those Hills that you’d be walking anyway as a chance to chance to eat becomes a lot easier definitely they the sort of
Grammar to ultramarathon calorie intake which is stuffing your face at an a station and then a sort of slow steady drip in between a stations but do take advantage of them and it’s good to leave an a station feeling relatively satiated and that you’ve got enough energy to
Carry on to the next one yeah um Brent asked alongside food and water what other kit should we expect to carry please for instance what size vest would be a good investment so for our races 50k and 100K um you would certainly not need a vest larger than about 10 liters
And you’d probably be pretty comfortable with a five liter vest uh the reason for that is that our races take place in the summer so you’re not um although you could obviously encounter poor weather the risk of it is lower and you’re certainly not going to get hopefully too
Cold um and also the amount of a stations that we provide mean that you don’t have to carry an enormous amount of nutrition unless you have specific requirements that you know you need and aren’t going to be available at a stations so I would say five or 10
Liters is completely adequate um we have people do it with just a waste pack um believe it or not well I was I was going to say to give to give some comfort on that and not having to worry I I ran race to the stones with no pack yeah
With two water bottles so you’ll be there’s enough to kind of look after you along the road absolutely but if you are expecting to take if this is your first Ultra you’re expecting to take uh a long a long time then obviously carry what you need to be comfortable um uh I would
Obviously recommend our um kit partner Harrier who are an absolutely fantastic brand who produce a range of vests packs poles uh bun bags as well um and if you had website you can you can access a discount for their stuff which is absolutely brilliant stuff we all Rave
About it in the office that’s Harrier trail running okay well we’ve reached we’ve reached the end of the structured section of the webinar if you’ve got any questions that we haven’t covered please do pop them in the chat um I’m just going to Rattle through some that came
In in advance that weren’t necessarily relevant to specific topics that we covered um there’s a few here around training specifically as an older woman um so Tessa asks any specifics for women in their 50s um Katherine says how might training plans best be adapted for midlife menopause or women and Charlotte
Training as a 60y 61y old woman what’s different um Steph I don’t know if you’ve got a take on on this training as as an older woman do things have to change what would be your advice I think it depends on your experience as a runner if you’re more
Experienced then you should have an idea of what you can tolerate and just stick within those parameters if you’re completely new or not that experienced then you probably want to kind of reduce things down a bit and if that means having to do a little bit less than what the beginner plan sets
Out then you could just aim to kind of do kind of shorter runs and then your longer run due probably to time rather than to a distance but I think it really is kind of no different to any kind of training plan it is going to be individual and you have to find
What works for you and if you’re really finding the running side of things daunting that’s where you can add cross trainining and get real benefit from offloading and going on the bike on the rowing machine swimming pool elliptical trainer where you’re not having that impact going through your joints but
You’re still getting a huge aerobic benefit so it might be that you decide to kind of replace one or two of your runs with those non-impact sessions and that will help kind of keep you more robust I think for runners male and female as well as you get older from
What I understand strength training does become more and more beneficial um to avoid sort of muscle muscle mass reduction so it might be that you don’t do as much mileage as you used to but you can add in some gym sessions um aranta apologies for I mispronounce your
Name says Steph you’ve mentioned your prone to injury when you’re increasing volume how have you adapted your training volume to suit your needs similar question from Emily that was submitted in advance saying if you’re injury-prone is it the end of the world if you have to do less mileage per week than others
Do yeah so I only really run kind of five times a week which I know to a lot of people will still sound a lot but when I compare myself to other Elite Runners who run kind of nine 10 times a week it’s is a lot less and I only
Really Peak my long runs right before I do a marathon whereas a lot of pro marathon runners can run 32 miles 32k sorry 20 miles as their long run week in week out it’s just not something I can do so I’m I never do a double run day so
That’s something that a lot of elite elite Runners will do I’ll always do a cross train and um a run and on the days that I’m not running I’ll either have that kind of one rest day or I’ll just have a a non-impact day so that second
Day of non- running will be cross trainining um for me all those cross training sessions are just easy so they’re the same effort as my easy runs because I want to get the quality from my run sessions because that’s obviously more specific to what I’m training for
But again like if you find that you that those harder run settings are actually what’s setting off an injury then you can still work really really hard on the bike the elliptical and the pool whatever you choose or what you have access to to and still get really fit
From that and that’s how I’ve got really fit during times of injury is by keeping active and almost replicating my running program just in non-impact ways so it’s yeah I am a huge fan of cross training of offloading um you can still get really really great benefits from it and it is
Something that you maybe want to to add into your training if you know that you can run four days a week you’re going to take a r day throw two cross training days and just start off even for 20 minutes on those machines nice and easy
And take it from there but that’s how I manage it we’ve had a few questions about that um Mary says would you for rest days are these full rest or can you cross train such a swim or hike um I think I would say that comes down to
Sort of personal preference yeah what you can handle I think if you’re someone who’s super new and not that experienced then I would again like like error on the side of caution and and take those rest days at least two of them you could maybe use that third rest day to to off
Do something that’s offloaded um but if you are more experienced then yeah like go for that hike on that rest day but if you start to feel like it’s impacting your run sessions then maybe just dial it back a bit and we’re really we’re really short
For time I just want to get one more questioning because I think it’s quite interesting so um uh say that not not able to find it now yeah Rachel says she’s running London Marathon congratulations and then a 80 km race 4 Weeks Later goodness me uh what should I
Be doing in between in the leadup to train for for a PB and an ultra similar question sort different angle but um Adam says what’s the best advice for a two-day event we obviously have the option to run race to the stones 400k across two days 250k days so I guess the
Question really about recovering in between um events um do you have any takes on that is it is it it advisable um are we setting ourselves up to be just absolutely exhausted after doing doing two events so close together or breaking it down a bit Steph was that from you Alex sorry
Yeah it was for you Steph just in terms of doing races close together I don’t know if it’s something youve got experience of in terms of maximizing between them so this is a really popular one that we get through run all the time and it’s actually something that I in an
Ideal World I just would not advise right um like it just depends on your goals if I saw some questions coming in if people are doing London marathon and then four weeks later they’re doing an ultra now if you’re using that London Marathon as a prep run for your
Ultra fine just keep following kind of like a training plan after you you want to take probably at least three to five days of rest or cross training or nice walks to recover from that Marathon but but if you’ve gone really hard in that Marathon that’s going to take a lot out
Of you so I would actually advise like you take kind of five to 7 Days completely off and recover and then you’ve got three weeks till your event and it’s just about ticking over it’s just about reminding your legs how to run don’t fixate too much on having to
Get in another super long run if your body’s feeling up to it then you can but you’re going to want to listen to your body cuz how one person recovers from a hard Marathon if you’re going for a PB or close to your PB um whatever that is
For you is going to take a lot out of you so you just want to be mindful of that but if you’re just using it as like a training run and you’re wanting to kind of get the distance and the time under your belt but you’re taking a bit
Easier then you’re more likely to recover better so you won’t need as much time off fastic well we’ve we’ve run over by a few minutes so I just want to say a massive thank you to Steph for joining us it’s been super super interesting and
Such an honor to chat to chat to you this evening so thanks so much for for dialing in this evening I’ve loved it yeah it’s been great thank you and thanks everyone for dialing in hopefully it was helpful the recording will be shared uh with everyone um and posted to
Our YouTube channel so you can listen back for all those top tips so thanks Alex and thanks Steph perfect everyone training cheers bye bye bye
1 Comment
Thanks – that was really informative.