English
With my first ultra marathon of the year only 2 weeks away, I am starting to feel all the nervousness and excitement that such an undertaking brings. I have been fortunate enough to have trained consistently over the past six weeks and have built on the base level of fitness I already had having trained for the London Marathon back in April.
I am often asked how I train for an ultra marathon. There are many different approaches and most runners have developed their own schedules to fit around work, family and other commitments. The common theme that features in every schedule however, is the LSD – The Long Slow Distance run. The important thing is to build up the mileage of the LSD slowly each week (a 10% increase each week is generally considered a reasonable measure). Your base level of fitness and the distance you are training then determines the length of your training schedule. For example, if you are regularly running a 5 mile long run and are training for a 50 mile ultra, you will probably need around 20 weeks to get in shape. If you are regularly running a 20 mile long run, you will probably need just 11 weeks.
I have put together an excel spreadsheet which generates an ultra marathon training schedule based on distance, current running ability (length of long run) and target time.
You can access this and download and print your schedule by using the following link.
Ultra Marathon Training Scheduler
You will need to factor in a weeks recovery at the end of the schedule but using this as a guide, you should build the requisite times and distances in your legs to help achieve your goals.
I am entering the taper week before the 50 mile challenge in Canterbury on 19th July. Work commitments mean I could be in Belfast, Dublin, Blackburn or London over the next few weeks. I have trained through hale, thunderstorms and 90 degree heat over the past few weeks, so if you see a crazy runner in a bright orange vest at ludicrous times of the day in ludicrous weather, chances are it is me.