Training for an ultramarathon

Alex Blodgett

I find myself finally at that delightful point toward the end of training and just before a race where any incremental hours of weekly training provide negligible benefit, and I can begin the process of tapering, void of the guilt that generally comes from "slacking off." Further, with the opportunity to devote more of the next two weeks to returning to a more balanced life comes the opportunity to refresh family relationships that have been strained by my absence (maybe even move back into the house) and act a little less irritably at the office. Regardless of what may confront me during the race, the worst part of participating in any endurance event comes from the hours and hours of drudgery and pain that is the mandatory cost of entry for participation.

Like all the events I have been fortunate enough to participate in over the years (my wife gives me a far longer leash than I deserve), I gave myself three months to train for the Marathon des Sables, at least from a cardiovascular standpoint. Experience has taught me that one of the most critical factors in successfully participating in events ranging from the Ironman to the Iditasport to the Eco-Challenge is that mental toughness is absolutely critical. I am not sure how one trains or develops this skill set other than to just get out there and fall on your face a few times. Only scar tissue, the willingness to go through a lot of training, and the mental discipline to push through a multitude of uncomfortable race situations will properly prepare a competitor mentally for such events.

In the last few years my training regiment has evolved through lots of reading and discussion with people much smarter and/or much more experienced than me in basic physiology. My goal has been to develop a system that is generally easy to understand, is oriented toward people such as myself that have jobs (30 employees) and families (four boys), and thus the need for intensive, but shorter workouts, and that works! For the Marathon des Sables, by way of example, my training revolved around "macrocycles," in which during a four-week month, each of the first three weeks involved progressively more hours and intensive workouts, with the fourth week being dedicated to recovery and relaxation. In month #1 (out of three), the number of hours I dedicated to working out weekly was eight, nine, 10, and six, respectively, with probably half of that time spent running and the balance split between indoor cardio equipment (my favorite is the set of revolving stairs that allows for reading but a heck of a workout) and weight-lifting. Month #3, by way of comparison, included 12, 13, 14, and now eight hours this week. Thirteen hours is equivalent to approximately 90-100 miles of strict running at my typical race.

To avoid the trap of just putting in "junk miles," I use a heart-rate monitor religiously in all workouts--the monitor doesn't lie. Polar, who manufactures the monitors and is a very supportive sponsor of me and our Eco-Challenge team, sells a number of monitors that are easy to understand and dramatically improve the quality of workouts. For me, I initially began using a heart-rate monitor because the vast majority of the time I was working too intensively, and thus robbing myself of a balanced training schedule. It forced me to slow down. Now it gives me the ability to orient and track each workout, as well as monitor my performance over an extended period of time (e.g., what has happened to my resting heart rate; has my anaerobic threshold dropped as a result of all the hours and less frequent stops at McDonalds?)