Part 3: Trails and Cross-training

Ultramarathons tend to be on trails for a simple logistical reason: few intersections that have to be controlled; the softer surface and rolling terrain are also easier on joints, so runners seem to prefer them to 50+ miles on asphalt. Any place there's 30-100 miles of trail will probably be pretty rugged and there seems to be a pride factor among ultrarunners of doing the toughest courses. Each course has its own unique challenges, but long hills and "technical" - mostly tree roots and rocks - are ubiquitous.

When I first tried ultras, some people struck me as being born to run tough courses; they did less than half the training of others and they flew over terrain where I had to choose every step carefully. I now see things differently. While I still say that nothing prepares one for trail racing like running on trails, there are people getting huge benefits from cross-training.

Often, running hills in the local parks, I'll see people charging hills at breakneck speed and invariably find that they're training for cross-country skiing (okay, once it was a trail runner). There are a lot of skiers in trail races; they've done all the work of running over the winter with little of the pounding and they have to develop good balance and agility, plus the leg strength for downhills (a day of alpine skiing is tough on the quads). Surprisingly, snowshoeing, which seems closer to running, doesn't seem to have the same effect; perhaps it's still seen more as an activity than a sport.

There are a lot of cyclists, too, among the ultra trailrunners. Pierre Ostor famously sometimes rides his bike to a race, runs the race and then bikes back home again, as if several hours on the trail are not enough. Cyclists tend to have great leg strength.[Theres a small group of Olympic-caliber cyclists who also are Olympic-caliber speed skaters; they have phenomenally muscular legs, I've noticed.] Cycling is a great aerobic sport and it also seems to be easier on leg joints than running - unless you do it like I do - so a lot of ultraruners who are doing low mileage are supplementing with a lot of biking.

Diane Farmer (Hi, Diane) became famous for finishing the tough Superior 100 Mile, having done no run longer than 20 miles and doing all of her running on a treadmill. This made no sense to me at all until I learned that she wasn't mentioning her hiking trips, where she'd spend several hours each day hiking in mountains. The difference between fast hiking and running disappears during hundred milers. In fact, I think an hour spent hiking is better training for trail running than an hour spent running on a road. Hiking teaches one to handle the long hills that are ever-present in ultras.

Some runners have claimed to run great 100 milers on minimal mileage and not done any cross-training. The few cases I've looked into turned out to be men who did all their training on steep hills or on treadmills set at 15 degree (or greater) incline. Having just taken more than 5 hours to run 17 miles up and down a hill, my mileage and speed won't impress many, but it was very good training for a hilly race.

Technical requires balance and agility, which become more difficult after, say 20 hours of running. Some people are better co-ordinated than others, but training on trails improves one's skill level at this. Something else which seems to help came as a bit of a surprise to me, though: yoga. Running long all the time decreases one's range of motion (such as the shuffling I mentioned last post), but yoga helps to maintain it, which can be important when one has to make eccentric motions to maintain balance. More importantly, yoga seems to enhance one's kinesthetic sense, one's knowledge of exactly where one's parts are, which is important in overcoming rocks and roots without stumbling. Yoga can work as an early alarm system; one will feel small aches and twinges before one would notice them in running.

Two caveats: Doing yoga for exercise is like going to a Catholic mass for the kneeling; it's about more than that. And I still don't ski, bike, hike and rarely do yoga; I like to run.

Part 2, cont'd. (style)

I was a bit rushed with the last post.

Amby Burfoot was a notorious shuffler. Shuffling is hard to describe, but it's a very efficient way to run very long distances. The best way to understand it is to see it in action, and thanks to YouTube, that's possible. First, the extreme opposite of shuffling: Usain Bolt (a bit blurry)






Now, Anton Krupicka, a shuffler (I'm in the shot at 24 seconds in - you'll have to take my word for it, though):


Every runner I've encountered who averages more than 20 miles per day shuffles. That kind of energy expenditure requires the most efficient running style possible. The top ultrarunners are almost always shufflers. Though some runners can shuffle very fast (Alberto Salazar could shuffle sub-5 minute miles seemingly forever), it is not the best running style for short distances. I learned how to shuffle, only to discover that it's not good for running through tree roots - more on that next post.

Efficiency is important at every distance, but means different things for different races. Most top runners in any given race have remarkably similar running styles. There are exceptions and they are almost all due to some biomechanical fault being compensated for. Bill Rodgers ran with his right arm making much larger looping motions than his left; he had one leg slightly shorter than the other and the arm motion helped with balance. Jim Ryun, the great miler, swiveled his head like a bobblehead doll; he didn't need to, it just happened when he ran relaxed and it didn't effect his speed.

I have an unusual arm swing - I can be picked out of a crowd of runners from a long way away. That awkwardness decreases the faster I run; when sprinting, my form is nearly flawless. For me, the odd arm swing is comfortable, but it leads to other form problems over long distances, making me very inefficient after several hours.

The bottom line: the more your style looks like a sprinter's, the better you'll be at sprinting. The more it looks like an ultramarathoner, the better you'll be at ultras. If your running style gets better the faster you go, the shorter the race you should run; the better it gets the slower you go, the longer the race you should run. It sounds obvious, but few ever pay attention to it.

Ultra talent, part 2: flatland

Amby Burfoot won the 1968 Boston Marathon and nothing else of note. Only 500 ran that year, it was an Olympic year, so few fast runners did it and the weather was terrible even by Boston standards, so few ran aggressively. Amby, being from Boston, used his familiarity with the course to pull out the upset win. Years later, when muscle fiber biopsies on runners were first done, Amby was found to have more than 98% slow twitch fibers, which was the highest ever recorded. He wasn't surprised - he couldn't do most sports; for example, in tennis, he could never get to the ball.

You might be an ultrarunner if you fail at every other sport.

I was found to have 48% slow twitch, typical for those who race 1-3 miles, which happens to be the range at which I do run best. No one needs to have the test to find what distance is best, however. Everyone tends to find it out by trial and error and one usually runs best the distances one enjoys racing the most. If you get a list of world records and divided them by your own times, you'll see that there's almost always one distance or a small range of distances at which one does well. People almost never start running by running ultradistances, so it's hard to know if one will be good at it without trying, but if they find that the longer the distance, the better they do, trying longer distances makes sense.

If you watch a 10K, you'll see many runners run the last mile faster than all the others, as they switch to anaerobic running. Anaerobic running requires burning sugars, whereas ultrarunning burns fat and few are expert at both. If you're getting passed at the end of races from 5K to 1/2 marathon and think "I'd beat them if only the race were longer!" you might be an ultrarunner.

The faster one runs, the more sugar one burns and the less fat. Ultrarunners are adept at burning a higher amount of fat at faster rates than others, something which can be trained to some extent, but which appears to be partly genetic as well. The "wall" is a phenomenon that ultrarunners rarely see - when one's muscle glycogen is gone, one involuntarily slows; this point can be extended to as much as 5 or 6 hours. If you can run 7 hours or more without an energy crash, you might be an ultrarunner.

And you'll probably be passing me.

This covers flat surfaces; trails are next. Some ultrarunners (Kouros, Horn), excel on flat, but not trail. There's other qualities trail runners need.

Talent revisited - part 1, mental aspects

In a recent post about what brings success in running (luck, talent...), I used some nebulous terms and may have been a little flippant, so I'm going to try to correct that.

First, "mental toughness." This consists of a number of things, but the two most important are determination and competitiveness. These also need some explaining.

You can usually tell at the start line of a 100 miler who is not going to finish. Those who look anxious are pretty much doomed. Some look relaxed, but unfocused and they don't do well either. The determined ones look the part; it's not just confidence, though that's important, it's also resolve. When I finished my first 100, whenever someone asked how I was doing, no matter how I felt, I answered, "I'm going to finish." At the Superior 100, I had problems from the start and one could probably tell I wasn't going to finish, but I kept telling myself I would not quit, even though I was down one leg, one hand and one eye; when I finally quit, I knew that I would've died if I continued. I mean that literally. I would've ended up wandering aimlessly in the woods, exhausted and freezing. Determination is good, but stubbornness can be deadly. To a lesser extent, this applies also to workouts; one needs to push oneself occasionally, but not to the breaking point.

Julie Berg's experience at Superior is a great example of determination. After DNF'ing, she got advice from every expert she could find and took what they said to heart. When she was told that she could finish Superior if she could run up Buck Hill (steep 300 ft hill) 30 times, she went out there repeatedly until she was able to do it. She spent a year doing high mileage on trails and lifting weights to improve leg strength for the downhills. She gained experience from running other 100s. No one was more determined to finish that race and, of course, she finished it.

In my own case, after DNF'ing at Superior, I started running a lot of long races for experience and taught myself how to better run hills and technical terrain. I also learned how to keep going under difficult physical circumstances few will ever experience. I expect to finish Superior this year; interestingly, others are already taking it for granted, which is a good sign.

The other quality, competitiveness, can take many forms. I know some runners (the examples I can think of all happen to be male) who run aggressively and angrily, who thrive on trying to prove to others that they're the better racer. That's only one kind of competitiveness.

I also know some who never think in terms of other runners, who just want to do their best and want to cheer for others to do their best - but compete against themselves and the clock. The first time they run a race, their only goal is to finish, but every year they try to improve their time. Though they think in terms of "challenge" rather than "compete," the desire to excel is the same.