To an outsider, the Ultra Marathon appears to be one hell of a mountain to climb.
And In many regards the outsider would be correct.
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Relentless and unwavering effort, training volume, time investment, nutritional knowledge, and implementation during training, pre, during & post event.
Then there’s also recovery, managing your professional life, family life, personal time, injury, overuse, fatigue, and chronic pain. There are a multitude of moving parts, and more often than not, not a hell of a lot of resources.
And we actually do this by choice.
And somehow, we manage to convince and or motivate, manipulate, and even abdicate those that love us to support us through this tenacious sport.
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Now to the outside world of the Ultra Marathon community this is a multilayered, multifaceted exploration of possibilities which most of the outside world, would much rather avoid, can’t blame them really!
To be fair I often ask myself if the juice of this orange is actually worth the squeeze, and I’ve been doing Ultras for 22 years.
If you look at the areas I’ve mentioned above
- Running Volume ( which is huge )
- Time
- Nutrition
- Strength & Conditioning
- Family, & personal time
- Professional life
- Recovery & injury
as literally, rational, logical & physiological boxes that MUST be ticked in order to enter any Ultra Marathon and exit in some sort of semi decent state you’ve got a subtle insight to our world, run now!!!!!! Fleeeeeee no pun intended.
Stand at any aid station & or finish line during an Ultra Marathon, or any endurance race, as the day turns to night, and the night drags on, and then goes back into day and then slowly once again melting into night, THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL, you will bear witness to those who have ticked the boxes, paid the man, & to those poor timid souls who unfortunately haven’t ticked those very credible and relevant boxes.
Below is a detailed insight into my 200km Elephant Trail Race training program, my generalised nutritional training plan for performance & maintenance of body composition, my race day fuelling, & supplementation, my box ticking efforts.
I will share my map of the elephant trail race, suggestions for getting loved ones onside, strength bias training & recovery.
16 WEEK TRAINING PROGRAM =>
Email (jamiemilnetraining@gmail.com) for a PDF copy of this program.
This is FREE, you will not be added to the mailing list or spammed.
See here an example of WEEK ONE
WEEK ONE
WORKOUT ONE -
( Weighted Vest 20kg )
Warm-up 10-20 min (Run @ Easy Pace)
Then:
60-90 minute sustained “power hike” uphill @ 80-85% of MHR
Note:
Sustained means continuous effort, if terrain flattens go faster, take it easy on descent
WORKOUT TWO
Warm-up 10-20 min (Run @ Easy Pace)
Then:
3x 30 minutes @ 80% MHR
WORKOUT THREE-
45-60 min Altitude Mask Run
WORKOUT FIVE -
4 hour run on trail
Go for 60-min sustained then break the remaining time into run/walk intervals (I.e. run 7 min, walk 3 min)
Try to push the walking pace
TRAINING NUTRITION =>
This is the sum of the average of the food I consumed, it was fairly autonomous, and a bit like most things highly individualised, tho it worked really well for me
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0900
100g Oats, with Braw Protein powder
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1100
4 boiled eggs 1/2 and avocado & 4-6 Rice cakes
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1300
A healthy convenience meal from Deliciously Clean Eats Sunshine Coast
Macro balanced low carb 350-500 calories a meal
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1500
A healthy convenience meal from Deliciously Clean Eats Sunshine Coast
Macro balanced low carb 350-500 calories a meal
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1800
Chicken Salad large
Berries banana and Full cream
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FLUIDS
2 Black coffees
1-2 Coke no sugar or cola Kombucha
3-5 litres water
RACE DAY FUELLING, SUPPLEMENTS, ACCESSORIES =>
I would have during Ultra training
5 scoops of tailwind PER 2 litres of water
I drank every 20 min and consumed 400-500 calories an hour
Tailwind & 1/2 - Full Cliff bar.
I eat and drink the same stuff on autonomy for the duration of any Ultra, until I desire something different
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Every 4 hours I took Nurofen, every 6 hours a No Doz plus caffeine tablet
IMPORTANT PEOPLE COMMUNICATION SUGGESTIONS =>
Teach people how to treat you!
I have a large family, my people, that depend on me and actually would like to spend time with me and have my attention. It’s actually great to be loved and wanted BLESSED!
This is where I am giving you the example of what was right for me and perhaps could create a thought process for you!
Teach your important people how to treat you.
I gave them the truth serum.
I’m being selfish guys, I’m embarking on a 14 week journey. I love you and I need your compassion ( patience ) and empathy ( understanding ), explained a little more delicately and slowly to my children.
It is a small moment in time and HUGELY important to me, so please back me, love me, and support my journey.
Needless to say they were all in.
Be honest with your loved ones when embarking on such an adventure
TIME MANAGEMENT =>
Life by design not by default.
Reconstruct your world to give the attention to the cause.
Where your attention goes, energy flows, and if you're not focussed on your event and prep it’s not going to end well, and I can attest to that via personal and professional experience.
Be responsive not reactive, get your training times scheduled in, and hold fast on that, honour yourself boundaries, shelve your social requirements and minimise the added stresses! If an event, campaign or race is important give it the time, design and respect it deserves!
Follow our Mind Gym page for our next instalment where we talk about mindset, psychological warfare, tools, resources, pain tolerance and mental toughness, you do NOT want to miss this one!