In the last 18 years, I’ve done a good number of 50Ks, 50 milers, and 100 milers. Until a few weeks ago, I had never done a 100K. Now I’d like to help YOU do one yourself. Here’s my series, in four parts, on running a 100K, whether you are a seasoned ultra-veteran or just cracking into the beyond-50K distances.
Part One: Be An Ace of Base
No, not THAT Ace of Base
Ooh, that was a bad throwback. Sorry about that, Gen-X’ers.
Ahem. Training.
100K races have cut-off times that range from 14 hours to 24 hours (yowch), but average finishing times are typically 15-17 hours. For 50 milers 11-13 hours is pretty common. Four hours for an extra 12 miles? Yup, it can happen. Those extra 12 miles really add up at the end of long day, moreso than you might think. Your first step in being ready to be on your feet all freaking day, give or take a few hours, is to have a solid base mileage from which your legs can draw strength*.
When I trained for marathons, I was pleasantly relieved to find that after about 6 months of higher mileage, everything just worked better. Runs were faster with less effort, I slept great, and things were just clicking. I wasn’t injured—avoiding that is key—and the miles just piled on until my races.
Here’s the advice that might be surprising: the number of miles in your base should be between 50 and 100. Sounds like a huge range, right? But here’s the kicker: what you do as your “high” base totally depends on YOU and on what you’ve been accustomed to so far. For someone used to years of “30’s” like I was, racking up solid and consistent weeks right around 50 was perfect.
Already doing 50 mile weeks and feeling great but still worried about 100K? Bump it up at least 30%, gradually. Get yourself around 70. Already at 70? Same thing… the key is to push your body’s comfort zone into a range that squeezes out some additional conditioning. Whatever your new base mileage becomes, the most important part is consistency. Perhaps some weeks drift a little higher, once in a while they will be lower, but if you are hitting in your ballpark for months and months on end, magical things will happen in your tissues.
What’s the hardest part about base training? First, “waiting” those 6+ months before doing lots of exciting things like speedwork or hills. You can test out those workouts VERY sporadically—like, once every few weeks—but it is very, very important to protect that base by NOT GETTING INJURED. Many of us bop back and forth between a few good months (or weeks) of training and then pulling or popping or screwing up something that makes us back way off for a chunk of time. I did it for years, having weekly totals that might look like this: 42, 48, 30, 12, 29, 0, 22, 40, 35, 50, 40, 60, 42, 12, 0, . . . you get the idea.
Next Up in Part Two: Specificity
*There is ONE way you can get away with lesser mileage but it will take just as much time in your life, and it is best used when you are dealing with a localized injury that affects running but not general fitness (I had a bone bruise on the bottom of one foot that was healing, slowly). That’s the strength training method. I’ve successfully completed a 100 miler with little damage or after-effects on a horrifyingly low base mileage but 3 hours weeks of heavy lifting. HOW TO DO IT: what you need are “the big two”—squats and deadlifts. Adding a third/fourth upper-body lift is a good idea, like bench press and/or pull-ups, but here the most important thing is the lower body resilience. I will not give you a program here, that’s not my gig, but I will start you out with Nerdfitness and Stumptuous for the low-down on each:
Nerdfitness.com’s Deadlift 101 & Stumptuous’s Mistressing the Squat