Badwater Forum

I ran a solo last July, and ended up averaging something like 22 miles a week. I had intended to do 40-50, but life (and some non-running-related hurty things) got in the way. I did have some 50+ weeks, and some back-to-back loooooong runs, but then I had some zero weeks in there too. I think it helped to have a really good hiking background for lots of years, though---I ended up walking a whole lot. But I did manage to finish in 53:36, which was far better than I had expected.

The thing I did different from "normal" training---a WHOLE lot of really intensive heat training!

I should add that I'm a relative newcomer to ultra running. Before this, I had only done one 50M and one 50K.

What I have found in almost 10 years of Ultrarunning that the key to success is miles miles and more miles. In a nutshell try to run as much as you can physically and mentally tolerate. Also, don't forget to do some speed and tempo work as you peak for the race. Slogging 10 and 15 min. miles day in day out for all your runs will make you a very slow runner.

In 2003 when I preparing for my BW effort I was suffering from a severe case of plantar faciitius which limited my training to about 3 days per week. Since I wasn't able to do the 10 and 15 milers on the road because of sore feet I concentrated on long trail runs at a very slow pace in the mountains of PA. Typical runs were in the 30-40 mile range with 5000-8000 feet of climb and were all day efforts. I feel that the long efforts prepared me for BW, but I was very slow. I could go forever, but took forever to get there.

My feet are ok (as of July this year) and I am finally able to train at a reasonable level. But I am so far behind the curve that it is going to take a loooong time to recover any semblance of speed. I hope to average about 50-60 miles per week from January to July. Right now (Oct., Nov. and Dec.) I am concentrating on building up my miles so that I can train hard and do race specific training next year. Its going ok, but I am frustrated at the progress. Between all the slow runnings that I had done this past 3 years due to PF, age, and gaining weight it is going to be long slow road to race fitness.

I personally plan, come January, to run a combination of long runs on the weekend (20-40 milers trail or road), a mid week 15 miler on the roads at a good pace, and one or two speed/tempo runs (8-10 milers on the road... 2 miles warm up - 3- 5 miles tempo- 2 mile warm down) or a hill/mountain workout of 8-11 miles. In summary, my week will consist of 3 - 4 primary runs with one or two recovery runs thrown in to round out the week for a 50-60 mile weekly total. Whether I am able to do this or not is still an open question.