I saw UltraDiscoStu on Saturday and he mentioned he was hoping to get a place in the TP100 in March. Sure enough I noticed his Facebook update today said he’d got a place. He also mentioned that he doesn’t feel prepared having only run 57 miles last week. 57 miles? In a week? To compound matters, Jerry mentioned that he’d be running about 55 miles in a 5 day period before starting a taper and wondering if he’d done enough for the race.

In contrast, last week I ran, um, 25 miles all told. I probably would have done another 10 yesterday if it wasn’t for the massive blister I found I had after Saturday’s cross country race. I’ve run maybe 100 miles in the 6 weeks since the start of the year which is an average of 16.6 miles a week. In three weeks time I’ll be attempting to double that in one go. And it was all going so well! So, without further ado, here is the TrailDragon guide on preparing for a 100 mile ultramarathon.

Ease into training 5 months before the race
Plan out four good months of training that includes long runs, interval sessions, endurance work and general conditioning.
Work to plan for first 6 weeks.
Remember to breathe deeply arond kids when they come home from school carrying some kind of incurable space virus. Get ill as soon as you can.
Recover just in time for the christmas season. Go out on a club run and twist your ankle in a rabbit hole.
Plan to run a lot over christmas and then fail to do so. This has the added benefit of meaning you don’t really feel comfortable over christmas as well as putting some of the weight you’ve spent all summer losing back on.
New year, new motivation. Clear couple of months before the race – so buy a house.
Gut the house and begin stressful renovations.
Ankle feeling okay? Twist it again on another night time club run.
Decide that things still aren’t stressful enough so [redacted] your [redacted] and then [redacted].
Set the date for moving into your new house to be a week before the race. Nothing like a stressful taper week just before a big event eh?
Panic about lack of training and go out for a long run. No, longer. Go for 25 miles in the cold and dark. Set an unrealistic time goal. Start worrying about the race.

So no the best preparation for the ultra. Fortunately my goals and aspirations amount to one: get to the end of the course in the allotted time of 28 hours. Yes, I’d love to finish in under 24 hours but finishing slower is better than not finishing at all. The race itself is good preparation for the UTLD100 in July and once we’ve moved and the race is out of the way, I can focus on getting back into a (hopefully unbroken) routine.

And looking on the positive side, I’m running quicker than I have done for a long, long time. In a 6 mile race (that I should retrospecively write up) at the end of November, I ran the first 5 miles in 40 minutes exactly. On Saturday, I ran the first five in 39.10 and felt like I was taking it slightly easier (on an admittedly slightly flatter course). Not long before that I did a 13.2 mile training run in a time marginally slower than my race PB (~1:50) and then in January I ran 10 miles in a little over 1h20 (8 minute miles). None of this is record-shattering stuff and I’m never going to be a fast distance runner but I’m fitter than when I did the Ridgeway run a couple of years ago and that’s got to count for something.

Next step, the mental preparation.