Hal Koerner's Field Guide to Ultrarunning: Training for an Ultramarathon, from 50K to 100 Miles and Beyond

TECHNIQUE TIPS FOR THE ASCENT Posture. Keep your back upright and your gaze directed approximately 5 yards ahead. Keep your head up, even if you must bend forward on the steep grades to put your hands on your knees. Keeping your back straight and your head up allows for better breathing. Hips/glutes. Move your hips forward as if someone is out in f

A central part of your training, therefore, is feeling out the correct number and kind of calories for you.

They take a lot out of you, so they will appear only about once every 7 to 10 days in the training plans; a tempo run is almost like being in a race, which means you will need time to recover afterward.

Mentally, ultras have the power to transport me to yet a different kind of unique place, one where I feel totally in the present and everything else sort of fades away. That can be hard to do in our daily lives. I always look forward to that feeling and cherish it when it comes.

training for speed on a dirt road or trail replicates ultra conditions and unstable ground in a way a track does not.

The ultra distance won’t let you get away with that. You will hit the wall in the ultra. And you will hit it over and over again; it is almost impossible to avoid. But when you do, it is not as much a bodily function disaster, as happens in a marathon, as a mental acuity issue. You feel mentally jumbled and glassy-eyed, probably uncoordinated, and

A common complaint about gels is that they are monotonous

road really hurts!

Practice with short downhill sprints. Choose a steep downhill section to focus on. Run 2 minutes downhill, hard, then stop and recover. Repeat.