Relentless Forward Progress_ A Guide to Running Ultramarathons - Bryon Powell [14]
Running fast for a bit got me thinking about speed training and raw speed capability and how or if they apply much at all to ultra running success. I was thinking of the upcoming The North Face Endurance Challenge 50 mile championships and was wondering if the eventual winner of the race would finish in the top 10 if the race were a 10k instead of 50 miles?—or even a marathon compared with 50 miles. In each of these examples, I am fairly certain there would be a huge shake-up in where various front of the pack runners would finish.
The interesting question to me is: Why is this the case? Does each runner have a certain distance or style of running (flat, hilly, technical, et cetera) that they naturally excel at, or do certain runners do a better job of figuring out how to adapt to a certain distance or style of running? I guess in reality it’s probably a little bit of both. I’ve known more than a few runners who would say it’s almost entirely the former reason; the latter has almost no relevance. I disagree strongly. I think the reason there are dozens of sub-2:30 marathoners out there who have had a hard time finding their groove in 50- and 100-mile trail races isn’t simply because they aren’t suited for longer distances, but more because they have too much of an idea of how to train for running marathons. That is to say that they get caught up thinking that training for a 50- or 100-miler is quite similar to training for a marathon. A handful of fast marathoners have been able to fake it up to 50 miles, but for every one of these there are several who get to mile 30 or 35 in their first 50 and are completely fried. At that point all the leg speed in the world ain’t gonna do much of anything for you.
How, then, do you prepare your body (and mind) to race well for a full 50 or 100 miles? There are a lot of potential answers to this question, but, in my mind, the most important one is to let go of the idea that we need to focus in our training on improving our leg speed. Racing 50 or 100 miles is about strength and endurance. It’s about nutrition and hydration. It’s about patience, stubbornness, and determination. It’s about a lot of things, but it’s really not much about leg speed. Sure, there are great ultrarunners with great shorter-distance speed, but there are also great ultrarunners with mediocre (at best) shorter-distance speed. The fact that two-time Leadville 100-mile champion Anton Krupicka’s 5k PR is about 16:30 should be all the proof we need on this point. In nearly every ultra he runs he beats dozens of runners who would beat him if the race were a 5k. Why? Take a look at his training. He runs a ton and he runs uphill on rugged trails. He does more in training to build his strength and endurance than anyone I’ve ever heard of. And, more important, he does more or less nothing in his training to build his leg speed.
Take me as another example. I’m blessed with a bit more leg speed than Tony, but it was when I stopped thinking that I needed to try to sharpen and hone this leg speed that I began to have the high level of success in ultras that I had in late 2009 through 2010.
This isn’t to say that you can’t be successful at ultras if you do speed work in your training, but I do believe that doing speed work in training for 50- and 100-mile races (especially hilly, technical ones) does nothing to make us “faster” on race day, and in most cases probably makes us slower because it uses up time and energy in training that could be better spent increasing our strength and endurance.
This reminds me of a recent run with some friends here in Colorado. As we climbed, the snow got pretty deep. Eventually we were just trudging through knee-deep snow as we headed higher and higher into the mountains. It was a fun group of runners, and no one was complaining about the conditions. However, I remember elite ultrarunner Dakota Jones saying that although he was enjoying