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long runs, including one of the two or three very longest training runs in these training plans, primarily on trails. Not only do these runs build trail running skills and musculature, but they also ensure that you spend adequate time on your feet in training. Time on feet is a phrase that’s commonly thrown out during informal discussions about trail ultramarathon training. The concept behind the phrase is that speed is not of the essence during long training runs. In fact, sometimes it’s beneficial to complete a route in more rather than less time.

If your focus ultra is a road ultra or flat, non-technical trail ultra, you can run the prescribed mileage for all of your long runs on the road. That’s not to say you should run all of those long runs on the road, just that you don’t have to do any mileage conversion.

Speed Work

If you choose to include speed work in your ultra training, be sure to warm up for at least a mile and a half and to cool down for at least a mile after each session. Never skimp on the cool-down just because it will put you slightly over your prescribed mileage for the day.

While the training plans that follow assign daily and weekly training volume in miles, speed work volume is assigned by time. More precisely, the plans assign speed work as total time run at speed, excluding recovery breaks. Assigning the speed work this way gives you maximum flexibility to choose the type of speed work you want to run as well as how to divide it up. However, feel free to design your workouts in terms of distance (6 x 800 meters, for instance, or 4-mile tempo run) if you are able to roughly estimate the time it takes you to cover the set distances. It’s not a big deal to slightly overshoot the duration at speed for a given workout due to a miscalculation or the desire of your training partner(s) to run a particular workout. Just don’t make it a habit of running more speed work than is prescribed. The purpose of the time limits on speed work is to minimize the risk of overtraining or fatigue-based injury.

Intervals

The speed work durations in the training plans are designed with interval training, as described in chapter 2, in mind. As such, break that time up into true intervals, long hill repeats, or fartleks. For the benefit of example, let’s suppose you run 18 to 20 minutes of speed work on a given Thursday.

Some possible interval workouts include:

• 6 to 8 repeats of 800 meters (m) with 400 meters rest.

• A ladder of 400m, 800m, 1200m, 1200m, 800m, 400m with a recovery jog of half the distance of the previous interval. Faster runners might add a 1600m interval in the middle of the ladder.

• 3 x 1 mile with a 3-minute recovery jog. (Keep in mind that these workouts are only meant to be examples; you may run fewer or additional repeats of a given distance in the prescribed time.)

Hill workouts build strength and endurance. (Photo by Glenn Tachiyama)

Long hill repeats often call for time-based repeats such as 6 x 3 minutes or 4 x 5 minutes with a recovery jog back down to where you started the repeat. If your hill isn’t much longer than a minute when running your workout, determine your average time to the top and do some rough back-of-the-envelope calculations to determine how many repeats to run.

I won’t give you any recommendations for breaking up the cumulative time for a fartlek. Go see what you enjoy most. That’s the whole point of fartleks!

Tempo Runs

Workouts based on longer “tempo” workouts are described in chapter 2. Tempo workouts and related cruise intervals are straightforward enough that no examples are needed beyond what’s found in chapter 2.

If you are an experienced marathoner who chooses to run a tempo workout, consider running 25 to 50 percent more than the prescribed speed work time. Less experienced runners should build their tempo runs to at least 20 minutes. The key word is build, as a runner who’s never done speed work may want to log tempo runs of 10, 12, and 15 minutes before tackling a full 20 minutes.

No-Speed-Work Option

As mentioned