The person who trained assiduously, whose every workout had a purpose and goal attained, who meticulously planned every piece of gear—that seems like another person, and she’s not here now.

The person who trained assiduously, whose every workout had a purpose and goal attained, who meticulously planned every piece of gear—that seems like another person, and she’s not here now.
Perhaps my fondest memory of the Mauna to Mauna Ultra was the experience of the oxymoronic “friendly competition” in the best, truest sense.
It’s taper time, so I reflect on peak training for the Mauna to Mauna Ultra and share an exciting update about Free to Run.
Peak training involves increasing your training load and preparing very specifically for the conditions of your race. For multi-day, self-supported stage races, the preparation becomes more complex.
The book explores the “why” as well as the “how” of becoming a trail runner and graduating to ultras. It goes beyond showing how to achieve better trail-running performance. The chapters also convey the culture and ethos of the sport, and spotlight many notable characters in it.
At the starting line, do you say it’s “just a training run”? Here’s how to use a race as an effective, deliberate training run to help fulfill a longer-term race goal.
Having spent the past two weeks developing several long-range training plans for clients, which span 16 to 24 weeks in preparation for a top-goal ultra, I thought I’d share the process and use my own training horizon for the Mauna to Mauna Ultra as an example.
In spite of never running close to 100 miles before, and in spite of having his longest prior race nearly break his desire to run ultras, Tim ran such a strong and positive UTMB that he came from behind to place third overall. What can we learn from his performance?
You could call it “extreme fast trekking.” It’s hard to articulate how ridiculously slow and tough this mountain “running” is, but I’ll try.
I put off writing a race report because I felt the kind of turned-inside-out fatigue and brain fog that a new mother feels the week after giving birth.