The vast majority of runners today want to take in scenery which is beautiful to observe as well as challenging conditions and differing terrain. There is no doubt that Hadrian’s Wall offers everything you could wish for as well as a number of stopping off points for refreshments and potential rest areas. The Northumberland Tourist board have been very proactive in their promotion of Hadrian’s Wall which has attracted massive attention to areas such as Haltwhistle which now thrives on its tourist attractions.

While obviously there would be a need to protect the wall, which has been around for hundreds of years, it should be fairly easy to produce a course which is accessible, safe and tracks the path of Hadrian’s Wall as closely as possible. Would you take on the challenge left behind by the Romans?

The truth is that ultra-distance running is not only a challenge of the body but it is also a challenge of the mind and those who have one skill but not the other will struggle. The ability to keep going when your mind is tired, your body is aching and you were all alone with nobody to talk to or even race against is the ultimate challenge. Those who try and run the same race as those who burst ahead at the start of the race are the ones who will suffer in a classic case of “the hare and the tortoise”.

Competition in the sport of ultrarunning is growing all the time and while it will always remain a specialist niche area of sport it is one which is attracting the attention of some big names. There are literally hundreds of high-profile events around the world which are attracting big sponsorship money and even the attention of TV!

While strictly speaking an ultramarathon is anything above 42.195 km, i.e. the length of the standard marathon, the ultra marathons of today can be thousands of miles in length. There are many multi-day ultra running events which can take six days and beyond to compete, so how exactly do you prepare yourself for an ultramarathon and what does it take?

The average ultra runner will take in hundreds of miles a week when in full training and literary become one of the finest specimens of an athlete you could see. Ultrarunners need to have a controlled diet, and they need to be as fit and healthy as possible, they need stamina levels which the average person could never even dream of and ultimately they need mental strength to push through the difficult periods which all of them experience in ultramarathons.

The training programme for an ultrarunner would literally kill off the average runner as they take in so many miles, pushing their bodies to limit each time. The ability to not only run potentially hundreds of kilometres, focus upon the task ahead and ultimately remain cool calm and collected is something which can easily translate into other areas of everyday life. Ultra running is not a hobby, ultra running and ultramarathons take extreme dedication and extraordinary willpower.