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.

There are basically two different types of Ultramarathon events which include those of a fixed distance with the first Ultra Runner past the post deemed to be the winner and those which take place over a specified area with the winner the person who covers the longest distance in a specified period of time. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg with regards to the Ultra Running sector which is so varied that it is literally impossible to go through every type of race.

As well as the more traditional kind of Ultramarathon events over six hours, 12 hours or 24 hours there are also multi-day Ultramarathons which can last for a very long time. For example there are Ultra Running events in Africa which last a total of seven days and take in over 250 km in race distance. Ultra Running is now very popular in Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, Antarctica, North America and many other areas of the world.

Over the next few weeks and months we will be bringing you the latest news from the world of Ultramarathons, the latest equipment available, the latest events and offer readers the opportunity to exchange views and comments about the future of Ultramarathons and Ultra Running. This is an event which continues to grow in popularity offering perhaps the most gruelling physical test of any runner in the world.