How tough is ultra running?
When you consider how difficult a full marathon is for the average runner in the UK can you imagine how difficult an ultramarathon would be?
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.