Even though I’m no super hero, I figured it was time to recount my ultra origin story.
As with most good stories, mine begins with a pretty woman: my wife. She had run Broad Street a couple times and was interested in moving up and doing a half marathon. As the supportive husband, I told her that I would happily train with her for a half marathon if she couldn’t find anyone else. Well, she didn’t so I was now on the hook to train and then run 13.1 miles.
Up until this point, I would not classify myself as a runner. Not even a little bit. My athletic history of running consisted of two years of spring track (hurdles) in high school, the random 5K, and a couple mud runs. Running hurdles was less of a running activity and more a social endeavor. The coach pretty much left my friends and I alone and we did our own thing, which included jumping over hurdles without doing a lot of running. I never ran for pleasure outside the track seasons. And that was over 20 years before my wife’s pursuit of a HM. The 5Ks and mud runs were more recent and for those I actually did a modest amount of training for. Modest being defined as 2-3 runs per week reaching a maximum distance of maybe 5 miles. I was the quintessential hobby jogger.
A half marathon would be quite a step up for me. Time to hit up the interwebs for a training plan. I did a lot of reading of how to train, proper running form, and just general articles on running. I ended up creating myself a DIY training plan, which had me slowing increasing my long run from 5 miles to 13 miles every other week. It was a twenty week plan and by the time I was halfway through it I was very confident I could run the distance. And if I could run a half marathon, then I just had to do a full.
There were three key developments during my HM training block in the summer/fall of 2012 that laid the foundation for my ultra story. The first was learning about run streaks. By the time August rolled around, a one mile run wasn’t that challenging so my wife and I started a run streak together. The goal was a month, which was good enough for her. This morning was day #3,971 and I’m still looking for what’s good enough for me.
The breakthrough development for me happened on a long run a month later in September. Even though I had been running consistently for about 3 months, I wasn’t very good at it. I would get done with a run and collapse onto my driveway and just lay there gasping for breath for a couple minutes. The long runs even more so. Eventually I had a lightbulb moment and decided to do one of my long runs slower with an easier effort. I kept telling myself “easy, easy” and when I finished, I wasn’t completely gassed. Wait. You can go out on a run and it’s all fun? This is a thing? This is a thing! Running as an enjoyable activity in and of itself instead of purely a training tool to accomplish a goal. Without learning this lesson, nothing else would have followed.
The next month I learned the running world was not flat with the marathon at the far edge. Apparently, there’s this thing called an ultramarathon. Running events that last far, far beyond marathon distances. I was fascinated and amazed at people who could run for a hundred miles. Or all day, all night, and then parts of the next day. So I went down the rabbit hole of hundred mile race reports. I probably read hundreds of them, one after another. I decided I wanted to run one. Keep in mind I hadn’t even run a half marathon at this point. It was such an unrealistic goal that it took a year for me to even confess to my wife that I wanted to run a hundred miler.
Even though I was too frightened to tell anyone my new dream, that didn’t stop me from planning. First was to finish up my half marathon training block. I budgeted a month off after that to recover. The following year would have 2 twenty week training blocks leading up to marathons. I wanted a solid based at the marathon distance before moving up. The year after that would have two long training blocks followed by fifty milers with the leadup to each of those goal races having 50K tune-up races. And then year three, the big kahuna – 100 miles.