Gotta keep the family first!

Best regards
Bjarke

Yep, can be really tough, but finding that balance is critical.

I’ve used the rule of thumb that if I can run a particular distance over a weeks training then I can run that same distance during a single race.

So to run a marathon, running 26 miles in a week is sufficient, to run a 50K then running 31 miles in a week is fine.

For my 95 mile race the most I managed in a week was 85 miles, this was the exception though, my average weekly mileage was around 50 miles/week during the six months running up to the race. The idea that you have to run big mileage, and big long runs to run ultra’s is just not supported by my own experience.

They biggest stumbling block runners have with ultras is going out too fast and then suffering. If you go out nice and easy and eat and drink regularly, walk the hills they can be remarkably pleasant affairs.

I’ve always wanted to be a morning person, we’ll see! Challenge for me is now that my two older kids are interested in staying up later, I get night duty. Makes it tough!

Thanks as always Robert, I actually re-read your comment on my post last year about dropping from the Vermont 50K. Always good advice, and you’re right, I think I could probably do the race and have fun on my current mileage with a max long run of around 15.

Thanks so much Suzanne!

W.r.t fitting in racing and training, I ran my first really long ultra at the end of June (the 95 mile West Highland Way Race) and did most of my training runs before lunch or just after getting up in the morning. The only really long runs I did in the six months before the race were a marathon and 53 mile ultra. The long runs I did in training were all in the 13 to 15 mile range, which is short even for marathon training. Most weeks I got in two of these runs though.

My race went really well so despite relative short long runs was able to perform well. For a 50k race I’d not worry much at all about getting lots of really long runs in, half marathon distance would be fine.

I think the key to making modest long runs work is avoiding a high carb diet and running fasted. The combination means that your body will be burning more fat throughout the whole day as well as your runs. It takes a little adaptation time to shift across from burning predominately carbs to predominately fats but once you have achieved it the stress on needing really long training runs is diminished.

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Getting up early is something I do naturally, but I’d caution about getting less sleep to do so. Sleep is enormously important to mental and physical health. So if you are going to get up earlier make sure you adjust the time you go to bed and get to sleep to compensate.

Another way to manage the sleep would be to consider napping for 20 minutes after lunch. This would really help you feel fresh and give your brain some time to diffuse itself.

And I sure as hell ain’t gonna start getting up at 4:30 to get my runs in. Insanity! I mean, that’s cool if you do that, but that’s not for me.