Andy Mouncey - So You Want to Run an Ultra: How to Prepare for Ultimate Endurance

SO YOU WANT TO RUN AN

ULTRA

How to prepare for ultimate endurance

Andy Mouncey

CROWOOD

First published in 2014 by
The Crowood Press Ltd
Ramsbury, Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2014

Andy Mouncey 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 831 8

Dedication
For the pupils, staff and parents of these schools who came with me on my Cracking The Spine Race project
in the winter of 201314:

Edale Primary School
Horton-in-Ribblesdale Primary School
Cowling Primary School
Caton Primary School
Grassington Primary School
Grindleford Primary School
Bamford Primary School
Kirkby Malham Primary School
Bradwell Junior School
Riverside Junior School
Hope Valley College
Settle College
Seaham School of Technology

Contents

About the Author

In 1983 a seventeen-year-old Andy Mouncey started his first training diary in order to record the results of his first race: a ninety-minute outing over the half-marathon distance in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, UK. He has been writing and racing ever since then, starting on the fells of the north of England as a teenager before progressing to triathlon. He signed off seventeen years in that sport by setting new fastest stage times for the Enduroman Arch To Arc Challenge in 2003: a 300-mile solo triathlon linking London and Paris via an English Channel swim.

Since 2004 he hasnt swum a stroke in anger, concentrating instead on trail ultra running. He has finished the Lakeland 100 the UKs most prestigious trail one-hundred miler three times, being placed second twice.

He is an accredited athletics coach, personal trainer and conditioning coach who has been coaching, training and mentoring clients from sport, business and education since 2000. He is also an inspirational award-winning professional speaker and a previously published author who has appeared on radio and TV.

In 2013 he designed and launched a ground-breaking learning programme for school pupils based around an ultra-running challenge linked to his own attempt to finish The Spine Race in January 2014 the UKs most brutal winter ultra covering the 268 miles of the Pennine Way national trail. Cracking The Spine reached 1,600 pupils across thirteen schools, raised thousands of pounds for the charity Sport Relief, and is very much a project in progress.

He is married and lives with his family in the north of England.

www.bigandscaryrunning.com

Other books by Andy:
London To Paris The Hard Way
Magic, Madness and Ultramarathon Running

CHAPTER 1

An Introduction To Ultra Running

Can Anyone Run Ultras?

So, Andy, do you think anyone can run ultras?

Such was the final question from my audience at the 2013 Keswick Mountain Festival in the English Lake District. Little did I know that at least one person in the audience was willing me to give a positive response

Well Cue big pause while gathering thoughts, we already know Its Not About The Distance, dont we?

Nods and knowing grins from lovely on-side and on-message audience.

The distance just brings the challenge of compound and cumulative, remember? Thats more stuff to deal with more often and for longer. As long as were sufficiently motivated its gonna be about the other stuff: keeping your contact points intact, (cue overly dramatic elevation of right foot into audience sight-line) controlling your pace especially in the first third of a race and managing your mood. The good news is that those are all skills that can be taught.

More knowing grins and nods are sent my way.

Welcome to our world.

I reckon its only a matter of time before someone makes a reality TV documentary with just this in mind. Look at the precidents actor David Walliams swimming the English Channel to raise money for the charity Comic Relief a few years ago OK it isnt running, but it is ultra distance and while he was a good swimmer to start with, that was still a huge ask. Likewise comedian Eddie Izzard and his forty-odd marathons in around the same number of days, and comedian John Bishop doing his Paris to London triathlon thing for Sport Relief last year. Now Comic Relief is back next year: anyone want to lay any odds?

Pause for dramatic effect.

So as long as the basic unit and body systems are functioning, my answer to the question is yes, I do. Absolutely.

REVELATIONS FROM REAL RUNNERS

How I Got Started and Why I Do It

Paul Parrish

On 22 November 2000 I walked into an office of the company where I worked and asked for one of the London Marathon charity places that they had set aside for staff. They wanted to know who it was for, and when I said it was for me, they laughed and refused to hand it over. It will be a waste, they told me, youll never do it!

The reason for their scepticism was that I was a thirty-five-year-old man who weighed 15 stone and chain smoked cigars (three packets a day). I drank every lunchtime and every evening. I smelt of booze permanently, and would feel light-headed going up stairs. I couldnt use the London tube because I would sweat so much I would arrive at destinations cloaked in embarrassment and shame. An active alcoholic, I lived in a world of shame and guilt.

I finally persuaded them to give me that marathon place, and in the following April I crossed the finishing line sobbing tears of joy. I had begun to run and I have never stopped, and I continue to run to put as much distance as I can between the man that was and the man that is here now.

Addiction is a shocking half-life of existence, but learning to counter it has given me crucial tools to allow me to take on ultra distance running. I have learnt that an addict has incredible willpower. I thought I was spineless and weak willed, until another addict pointed out that it takes amazing willpower to have a drink at 11am when your body is wrecked from the previous night. I now know that no matter how long the run, or how difficult the terrain, I have the willpower to keep going. Nothing is as hard as having that drink when your body is physically screaming at you to stop!

I have learnt never to look at a run in its entirety, but to chop it up into segments and take each piece as it comes. Sure, have a strategy, but be prepared to adapt and adjust. An addict is told to live each day one day at a time. It is no good look at an entire life without your drug of choice the addict couldnt handle it. Instead just adapt to each day and take that. The days soon become years, just as each mile of a run soon becomes an entire race.