Mark Atkinson - Ducking Long Way: Ultra Running for the Rest of Us

Running is a beautiful sport. It needs the simplest of equipment, can be undertaken by anyone and is a great way of keeping fit and active. Even a short 2030 minutes of activity can be enough to mentally and physically sharpen yourself for the day ahead or forget the troubles of the day almost done. It fits around your life and makes few demands, if you keep it casual. Its a hobby that can exist in the background. A sport that requires the least skill possible. Even darts demands more expertise and accuracy. Running is open to all. Its amazing.

Some runners decide to take things further. Pushed either by competition or a need to challenge themselves theyll step the running up into serious training, working towards a target race or distance. A 5k, maybe even a 10k or half marathon. Along the way they may have been lucky enough to experience the runners high, the elation that comes when your body finally ceases its objections and just runs as it was born to do. Feet cycle forwards, delicately kissing the ground with each step before being passed by the body and leaping back up to rejoin the party. The smooth motion is akin to cycling but without the saddle sores. Distance passes effortlessly and you realise that right now, you are where you need to be and doing what has somehow become second nature. A feeling of contentment engulfs your mind, without the help of any illicit substance or alcoholic imbibement.

Fuelled by this buzz you may progress towards a marathon and join the 1% of the population that has pushed themselves to cover the 26.2 miles on just your feet. Youll have sacrificed work and family time to get the miles in and prepare your body, endured training runs that have left you tired beyond measure and with full-body aches. You could choose to stop there. Many do. Youve proven yourself the equal of the soldier Pheidippides who ran the original distance from a battlefield near the town of Marathon, Greece, to Athens in 490 BC to announce the defeat of the Persians to the waiting Athenians. Arguably youre more than his equal since he only covered 25 miles, promptly collapsed and died. I presume if youre reading this, youre not dead yet. Bravo. Youve just mocked a man who died at work. Poor form.

The urge to continue can be strong. The marathon is a hard challenge, and honing yourself and your training to achieve the perfect race is as much an art as a science. It can be a lifelong goal as you repeatedly throw yourself against the distance to see how your body answers. This quest to chip away at the finish time or amass multiple finishes is unusual but not uncommon. Youve gone beyond the 1% and into a smaller fraction, bordering on obsession.

Amongst those passionate runners you find an even smaller but growing segment. For some the mere 26.2 miles is not enough and they need more, a bigger hit to get that high. Outwardly they may seem normal but inside is a barely hidden need to break themselves for the sheer curiosity of finding what is inside.

You may make sightings of these runners on club runs. They appear from the darkness having run down to the session as a warm-up. They stick with the group, running a little slower, with a smoother, super-efficient gait and a distant look on their face. When finished, they head off home the long way around to log some more miles. The hard effort club session you psyched yourself up for all day at work is merely the meat in their sandwich while they dream of distant hills and ascents lasting many hours.

These ultra runners occupy a seemingly impenetrable microcosm of the sport, as approachable and relatable to casual joggers as space flight is to someone having a go at paper airplanes.

It neednt be that way. The main entry requirement for ultras is supreme stupidity and the sort of single-mindedness that would get you sacked if displayed at work. Keep your job and put that pig-headed facet of your personality to good use. Run until destruction, then a little further to the finish. You too can be an ultra runner. Whether you want to or not is an eminently more sensible question and one that only you can answer.

The marathon is very much a mission to cover a set distance in a decent time. Repeated attempts aim to complete it faster than before and set a new Personal Best (PB). An ultra steps beyond that and becomes a journey, something bigger. Completion is never certain; in fact it may be less likely than failure. It appeals to runners who want more than entertainment for a few hours, who want a (please avoid the tree-hugging phrase) voyage of self-discovery. What will you do when lost in a forest at 3am with a failing headtorch? Could you ascend a treacherous mountain pass and make it through the cloud-line emerging blinking into the sunlight at the peak with lungs on fire and quads aching, knowing this is just the first of many such summits? We want our own Stand By Me journey (although hopefully with no dead body), a Goonies adventure into unchartered territory (though unfortunately without mountains of gold and pirate ships). Races are concerts, an ultra is a week-long music festival from which youll emerge with suspicious chaffing, a new-found love of pineapple and a haunted look in your eyes from what youve seen. Still keen?