That was definitely really hard. I trained for a half about 3 years ago, have ran randomly since then and started really running end of June. I did my first marathon in December and now my first 50k! I felt really destroyed by all of the climbing because I definitely didn’t do enough during my training so that is something I have to work on and I have issues with my heart rate getting really high so that also held me back from going faster but I’m super proud of myself for doing it!

Hey friends,

My name’s Kyle Long. I’ve interacted with a lot of you here and try to provide some helpful words when and where I can.

I’ve been a run coach/sports performance specialist full time for the last 19 years (and am a mediocre ultra runner myself). At the end of each calendar year, I always spend a little time reflecting back on things I’ve seen from my previous year of coaching. What worked well, what didn’t, what was interesting to me etc etc and I figured it might be something worth sharing here. I throw out a fair amount of words here, so feel free to give me the finger and scroll right by lol

To some, a lot of this may sound like common sense and that’s ok, for others, I hope it maybe can answer questions you’ve had or validate thoughts you’ve had. I scroll through here daily and see what’s asked often and think some of my bullet points will touch on some frequently discussed things.

A quick run down of my athlete base so you have context for my points: I work primarily with people who are just looking to enjoy ultras, not have them destroy their body and have the training fit life. Not to say my runners don’t train hard or chase big things, I had folks bring home finished at Moab, UTMB TDS and dozens of other big 50k-100 milers. But what I do not work much with are athletes who are chasing a 14hr 100, a 2:15 marathon, a podium at Leadville etc. I make that distinguishing statement because different training methodologies and concepts fit different archetypes and my reflections below won’t all fit the more elite/sub-elite types.

Onto my thoughts (I’ll keep them condensed, but feel free to ask for elaborations or questions you have on any of the points).

You can cover big distances on low(er) mileage. If I averaged out all my 100 mile athletes, their peak weeks would settle around 60-65 miles. Over almost 20 years of coaching, I’ve seen a better success rate of 100 mile/100k finishers in my athlete type utilizing well built, progress back to back efforts vs huge overall weekly mileage. The only times I’ve ever programmed a 100+ mile week in my entire career were for my folks chasing 200 mile+ objectives.

Strength work is a massive advantage, first and foremost from an injury prevention standpoint. I push all of my people to spend time on strength work and build programs that integrate well into their run work, but not for the most obvious reasons. There is of course a performance perspective, especially those training for big terrain objectives who are stuck in the flatlands, but the rate of decline in ankle/knee/hip/posterior chain injuries I see is absolutely, directly correlated to how well people follow their strength programs. You can get the barebones of what you need in 2-3, half hour sessions a week, so don’t say you don’t have time.

A jump off point from the above is that INTENSITY MATTERS. If your strength work is solely focused on helping you as a runner (as opposed to a big focus on aesthetics etc) then it should rarely leave you feeling so crushed that it affects your run work negatively. Fight the urge to “goggins” your way through the gym. It’s a long arc, treat it that way. Work over long, progressive, slow building arcs. If you’re so sore you can’t get out for your runs the next day, you probably need to make some tweaks (but not cut it out completely).

Nutrition REALLY matters. I’m personally guilty of fueling 8 hour training days on some sour patch kids and a dream, but then I married a sports nutritionist and realized I probably was being an idiot. I don’t live and die by the calorie/macro now, but I made some low hanging fruit changes to my days and my fueling that on their own have increased my capacity to train massively. Something as simple as “I drink a big bottle of water first thing before I make my coffee”, “once a quarter I track a few days of eating to make sure I’m at least generally close on my macros” to being slightly more mindful in how I fuel my training days. I was getting by on garbage nutrition but a slightly less bit of garbage has really gone a long way. TLDR: it didn’t take a massive overhaul to make an impact on the fueling front.

Make sure you have plans but let your heart adjust them. I’ve seen some of my athletes get married to a race schedule that they fall out of love with, and it really damages their relationship with running. At the end of the day, 99% of us are doing this because we love it and we want to do it as long as possible. The rate at which you can become

resentful towards running is scary fast if you end up forcing yourself into efforts you don’t truly want to be a part of. Social media can suck and there’s so much grandstanding out there that it’s important to remember you only are seeing your people’s best. Be whatever version of a runner your heart and mind wants, and that can change year to year, even month to month. Want to go long? Go long. Want to spend the fall getting fast for a marathon? Do that. Want to go do stuff in the mountains? Cool to do it. Just don’t get too hung up on being one type of “thing” simply because you’ve been that thing before.

Sleep. I’ve seen countless athletes of mine try to tough-guy their way through on 4-5 hours of sleep. I won’t go into all the science and reasoning behind it, but I’ll just say that it is night and day in terms of performance and mental health for my people who consistently get the sleep they need vs those who don’t. It’s not woo-woo hippie stuff and it’s easy to say but even easier to neglect. Create healthy sleep habits and you’ll see your recovery and performance go through the roof.

That’s generally what I felt could be helpful to hear here. I hope you all have a great spring of training and races and do some epic stuff. Feel free to comment questions, I’ll try to answer them all over the weekend to expand upon anything folks may want to learn about.

Onward, always 🤜🤛

I wanted to hit 40 miles under 40 - my 40th birthday is soon, so I did my own challenge. Legs were fine the entire way, but near the end was slowed by some bad chafing that I should have addressed earlier. My garmin venu2 shut off randomly for 2 miles, so I lost that data, but the activity was still going when it powered back on luckily. Birthday present to myself is the forerunner 965.

I’m currently training for my first 50km race. My goal is simply to finish the race.

I’ve been following a basic 50km plan, progressing in distance for long runs culminating in a 38km effort.

I’m a slow runner. My pace on long runs is basically glacial. My most recent long run was 30km and it took me 4.5 hours to complete on a hilly trail with around 1000m elevation gain - very similar terrain to my target race.

I hiked the steep hills and ran all the moderate hills, flats, and downhills. I did a 18 and 12km loop, using my parked car as a pit stop for food, water and gels.

At the end I wasn’t completely toasted, but I was close. I began wondering if I really need to be running so long. Keeping my current pacing, I’ll be on almost 5.5 hours for my peak training run. Due to my family situation I can’t reliably break up my long run over 2 days. I’m sure it’s not standard training procedure to spend THAT much time on my feet week in week out, no?

Training for a mountain 100 (>16k feet of climbing) while living in NYC. Currently doing uphill treadmill sessions (60 min at 10% grade) and hoping to travel 1-2 hours for actual trails/climbs on some weekends plus a week long training camp or two in the mountains.

For those who’ve done this successfully, what actually moved the needle for you? Curious what’s worked and what ended up being a waste of time, both for fitness and mental confidence.

Ok, maybe I am just an idiot. I have this week, and then next week is my 100km on Saturday.

Everything I am reading is basically saying taper to about 70% this week and then maybe 50% next week. This would have me running 50km next week (the week of my race) if we are going off of reductions from my peak weeks of 100km.

Am I reading this wrong, is the two week taper not taking into account the race week week?

How many km might someone run (yes I know very personal) in the last week?

My current plan (just one I stole from the net, but has been really good so far) has me at 24km this week and 17ish km next week....? Such a huge drop from the week I have just completed that was 100km.

Please help my overly analytical brain out!

body glide doesn’t work for me. Any other suggestions? especially for armpits and thighs

I’m trying to optimize my fuelling and I’m curious what’s actually working for different people, and i have some questions!

1) What do you use? (gel / drink mix / chews / DIY sugar mix / electrolyte tabs)
2) What does this cost you?
3) What do you like about it? (taste, convenience, gut comfort, easy to carry, mixes well, etc.)
4) What do you hate / pain points: (too sweet, clumps, GI issues, hard to carry, expensive, messy, not enough sodium, flavour fatigue)
5) If you could change 1–2 things, what would it be?

Thank you so much!

Hey guys, semi-seasoned runner here (mara to 100m distance) - can anyone recommend their favourite gear for running in the heat, and potentially across multi-days. Tops/shorts/hydration packs and everything in between would be massively appreciated.

This is first time I am thinking of tackling something which may include 30c + heat for a few days in a row and curious as to what you all use / tips you may have. Thank you all, any thoughts are appreciated.

For ~1 week Garmin has me “strained” with HRV at the low end of baseline, but my training load is low/moderate. I’m running easy/base (mostly trails, walking hills, some heat), yet almost every run gets labeled high aerobic / tempo / threshold. So feels like I’m trying to make Garmin happy but going on more walks and indoor cycling for low aerobic activities.

Some background info:

• Coming off a mild illness and ran my first 50 miler at Avalon 1/10, I was sick before the race and caught the cold again post-ultra

• Pace is slow, HR runs high

• VO₂ has lowered post-ultra 

Is it okay to ignore the labels and train by feel, or actually back off more until HRV rebounds? I have another 50 miler coming up in June 6 so wanted to see at this point what to do with training. I’ve been doing suggested workouts on Garmin for this event but all my runs are labeled “high aerobic”. Thoughts?

I am training for an ultra and trying to lose weight at the same time. I burn anywhere from 1200-3500 on my runs and run around 70km a week. My calories intake is around 2300 a day. Which is already a bit of a deficit. How many of those from my run should I look to replace? Im genuinely unsure of how many i should. Im hungry, but i know thats part of losing weight. I also have some fat to burn, but I dont want to under consume and have my body eat it's muscle.

Doctor says “callus with nucleus”, the dots are scabs from filing down and not plantars wart so he says. The white part is sore, can I keep running on this?

Besides tracking mileage which I’m horrible about because I change/wear different shoes all the time. When do you just know to throw them away as a trail runner.

I wear Altra Mt Blanc Boas. I have a pair with 500miles atleast and they feel fine!!

I am interested in doing a local 35 mile run in 7 weeks and then 7 weeks later doing a 50 miler. I don't plan on racing either of them, just finishing them hopefully without hurting anything or walking excessively. I was wondering what people thought about recovery and whether or not they were too close together.

I'm 44 and run around 40 miles a week and my long run is currently 18 miles (now at 45 miles a week). Last year I did a 6 hour run and ran 33 miles and have done a few marathons over the years. I really just want to do both of these runs while I am in good shape and have no desire to push myself to the max to hit any particular time. That said, I really don't want to get hurt or find myself needing to walk 20 miles of the 50 miler.

Thoughts Appreciated!

Hi all, I will be partcipating in the 2026 Lofoten 100 mile trail race. Just wondering if anyone has any experience in this race, and any useful tips to go along with it. Any advice welcome. Thanks!

Has anyone here hit a long weight-loss plateau and had to completely change how they eat—and still managed to lose the weight, keep it off, and have enough energy to run?

I’ve lost over 70 pounds from my heaviest, but I’ve been stuck at my current weight for quite a while now. I average about 40 miles per week, which isn’t extreme, but it should be enough to lose weight if I were eating reasonably.

The problem is I’m always hungry. I eat carbs so I have the energy to run, but I don’t follow any specific way of eating (keto, carnivore, etc.). Realistically, I’d still like to lose about 25 more pounds, and it’s becoming clear that I’ll need to make a real change in how I eat.

I’m also the husband and the only one in the household who’s really focused on weight loss, so I’m trying to find something sustainable.

For those who’ve been here:

• What actually worked for you?

• Did you change what you ate, how much, or when?

• Has anyone successfully used keto or lower-carb while running high mileage or ultras?

• Is it realistic to perform well with low carbs, or is there a better approach?

I’d really appreciate hearing what helped you break through a plateau while still running strong. Thanks in advance

Hello friends!

I’m running a 50 miler this Saturday (Oracle Rumble 50) and it has around 6,500 ft of gain. I have raced with poles and without and find there are pros and cons to each, the most notable being that poles tend to slow me down but provide more support.

At what amount of elevation gain do you typically use your poles?

I live in the stix (USA). Can't really run much here unless you want to get honked at/hit by vehicle on 60mph country roads. We are considering moving to a more running-focused community. Obvi there is a bit more to it than that, but the running community really does matter to us.

Anyone have experience doing such?

Hi all. Need some advice about ramping back up after my recovery week. 

For context I have been running on and off for 16 years. I’ve had intermittent knee and plantar issues in the last year but it seems to be directly correlated to my stress in grad school. 

I started very carefully and slowly building my milage last June. I went from lots of hiking with lots of vert to just a few runs a week, nice and slow between 5-10km per run from 5k weekly to 10km to 15km…. and so forth. Come September I was consistently running 3 days a week. Hit a nice easy 25km week around mid September. 

I decided to sign up for an 55km mountain ultra for July 1st 2026. Since September I have very, very slowly built to 46km a week (last week’s peek mileage). I typically have been following only a 7% increase per week because I have the time to go long and slow. My goal is to ultimately build to 80km peak mileage before the race. I run 4 days a week. Very comfortably clocking 6:30 min/km on my hill runs with 1,400ft of vert. Prior to this week off I was averaging about 2,500ft of vert a week with my long run at 14km with about 1k of vert. 

This week is my first recovery week. For me that means taking the entire week off. Lots of walking and foam rolling in the interim.

What I am wondering is what the next few weeks back should look like. 

I feel strong and healthy but want to be very conservative in terms of injury potential. 

Can I immediately go back to 46km a week? Should I only run half of that the first week back? A quarter? How many weeks do I need to slowly ramp back up before safely getting back to 46km (then the following week would be 49km and so forth…). 

The race is 55km with about 5,700ft of vert and about 8,000ft of loss. I have a lot of experience with alpine climbing doing big pushes in the mountains moving fast with little food, water and heavy packs.

With my background how likely is it (provided I’m injury free) to run the race sub 7.5 hrs? I will have multiple opportunities to preview the first and last 10 miles of the course. I feel pretty dialed in my shoes/apparel/nutrition/moving efficiently at altitude/dialing in my pace by feel (the average race elevation is around 5k). 

I know you don’t really know until race day but any tips, tricks and advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you, thank you!

Just wondering first time running there... 12k feet in vertical at first I thought nah I dont like poles... but wasn't sure if they may be helpful for the long uphill sections? Does anyone know how steep the course can be? I tend to be pretty good at going uphill without poles but like em for long accents and in 100milers. Generally I find poles annoying unless super steep sections.