anyone on here run further than a marathon?

[hatwoman]

I ran the London marathon last year. this year (on Sunday in fact) I did a 20-miler fell race (huge amounts of climb, wading through streams, navigation - much harder than the marathon - and took me longer). It was awesome. and - although I swore it would be my last long race - I can't put the whole thing to bed. there's a little bit of me (and I admit I'm still on a post-race high) wondering if I could do something longer/harder. The 20 miler was unbelievably hard - I thought my ankles were going to give in. I thought I was going to cry and collapse as I crossed the line (I didn't).but it was amazing.

A year ago, when I kind of thought about maybe doing it, I thought that really it was nuts...but now my idea of what counts as "nuts" has shifted. but am I in danger of getting sucked into proper madness if I went for something else? is it like moving on to harder drugs? am I just looking for a bigger and better high? or have you done something bigger than a marathon and thought it was so good you'd recommend it?

Yep. I've done two ultras, 50 miles and 40 miles. People who do them aren't nuts. We're just people who like to challenge ourselves. If you fancy having a go I can recommend chatting to people on the Runner's World forum. They have a section dedicated to ultra running and adventure racing.

I will warn you that there are a lot of triathletes on there so don't mention cycling or swimming or you'll end up being roped into doing an Ironman Triathlon

hi nocake - were yours road ones? or track, or off road? flat or hilly? I'm very much a fell runner. how did you find the 40 and the 50? I was thinking this morning I really don't think anything longer is for me - the thing that puts me off is the 5 mins, at about 15 miles, when the terrain was particularly bad (it was awful all the way round) and my ankles felt like they were going to disintegrate. apart from that it was great.

They were both off road. I can't imagine anything more dull than a track ultra.

The first was the Thames Ultra - 50 miles along the Thames Path from Reading to Shepperton. There were some road sections but most of it was hard path (apart from a small section of wading!). The second was Tring to Town along the canal towpath from Tring. They were both fairly flat.

I really enjoyed both of them. There was one bad patch in the 50 when I was close to packing it in but I managed to get through it. I was pacing that one pretty well so managed to overtake people towards the end, which is always a bit of a boost. I used a run/walk strategy but I think for a hilly ultra you'd have to plan something different, walking more of the ups to avoid tiring yourself out too quickly. That's the advantage of an ultra, most people don't run it all so if you find some tricky terrain you can just walk it.

thanks nocake - the 20 I did had 3500 feet of climb - mainly focused in 4 - very steep - bits. One of them isn't runnable - it's a steep rocky stream (or torrent on Sunday) that you have to scramble up (for about 1.5 miles). A lot of people do walk the worst bit of the hills. It's hard to pace yourself doing fells though - it's not just the uphill that slows you down - steep descents slow you too - especially on uneven ground (which they almost always are). but yes, in a sense, the license to slow down is an advantage.

can i ask what your training scehdule was like - what sort of weekly mileage were you doing? and what sort of long runs were you doing?

The longest runs I did for the 50 were about 35 miles. I came into the training from a marathon so I was already doing 20+ mile runs. I just continued to increase it from there. I was Ironman training at the same time so I did a long run every other week then on the other weeks I did a shorter run (up to 20 miles) with a long bike ride. The rest of each week was as much mileage as I could manage without doing anything too fast and with plenty of rest. Mostly 10-12 mile runs (limited by how much time I had in the evening).

The really long runs were partly run/walk to get used to the run/walk schedule.

The key thing in the training was being slow. You just need endurance so every run becomes about building that up.

Could I ask, nocake, what happens with family life when ultra training? My DH gets rather peeved at being on his own when I am out running despite the fact I get up before everyone wakes up to ensure minimal disruption to family life. I assumed I would have to wait until the kids were much older until I competed in ultras but am now wondering if I am doing a marathon and half ironman next year whether I could follow on with my first ultra after that! The triathlon is really my attempt to force myself to cross-train but the thought of ultra running is very exciting as I can think of nothing better than running! Or would I be better of focusing on another marathon, in particular, as I would like to get below 3 hours at some point (another goal)...?

Good question, Moshi. I got divorced

Not because of the ultra and IM training but it was fairly easy to be out of the house for hours of training when it wasn't a great place to be. I'm really not sure how I would have managed it if I'd had family commitments. I think you have to be very organised and have a very understanding family. You also have to decide what is more important to you. I'm now married to a lovely woman with a baby on the way and even training for a half marafun is tough. I couldn't contemplate IM or ultra training at the moment. Maybe in the future when the baby is old enough to go in a buggy and/or trailer.

interesting...like moshi I really try to minimise impact on the family. When I trained for the marathon I had teh huge advantage of having 2 days a week when I wasn;t working and the kids were at school. now though, I work (allegedly - am freelance/self-employed) during pretty much all school hours. though now I have the advantage that they do quite a lot of time-comsuming out of school activities. (3 hours gymnastics on sunday and 3 on thursday evening is a good start! and they want to do more...). I doubt I'll do anthing longer than a marathon though. Like I said, last week, I was still on a post-race high...I do need a new challenge - but yet to find what it is. DH and some of his friends have said they'll enter the village fell race next year. maybe I should set myself the challenge of beating them...

hat - I like your style !