Episode 413: Ultra Running Training & Event Checklist

 

For this episode, I dive into some things that I find important when considering doing an ultramarathon. These planning processes will help you better prepare and execute in your training and the event. Topics include: timeline, available resources, gear list, nutrition list, hydration list, measurement tools, and mental preparation.

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 Preparing for Ultramarathon Success

00:07:04 Planning Your Ultramarathon Training Timeline

00:13:24 How to Utilize Online Resources to Better Prepare

00:19:43 Gear for Race Day Preparation

00:26:00 Nutrition Strategies for Ultra

00:32:07 Optimal Hydration During Races

00:38:28 Measurement Tools

00:44:30 Mental Training

Episode Transcript:

Alright everyone, welcome back. I wanted to get this episode out because it is hard to believe we are coming up to the end of 2024, but there's a couple months left in this year, and a lot of people here are probably thinking about wrapping up whatever goal events or training accomplishments and things they were trying to do for this year and starting to refocus their energies and attention onto 2025. So this episode, I am going to focus on some of the stuff that I think are really good practices in terms of being proactive around preparing yourself for whatever those goals are going to be in the future, and it's going to be skewed towards ultramarathon. So think of this as, prepare for ultra or a ultra marathon checklist of sorts that are something to be thinking about as you decide to jump into an ultra marathon for the first time. For a repeat, or just focus in your goals a little more specifically than maybe you have in the past, there are a few points that I really want to hit on that I think are worth kind of adding to this early introduction checklist of sorts when you're thinking about doing an ultra marathon, and those include the timeline. Leaning on available evidence that is out there for you specific to what you're training for. Gear lists, nutrition lists, hydration lists, measurement tools, and programming your mental training. So I'm going to go through each of these and share why I think they're important. And then give you some tips to think about as you're kind of going through that process so you can hit the ground running with a lot of productivity in your training, and hopefully avoid a bunch of mistakes along the way when you're learning new things and also putting some of these things into practice. So to kick things off, let's talk about the timeline. The timeline is one I find really interesting, because I think you should really pick one that fits your preparation needs. So if you're going to be doing an ultramarathon, one thing you want to ask yourself is what is your goal? Make that goal centric and base your timeline on that. So if your goal is to just finish the race, if your goal is to improve upon a previous performance, get a PR or something like that. Or if your goal is that you value the process of training, if that's really what you're trying to get out of, this is just to get that routine of the training in there. And the event that you're preparing for is kind of secondary, or is that event something big? Maybe you got in on this big, iconic race that you've been in the lottery for multiple years, and now it's your chance to really go there and take a swing at a dream from an event standpoint. And that becomes a much larger piece to the programming puzzle. All of these things are worth considering when you decide what your timeline should be in terms of preparing for the race itself. So when you're thinking about a timeline, you really want to be thinking about where you are at as an individual versus what you see floating around on the internet, because you'll find all sorts of things about like, oh, you need 16 weeks, you need 20 weeks, you need 24 weeks, or by my 18 week program, all these things out there and I'm not knocking those things. I've got pre-made programs and things that are based on timelines as well. But really, the next step after recognizing that those are out there is figuring out what it is you actually need at the individual level versus how those things are programmed at a more general population level. So. For example, if you're someone who's new and you're deciding, okay, I am coming from a background of sports and athletics, but it's maybe a little more skewed towards power based things. But I'm going to try out this ultramarathon. You're more of a hybrid athlete, so to speak. Then you know, a timeline which allows you to spend a bit more time building an aerobic base might be important versus somebody who has been running ultramarathons for a while and likely has spent a good portion. And in some cases, I've seen the entirety of their training in low intensity exercise, and therefore their timeline might look a little bit different for some specifics here. I think if someone's ready to jump right into things and do say like a speed work development phase on week one of their preparation, but they still want to be able to check all the boxes on their global fitness, meaning becoming a very well-rounded runner and ultimately also have some time at the end of the plan to do some race specific things like ultramarathon specific long runs. Then you could probably do that in like 16 weeks if you want to have some time to really confirm or develop a foundation or an aerobic base, then, you know, 24 weeks is likely going to be more appropriate for that and still be able to include a speed work development phase and some event specific training near the end. If you're someone who is brand new to running and haven't really focused on any sort of structured training in the past, neither of these may be enough time. but then again, it goes back to that. What your goal centric vision is for you, your experience there at the event. So if someone, let's say someone says, I really want to put my best foot forward here, maybe I do need more than, say, eight weeks of foundational development before I get into things, since I haven't historically been a runner and you're looking at more like a one year plan where you're thinking, now being the end of 2024, I'm going to put an event on the list that's an ultramarathon in October, November or December of 2025, and that gives me a full 12 months to maybe go through a longer time timeline of establishing a low intensity base through slower running, essentially, and spend maybe 3 to 6 months doing that and really getting that foundation put in place before you jump into things that are going to be more higher end stuff, like the speed work development side of things. So really kind of think about who you are as a runner and then explore what that means in terms of. The process and the timeline that's going to fit best for you and start the planning process from there, so you don't find yourself in a situation where you're trying to either jam a bunch of training into a smaller window, and you're missing adaptations. You don't have the right balance between stress and recovery, or you just, you know, don't put yourself in a position where the slightest mistake sends you off course because your timeline was too short, and any deviation from it could result in you skipping things or missing things that you found important before you started. So really be honest with yourself about that sort of thing. One thing I'll just touch on with this is like a reconfirm, sort of, when you're picking that timeline, really do think about this process of just because you're an ultra marathoner does not mean that you need to just be doing ultra marathon specific things. I've talked about this a bunch in the past, on this podcast and on other podcasts, but really think about how I can improve myself as a runner. So focusing on your global fitness, like how your development across the intensity spectrum looks, are you imbalanced? Meaning you have a ton of low intensity bass and not much speed work, in which case your global fitness would improve by doing a speed work development phase. Are you someone who's done a lot of speed work in the past, and you have a pretty weak Foundation, you know, might be someone who would benefit your global fitness by adding a lot more lower intensity stuff. Maybe you're somewhere balanced in there, and it's just about kind of going through the process and improving all of those inputs along the intensity spectrum by going through it in a more balanced, spread out manner, and then ultimately getting to the point of the plan where everyone will arrive eventually, which is the event specific training. So if you're doing a longer ultramarathon, this might be something like an ultra marathon long run. And I'll end the timeline discussion with this one piece, because I do find this to be an interesting topic in the ultramarathon running community is there is like an ongoing conversation, sometimes a debate of long runs, like, should we be doing these ultra specific long runs where maybe you see people out there doing these really long sessions, like five, six plus hours training runs versus people who maybe say, okay, well, yeah, you're out there for a long time, but that's not optimal because you're sort of stealing from tomorrow by adding too much stimulus to a single session and therefore taking future training off the off the table or the adaptations that you're going to get at the end stages of a long run like that are so small. The risk reward benefit skews heavily to the negative versus someone targeting more of a traditional duration long run, like, say, two to maybe three hours. Usually with these types of polarizing topics, I tend to kind of fall somewhere in the middle where it's like, why would we need to do one or the other? It's usually not that black and white. So what I usually am referring to and I say, first, improve your global fitness, then work on event specific training is basically for the purposes of this topic is plan your timeline accordingly so that you can improve your global fitness with more traditional long runs embedded into it, and then you'll arrive at a spot in your training with enough time left before the event itself, where you can spend some time adding to your race day practice. By doing some of those longer runs and not having to worry about stealing from tomorrow, because you've already checked that those boxes in your global fitness training, and now you're just working on those things that are really only able to be explored through, you know, a longer session out there, whether that be a training race or just solo long runs or group runs with friends, that you're out there for longer periods of time and testing things like how your pack works for longer durations, how your fluid needs change throughout the course of a longer day, where you might be going from cool weather to hot weather, how your nutrition sits with you differently over the course of longer period of time. All these things that are going to just be more specifically learned when you're doing them specifically, versus trying to extrapolate out for more traditional long run durations. All right. Next is to lean on available information online relative to your event. So usually when you sign up for an event in an ultramarathon, it isn't the first time this thing has been done. And if it is, it's rarely the case where the structures or the basics of it haven't been done in a different area or on a different event. So leaning on those experiences of other people, data available for you from different websites and things like that is really worth going over. So you can start to. Pinpoint different things versus guests. Any time you find yourself doing a lot more trial and error, or waiting to figure out when it's important, you're going to do yourself a disservice in terms of your odds of it being successful. So there's a few different things I like to explore early on in the process. Once you've picked an event to better prepare you to be able to practice the things that are going to be important for you on race day so that when you show up, they're nice and fit. That doesn't get sabotaged by something unrelated to your fitness. So things like event websites. Once you sign up for the race, go over to the event website and see what resources they have available to you there. Things like what they have at their aid station from food and drinks and that sort of thing. How spread out are their aid stations? So how do you need to be prepared in terms of the duration you're going to need between them? Do they allow crews? Do they allow pacers things that are going to be more dependent on, do I need to have drop eggs and stuff that I need and no, I need versus am I able to, you know, get things off of the aid station and have them essentially take care of that logistical piece of the puzzle? A lot of the websites for these races will have that available information on their supplementary to that is, they often times also have social media pages where you can go on to like a Facebook page or some other community forum where you can look at what other people are doing, Ask questions of people have done in the past, get links to different race reports and things like that that people have where they describe different stuff and generally speaking, really kind of dive into some of the specifics to that event and start asking yourself questions about like what maybe you need or don't need and how to properly plan so you don't find yourself at mile 70 of the 100 mile race you've been preparing for for the last six months. Without a piece of gear or an item that would have been useful had you known about it, but didn't. Look around and find out that that would be something that would maybe be worth considering. So again, I kind of mentioned this one, but race reports to a lot of times websites will have past runners, race reports linked to them. Or if you go to the social media page, you'll have them there. Or if you just do a quick search engine search, you can find different race reports that people have done, and you don't want to necessarily be expecting things to go exactly the way that the person writing that report went. They may have entirely different goals than you, but they may drop some nice little interesting tips and tidbits on there that are specific to the event that will help you answer questions that you have, or maybe you didn't have them. And also it will generate a question and then you can do some further research to find it out. But I find those to be kind of some valuable things to kind of go through and really use as a tool to kind of better familiarize yourself with what you're going to get into at the event itself. Finally, Strava and Ultra sign up data. So one of the hardest things with a lot of these longer ultramarathons is picking a goal time. Or once you pick a goal time, figuring out what does that actually mean? So we do have a lot of data that I think oftentimes people don't use that you can help tease this out for yourself. So let's say, for example, you decided to do a 100 mile race that's on ultra signup. Well, you can go and you can find that race on there and see the list of results from the past. And with that list of results is going to have finishing time. So let's say your goal is to break 24 hours for this 100 mile. You can go in there and you can find a whole list of people that finished right around 24 hours. A lot of those people probably load their race data onto accounts like Strava. So you can go into that and look at different things, like what was their pace over certain sections? Did they hit any rough patches at certain points in the race that I should be thinking about, and get a better look at what the actual execution might look like, if you are going to try to finish in a similar time than they did. So using things like ultra sign up, Strava, different pacing, things like that are going to be something that are useful for you to kind of get down to the basics? And I'll talk about this later when we get into measurement tools and things like that. But that can also be helpful for you, where let's say you have that goal of some 24 hours, and then you look at someone who's finished around that, or a group of people who finished around there and you noticed, okay, when they were going up that steep climb at mile 33, they were averaging, let's say, 22 minutes per mile, and then you go out and you replicate in your own training some inclines of that nature. And you see, okay, well, at this effort, I find that to be sustainable at that pace. So that's maybe some confirmation about your goal being achievable versus a scenario. You go out there and it's maybe quite a bit slower than you expected. So then you have to ask yourself, is this a relative weakness that I should be addressing and training to get better at those uphill sections, or do I need to be a little more honest with myself about my goal finishing time? Because it seems like people who've finished in this time in the past are moving quite a bit faster than me during that section. Could work the other way to maybe you're cruising up that hill, could identify that you have a relative strength on the climbs, or maybe your goal is a little bit conservative, and you're sitting in a situation where you maybe either want to readjust that goal time or keep it there, but know that if things are going well, that at a certain point in the later stages of the race, you'll you'll have an opportunity to potentially to have a really strong finish and, and blow your, your original goal out of the water. All right. Next is the gear list. And the reason that I put gear list on here is because whenever you're doing an event that requires a lot of equipment, you're going to minimize the risk of having an issue with that equipment that slows you down, or you're going to lower the chances of having a non fitness related issue keep you from either finishing or getting to that finish line as quickly as you possibly could. I hate it when somebody has a result that gets impacted by something that's independent of their fitness, because they spent all that time working day in and day out, spending weekends out, training, focusing on this event, and then some piece of equipment creates an issue that causes them to go slower than they would otherwise. I would much rather have someone say, okay, well, I had a bad day, but it was because I decided to go for my aggressive goal and it just wasn't there that day. Now I know it was worth it to me to kind of go after that aggressive goal. You know, the equipment stuff is something I think if you sit down early in the process before you've started training and actually look at what I need during this event in order to be best prepared. And then start practicing with that stuff. So you can really, really whittle down whether that piece of equipment is the one for you or if you need to make some changes to it, make some adjustments to it on race day so that it's as smooth as possible and likely just an afterthought in terms of what you're actually processing mentally during the event itself. That's the way to go about it. So familiarize your needs early and practice often is what I think you should be doing with your gear list and some common gear items that people are oftentimes going to be using during ultramarathons includes things like shoes, poles, socks, packs and vests, belts, specific types of apparel, hats or buffs, lubricants for chafing, and things like that. Different tapes to block areas that may be chafe or blister ahead of time. So preemptively preparing for those situations your GPS watch, if you're going to use something like that, or even the settings you want available to you on on event day so that, you know, like, this is a valuable piece of data that I'm going to that's going to help me stay consistent over the course of the day. So familiarizing yourself with the settings that you'll want on your GPS watch, different lights that you're going to want to use, whether it be head mounted, weight waist mounted. Do you want more than one of them? How many batteries are going to need things like that? cooling protocol equipment? Is your race going to be set up in a way where you're going to hit portions of the day where it's really hot, and cooling practices are going to be very useful in helping you move quicker over the course or getting through that section. So when the temperatures drop back down, you're able to continue to move well versus sort of end up death marching because you got exhausted in the heat. So practicing with the cool protocol, cooling protocol equipment and things like that, or just knowing what's available so that you have those options for yourself on event day, those are all things I think you should be thinking about. And again, you can go back to some of that stuff I talked about before. When it comes to using available information about what people are using at events and trends historically about weather temperatures over the course of the event that you're going to be doing, and just dive in to some of these community forums of people who are, from my experience, oftentimes very helpful and willing to share information and tell you what worked for them and what data and why and all that stuff. And you can start kind of teasing it out on what products are going to work best for you. And then ultimately, like I said before, be open to putting these things through the gauntlet in your training. If you're thinking about this before you start training, it just gives you more opportunities to practice with them, rule out what's going to work, what's not going to work, and really fine tune that gear list to the degree where you can go into the race trusting it, and hopefully the gear is just an afterthought and your focus is on moving forward towards your goals at the event itself. Next is your nutrition list. So nutrition is another one where I find it is going to be very individual to you. So figuring out what is going to work best and then being able to put it into practice early and often is going to better put you in a position where you don't find yourself having a nutritional issue on race day, which could also be independent of your fitness. And another thing that I really hate is when you have a nutritional issue that causes you to slow down when you've spent all that time and energy getting fit, and if it's something preventable, then we really want to make sure we're putting ourselves in the best position to lower those risks. When you do look at the nutritional issues that people have in ultramarathons, the data suggests it's like 50 to 60% of people will experience some form of digestion issue over the course of the day, and of that 50 to 60%, about 30 or about half of it is going to be relatively severe. So make yourself fall into that positive half and not that negative half by practicing more, or at least giving yourself better odds towards that. So things to think about with your nutrition list is just understanding your personal needs. So this is actually a really hot topic right now as we go through different iterations of, recommendations in terms of what are best practice in sports performance and things like that. And I think those are kind of fun and interesting things to dive into. But if you don't get into the actual details of them, they're going to be very hard for you to actually apply at the individual level, and it can be very easy for you to say, okay, I'm reading what so-and-so is doing at the tour de France, or I'm reading what so-and-so is doing at this race from a nutrition intake standpoint, and I'm just going to apply that. That worked great for them. That may not be the case for you if your experience is going to be different than theirs from an intensity standpoint, from a macronutrient oxidation standpoint, all sorts of things to consider. So the way that I like to frame this as kind of a starter for you to kind of start thinking about this is these ultramarathons are low intensity in most cases. It's pretty rare, that we're we're racing in the moderate and high intensities during these events. They're often spent mostly in low intensity. So if we do look at population level data, we know that at your aerobic threshold, which is basically that spot where you cross over from your easy to your moderate intensity, someone following a moderate to high carbohydrate diet is going to be burning about 5050 in terms of carbohydrates and fats. So let's say, for example, that you are looking at your race intensity and you find, okay, the fastest I should ever be going is my aerobic threshold or the highest intensity I should ever be entertaining is my aerobic threshold. So then you also look and say this person. Is following a moderate to high carbohydrate diet. We can assume that that person's needs are going to be at most, a 5050 split between carbs and fats. The next piece is to figure out, well, what is your workload on that day? What does your pace necessitate from an energy demand per hour? And this is where it gets really individual, because you could have somebody let's take Western states, for example, a person winning Western states versus the person finishing at the very end of the golden hour. That's from a duration standpoint to X, meaning that the person finishing at the golden hour was out there twice as long as the person finishing in under 15 hours. So what that means is they may burn a relatively similar amount of energy over the course of that 100 miles, but the distribution of that energy is going to differ greatly. The person finishing in 15 hours is essentially going to rip through that energy twice as fast as the person finishing at the golden hour. So when we're looking at the actual fuel of concern during one of these events, which is the carbohydrate side of that metabolism, because even the leanest athletes on that starting line are going to have enough body fat to supplement the fat oxidation side of it. It makes a difference in terms of what your targets are going to need to be. So. If you're looking at it through the lens of how much energy per hour am I going to require on race day, you can start looking at where that split is going to be at maximum by 5050. So, for example, let's say someone's doing a 100 mile race. They determine that they are going to need 5 to 600 calories per hour for their workload. And they want to play it safe and say, well, I'm not going to exceed my aerobic threshold. So at most I'm going to need a 5050 split. That person would want to be targeting somewhere between 250 to 300 calories of carbohydrate per hour. If they want to completely defend the carbohydrate side of that equation. So what that gives them is a very specific amount of carbohydrate to be practiced in their training, so that they know what to expect from it, and they know how to kind of properly implement it. And then when they get to the end stages, because they had a proper timeline and they can practice their ultra specific long run, they can really run that process through the gauntlet and make sure that it's going to work well for them, not only just early on in a run, but in some of these later stages of longer runs and outings that may have variances in temperature, which can impact how your body actually digests and prefers different fuel sources. So the one other thing I'm going to mention about the nutrition list is don't get too myopic about a specific product. A lot of times what I see people do is they've had a good experience with a very specific product, or they read online about someone who just crushed their race with X product or supplement or something like that. And. It's not a bad thing in the sense that, like, they're being exposed to something that may be useful, but you should assume that no one thing is going to work the same on the first mile as it will on the last mile and everything in between. So give yourself a long list of tools of food items that you can have access to that you've stress tested in your training. So when you get to that point where you're craving something specific or something that you thought would work all day, every day stops working, you have other options, and you're not sitting there and scrambling and just throwing stuff up against the wall, hoping for the best. So some general protocols to start with were this kind of sports products versus solid foods. So sports products are going to be like your liquids, your gels, your gummies, things that are kind of designed and formulated in a way that's going to optimize digestion. Essentially, they're going to hit your system and get processed quickly and used about as efficiently as you can imagine. And all these sports companies are in the labs testing these things to make sure that, you know, they're not going to be something that's going to hopefully cause you a digestive issue, and you can lean on their research to some degree and practice with those things as like one of the parts of your fueling strategy. Next would be solid food options. So getting something that's like just a little more substantial. So but still still carbohydrate based and easy to digest in most cases minus people that are doing more of a strict ketogenic diet, or a very low carbohydrate diet where you may be abstaining from carbohydrates for the most part. You know, this is going to fit along the lines of like what I was talking about before, where your replacement needs are going to be on the carbohydrate side versus the fat side due to our body's ability to store those different macronutrients. So thinking of the solid food option, a lot of times I like to look at what is how can I differ this as much as possible from my sports products? So since sports products tend to be more liquid, more gel, more gummy, more sweet type flavors, I like to make the solid food option kind of contrast that maybe something crunchy, salty, savory. Things like crackers, pretzels, chips, that sort of thing can be very useful in that situation. There'll be people who will do things as substantial as sandwiches or I mean, you'll see people eat anything basically at these ultramarathons like quesadillas, pizzas, avocado toast, all sorts of stuff. So it is something where when you're building this out, sometimes a starting point can be what is a solid food option that's easily digestible that I already have kind of in my dietary pattern, because it stands to reason that your body has gotten somewhat accustomed to digesting that already. So taking it one step further and embedding it into your long run fueling strategy and your race day practice fueling strategy is maybe going to be a little bit of an easier transition. But ultimately, I think just having some options to practice and confirm does this work for me? Do I actually crave this? Is this something that is going to be useful? Is good practice and I will float back to learning on available information. Peace with this one too, because these events almost always have aid stations, and these aid stations are always stocked with, with a lot of different options. So getting an idea of what is going to be available at the aid stations can help you logistically. If you find specific sports products or specific items that are in the solid food option that are going to be there, and you decide, okay, well, I'm going to practice with those because that eliminates me having to bring everything I would need to the race day, because I know at every aid station I go through, I'm going to have access to that. So sometimes that's a really good starting point. If you're looking for like, well, where do I even start with all these products is pick your goal event, see what they have at their aid stations. If it makes no difference to you, then start building your fueling strategy, maybe around that stuff because it's going to be, again, a logistical hurdle. You don't have to worry about it so much. If it ends up not working. Don't freak out. You can obviously just bring your own stuff in a lot of cases, fill drop bags. If you have a crew, bring it there to some degree. With all the packs, vests and different carrying things you have, you can bring a lot of stuff in those two. So if there are products I know I have products that are very specific to me that I like, that are oftentimes at aid stations, that I know I'm going to want to have to some capacity in a race. And those ones I'll just plan ahead for, to have with me on my person, with crew in drop bags and stuff like that. So. Just planning ahead is going to be the name of the game with this. Next is your hydration list. So this one I think is really important because when we look at just fueling needs over the course of an ultramarathon, you can actually hit those. Some people are going to have digestive issues and they're going to fall short of what their needs actually are. But it's not an impossible task to be able to replace your fueling needs on the carbohydrate side of metabolism over the course of a longer race. But hydration, especially if it's a warmer, longer race, is something where you can't really expect to stay perfectly hydrated throughout the course of the race or the event. So in other words, you are going to arrive at the finish of this event at least slightly dehydrated. Which just means that like if you execute perfectly, it's not going to be perfect in the sense that you're still hydrated at the end. So it's not something where you want to make a lot of mistakes. So this is where I think it's very good to kind of figure out what your individual needs are, so you can start planning and practicing that. And fluid loss is going to be very individual, and it's also going to be dependent on the temperature and the intensity that you're working out at. So when testing your fluid loss. Make sure you're testing it over a variety of different temperatures, and also close to the intensity you plan on performing on race day, because that's going to give you the most accurate estimate. So what I like to do is to do a basic fluid loss test, where you weigh yourself before and after a one hour run, preferably naked, because then you know that you're not retaining sweat or fluids on your clothing afterwards and kind of skewing the data. And then do that in a cool after a cool 60 minutes, an average to moderate temperature session and then a hot session. So then you sort of have these three data points that go across the temperature spectrum that you might see. And each one of those will probably suggest that you lose a different amount of fluid, going from the least in the cooler temperatures to the most in the hotter temperatures. And then you have a protocol of what you should be targeting roughly from a fluid intake standpoint, across the temperatures you may see on race day. And you're able to both, in training, optimize the quality of it by hitting those numbers. And then on race day, having that practice and that ability to stay as hydrated as possible and adjusting that based on the temperatures you see as they come to you versus trying to figure that out on the fly while you're out there at the event itself. So. I'll give you some examples for this. Let's say you go out and you do the 60 minute test, and on cool days you lose half a liter of fluid. And then on moderate temperature days, you lose 750ml or three fourths of a liter. And then on hot days you lose one liter. Your range is going to be 500 ml to 1l of fluid loss per hour throughout those temperature ranges. So that comes out to be roughly if you're looking at half a liter, about a pound, three fourths a liter, about a pound and a half and one liter, about £2. So as you're kind of doing those weighing, that's where those would kind of check out. But feel free to use those online calculators to kind of figure out the differences between, your weight loss and the leaders of fluid, which is what you're going to usually see in a lot of the listings in the bottles and things like that that you'll be using. So all that would generally mean is like from a replacement standpoint on cooler temperatures, you'd be looking to replace roughly 95% of what your loss is and aim for that when you're going through those different temperatures. So if you notice, like I started out in the morning. It was nice and cool. I was doing 500ml of water. Then it got a little bit warmer and I went up to 705 ml. Then it got hot near the end. I was up to a liter. Would make perfect sense based on those loss rates, and you'd have that information to at least start with. You can always make changes to this because these are kind of estimates versus like absolutes. But I always like to kind of get a really good ballpark figure first and then start practicing it, because then like we've been kind of going over this entirety is the more often you practice it throughout the course by planning early on, the more opportunities you get to make the proper adjustments along the way as you see the need to do it. If you're interested. Also, on the other side of things, electrolytes, which is another important piece, especially as you start getting into these longer sessions where you're losing a lot of fluid. If you're doing a shorter session, you know you may have enough electrolytes from your just daily diet, from salting your food extra to account to get what you need out of that. And just plain water would be fine. But if you start getting up into longer duration events or losing a lot of fluid on hotter weather sessions and things like that, and then ultimately on race day, you do want to have proper electrolyte replacement with that fluid loss. So. Being able to practice with electrolyte solutions, and figuring out kind of how that works is definitely something else to do early, so you can be practicing it. I'm not going to get into a ton of detail with this because I do have a full episode. It's episode 358 with Andy Blow, where we go over in detail how you can figure out kind of your electrolyte loss needs and make some adjustments and kind of refine that over your training so that on race day, you know, you're replacing your electrolytes in your fluids at the right ratio. And the reason I won't get into much detail now is because that range is huge. You get people who are losing like 2 to 300mg of electrolytes per liter of sweat to people who are losing over two grams. So that's like a ten x variance. Granted, you're likely not on those extreme ends. It is kind of like a bell curve where the bulk of people are going to be around like about a gram, a little under a gram per liter. So if you're looking for just kind of a population level starting point, you know, that might be worth something. But if you listen to that episode with Andy Blow, we talk about different things from formal testing to some typical signs and things that you can use that will kind of indicate maybe whether you're to one side or the other of the average with this, and then start refining your process with that. All right. Next is measurement tools. So measurement tools, what I mean by that is like before you start formalizing an assessment program that you're going to use to indicate whether you are actually making progress with your inputs. So it's one thing just to go out and do training and assume you're getting fitter. It's a whole nother thing to do that and assess to see if it's actually happening. So you have this objective evidence of I'm heading in the right direction, and this can be anything from making sure that your training load is proper, meaning the input of stress you're giving is being met with the right amount of recovery to the degree that you're actually getting better, versus putting in all this work and not recovering from it, and then stalling or regressing. In some cases, these measurement tools are going to help with that. So. I like to use things like pace at a given intensity. I'll do things like field tests that help me identify kind of what my what, what an intensity feels like at an easy, moderate or hard effort. And then in the short term, those will be produced in paces. And then I can start really getting used to knowing what that intensity feels like. A lot of times that intensity will match up with things like a heart rate score, or if you're using cycling and things like that, a power. And this will be something where you can gauge this, you can see is my pace improving at this intensity over time. So I like to use that sort of a measurement tool because it allows me to do that with my focus. So if I'm in a phase of training where I'm really trying to improve my aerobic threshold or my lower intensity pace, I can measure that. If I'm trying to improve my lactate threshold or kind of on my moderate higher to moderate intensity, I can measure that. And if I'm trying to do short intervals, to improve VO2 max, I can measure that. So these are all things that I think are worth considering, whether you're using the measurement tools that I like or if you've got your own, just make sure you have some so that you can objectively look at is my training going in the direction I want it to? To the degree that your global fitness is improving, which is going to be the big mover on race day versus kind of the event specific stuff. So if you're interested in a ton of details on that, I have a whole podcast series on how I use the different intensities, the measurement tools and things like that. It's just called the Endurance Training Simplified series. It's linked to this podcast episode in the show notes, as well as many of my previous ones too. And that's got a list of a bunch of different things from kind of base training intensity, easy pace stuff, short intervals, long intervals, long run development, all the stuff that you'd want to get into the weeds with with this specific topic if you're interested. Finally, we've got programming mental training. So this one I find really interesting because this is something where I think people know they need to know it. Because if you're doing, say, 100 miles for the first time, you just don't have a reference point. So a question I often get is like, you know, what should I be doing? What should I be thinking about? Or they'll just direct less. And what are you thinking about that entire time? And. This, I think, falls into the programming mental training side of things, where a lot of times people will think about what are the physiological demands of the race and how do I practice those? And they sort of leave something on the table. Bye bye bye. Not just actually formalizing a way to practice their mental training. And in order to do this, I think reflection is key because odds are you're already doing a ton of mental training. You might just be passively letting it kind of float along, because you've got intuitively good at putting it into practice over certain areas of life, and you just haven't learned how to apply that yet to something you either haven't done before or have done very rarely. Because these ultramarathons are long, there's only so many of them we can do. And if you're new to it, if you're doing a new distance, you've never done it before. So I like to look at where we are practicing this and how we actually reflect on it in a way that it can be useful for you on event day. And you can apply the tools that have been working for you consistently over your life and your training to better prepare you for this. So one of the things I like to do is reflection and practice is key. Reflection on lifestyle habits for breaking down multi-step tasks is the first place I like to start. So a lot of people, whether they're in school, whether they have a job that has them doing projects or if their hobby involves them doing multi-step things, you're already practicing this and doing this. What I mean by that is like, if you have the idea of, I want to finish this project, this assignment, this work obligation, chances are it isn't just going in and doing one thing and being done with it. It's probably a multi-step thing. So when you have these multi-step things, what you're doing is you're saying, okay, I want to get to this end goal. And in order to do that, I have to follow all of these steps to get there the best way possible. Once you know that, you stop thinking about that end goal and you start worrying about the step that is in front of you. If you haven't done step one yet, you're not worried about step three, because you can't do step three until you're done with step one and step two. So you actively start narrowing your focus on what do I need to do right now in order to get to that end goal? So that end goal kind of becomes this passive thing that, you know, is there. It's in the back of your mind, but it's not clogging up your cognitive demand because it's not something that requires your focus in the short term. What requires your focus is the step you're on. And that's exactly what you want to be doing during these races. You want to be looking at it through, you know you're trying to finish this race. You know, if you sign up for a 100 mile race, the goals across that 100 miles, the finish line. But you need to put that in the back of your mind and be focusing on what is your task, what is your step you're currently on and execute that first before you start worrying about the things that are coming up or crossing that finish line. And this may be something as simple as when you are doing a project actually cognitively, think about, hey, this is a connection point to what I want to be doing to the race. What does my mind actually do? What actually helps me keep myself from thinking about the end and focus on the step I'm on, and start developing skills and tools to kind of get yourself to kind of refocus on what's in front of you versus what's coming up. And I think the more you practice this, the more your mind automatically pulls you that way. And what that's going to do for you on race day is when you get to that spot, rather than feeling like you're constantly having to burn cognitive energy, pulling yourself back, you're just going to more naturally gravitate towards that. Like when you start, your mind starts drifting towards it's going to snap back automatically. You might not even realize you're doing it anymore because you've practiced it so many times. You've reflected and you've applied it to things that are independent of your race itself, but have the same protocol, other things you can do. They're maybe a little more specific. I really like short intervals for this. So let me give you an example. Let's say you're doing a pretty aggressive short interval session where you're doing ten by two minutes hard and then two minutes recovery in between. This one I find interesting because, you know, going into that workout, you're going to be doing ten of those reps. They're hard. So you're kind of probably nervous about it. You're not necessarily looking forward to it, but you know you want to get it done. You know what's going to be valuable for you if you consistently are able to do these and recover from them over a period of time. So you go in and you do the first couple. Your mind starts kind of thinking, okay, I'm on my third one. I've got ten of these. I'm really not that far into it. This is going to be hard. I don't know. You start kind of letting your mind drift towards the totality of that workout versus just properly executing the interval you are on. So what you do over time with these is you start thinking to yourself when you get to that point, when your mind starts kind of floating that direction, you bring it back and you say, no, I'm not worried about ten. If ten is not doable for me today, that's fine, but I'll find that out later on in this workout. Right now I just need to properly execute. Interval three. Interval for interval five and focus on one at a time. And if it is something where you need to make an adjustment later on because you over programmed or under programmed, then you can do that. But it's not something that needs your cognitive attention at that time. So you can practice kind of bringing yourself into the moment through structured interval sessions like this that will allow you to kind of get better at when your mind starts drifting too far ahead, coming back and worrying about what is what is possible, what can you do now versus what are you maybe need to be concerned with down the road, but you don't even know that you need to be concerned, because a lot of times with those type of scenarios, you eventually get to the ninth interval and finish it and you've got one left and you're like, why was I worried about this 10th one? It was hard, but I got here and I did it. And then you look back and you kind of chuckle a little bit about how you were worried about that at interval tour interval three. And that's a process I see all the time with my coaching clients and myself. So it's just one where I think it's a really valuable tool to practice this mental side of things with. The only thing you can do is just visualize on your long runs. So like your long runs, whether they be just traditional long runs or when you get further into the plan and do ultra specific ones, start visualizing what it's like to go through different stages of the course in your mind. That way when you get there, you feel like you've had multiple dress rehearsals of how that actually will play out, and you'll find that from a cognitive demand standpoint, it's a lot easier when your mind feels like it's gone through that process multiple times versus doing it for the first time. Or if you're an experienced ultra runner, maybe the last time you did an ultramarathon, which is still relatively a long period away in most cases. So using the event specific stuff in the longer runs or the intensities that are a little closer to race day intensity, to just visualize going through different phases of the course, whether that be like, let's say you're doing a really long, ultra specific long run and you want to like visualize what it's going to be like to finish the last 25% of that 100 mile. You're just picturing yourself going through those processes. All these things will be very useful tools for you on race day. If you practice them consistently throughout. All right. That is what I got the the list of, I should say, the checklist of preparing for your next ultramarathon includes establishing the right timeline, leaning on available information, your gear list, your nutrition list, your hydration list, what measurement tools you're going to use, and then program your mental training. I will add one more thing. I did dive much deeper into the mental training programming side of things for episode 363. That's also part of that Endurance Training Simplified series. So if you're looking to get into the weeds with all these things, head over to that series and check out those episodes on your next long run.