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00:00:01
Mike James
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In this episode of the UKRunChat Podcast, Michelle speaks with Endurance Physio Mike James, who brings a wealth of experience from marathons, Ironmans, and ultra events, offering both scientific and lived perspectives on the rise of ultra running.
The conversation explores the surge in popularity of ultra marathons—why so many runners are skipping traditional distance progressions, the physical and psychological demands of ultras, training strategies, injury risk management, and the value of walk-run strategies and time-on-feet over mileage obsession.
Whether you’re considering your first ultra or looking to train smarter, this episode is packed with nuanced, practical advice from someone who’s seen (and run) it all.
Topics Covered:
Why more runners are skipping straight to ultras
The mental vs physical challenge of ultra distances
Why each ultra is different: terrain, elevation, distance, and format
Planning training based on lifestyle, not ideal circumstances
Importance of "time on feet" vs mileage
Walk/run strategies and their value for race day
Customizing training blocks and weekly frequency
Avoiding injury - risk reduction vs prevention
Why recovery is often more important than more training
Why evidence for injury prevention is weaker than most believe
And lots more!
Follow Mike on Instagram or on X
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Transcript
Introduction to Mike James and Ultrarunning Trends
00:00:00
UKRunChat
Hello, welcome to this episode of the UK Run Chat podcast. I'm Michelle, and I'm here today with Mike James, who has been on podcast before. He's an endurance athlete himself and a physiotherapist and coach who works with athletes to optimize their performance and reduce injury.
00:00:18
UKRunChat
Today, we're talking about a trend that we're seeing quite a lot ah of, and that's people jumping straight into ultra marathons. And while that's great, amazing ambition,
00:00:29
UKRunChat
um It does come with real
Risks and Appeal of Ultrarunning
00:00:31
UKRunChat
risks. So hi, Mike. Thanks so much for joining us today. How are you?
00:00:35
Mike James
Good, thanks, Michel. Thanks for welcoming me back, inviting me back. It's always great to to chat. um And yeah, absolutely, completely agree. It's certainly been the big shift and change in the running world in the last three to five years.
00:00:49
UKRunChat
Yeah, were we're seeing kind of lots of athletes jumping straight into it. you know, interwultry distance before they've even kind of attempted a marathon, some before they've even done a half marathon race. and it's It's a big ah big leap, isn't it?
00:01:03
Mike James
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's it's a leap that can be made. It's the question, I guess, of whether it should be made sometimes.
00:01:13
UKRunChat
Yes.
00:01:14
Mike James
um
00:01:14
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:01:14
Mike James
And what are the longer term issues with doing it potentially?
00:01:18
UKRunChat
Yeah. I mean, you've You've obviously noticed a trend because you you run a webinar on this very subject, which is why we've invited you in. Why do you think Ultra is so appealing to people at the moment?
00:01:33
Mike James
think I think it's multifaceted. There's lots of reasons. Whether they all apply to everyone, I doubt it. But I think um we've probably seen a decade or so of people wanting to just do bigger, better things.
00:01:48
Mike James
harder in inverted comma challenges. and I certainly saw this in the triathlon world over the last 10 to 15 years. People did what I used to call the apprenticeship. They did some sprint triathlons. You did a couple of years at Olympic and then you went to 70.3 or full iron distance.
00:02:06
Mike James
And then all of a sudden people were going, well, that seems to be where all the appeal is. That's what everybody wants to get to. Why do I need to wait and get there? And I think ultramarathon has taken a similar vein. People think that it's more appealing potentially.
00:02:24
Mike James
I also think we see a trend where um the recreational everyday athlete potentially sees it as more achievable than some faster, harder running.
00:02:37
Mike James
when When we think of running set specific times or goals, which we would all accept as fast, then they're probably 90% physiological and 10% mental to be able to achieve those goals.
00:02:52
Mike James
When you think of the longer, generally slower stuff, where potentially there's a lot more walk-run involved, then to run 50 miles, 100 miles, backyard ultras, 24-hour races, multi-day races, then I think we start to realize that, well, perhaps this isn't about my physical capacity. Most people can be trained or train themselves to the level able to achieve it.
Influence of Marketing and Society on Ultrarunning
00:03:15
Mike James
What this really comes down to is mental, psychological strength. And that might be more appealing to some people because I certainly see, and I see all age groups stepping up to ultra.
00:03:28
Mike James
But for a lot of first-time ultras who coming into running in relatively recently, I tend to see a trend in them being middle-aged or older. They might have been, we we call them new runners. They may well have been runners back in the day. They've had a period of time away because work, family, life, injury, whatever it is.
00:03:47
Mike James
And when they return to the sport, this seems to be the thing that, oh, I really fancy this. um I also think that... it is a very well marketed world right now. There's a big buzz around ultras, high profile athletes, high profile events, lots of high profile sponsorship, lots of people talking about ultras and, um,
00:04:09
Mike James
you know if you've If you'd looked at the world of ultras a decade or so ago, ago you'd have automatically slipped off the tongue Marathon du Sable and some of those other ones. And now people will be chatting about UTMBs and they'll be chatting about LAZ and everything over um in that neck of the woods as far as the crazy stuff that goes on over in the US.
00:04:32
Mike James
um and the Barclays. And I think just generally people are more aware of ultras. So then they just think, I'll have a go at these things.
00:04:40
UKRunChat
yeah that's yeah that's really interesting there's yeah social media's got a lot to answer for hasn't it
00:04:40
Mike James
I think
00:04:44
Mike James
it has. It has. And of course, taking a step away from runners and looking more general society, we've become really impatient.
00:04:52
UKRunChat
yeah
00:04:53
Mike James
You know, we live in this one click culture where I want, you know, people now mourn if Amazon takes two days to come to them. What do you mean? i can't get it the same day or tomorrow morning? So I think we have lost our ability to wait and be patient.
00:05:07
Mike James
and it's And it's like, go on, go and do it. And perhaps controversially, and and it's something that i struggle to accept generally, is I'm a big fan of positivity and support.
00:05:23
Mike James
But we could where there's a big trend now in us... just And it it's maybe the run influencer type of people or so some of that network of of people where there's the glorious failure concept almost.
00:05:38
Mike James
Then we're just biked off more than you can chew because even if you fail, well, you went for it type of thing. and
00:05:43
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:05:43
Mike James
And as much as I'm not completely against that, I sometimes think that probably puts people in trouble. whether it's just missing out on the goals they're achieving for or potentially setting them back longer through injury and and other consequences.
Choosing and Preparing for Races
00:05:56
Mike James
So it's probably a little bit of that in everybody with a different percentage of weighting of which ones of those factors apply more to individuals.
00:06:07
Mike James
But it's probably a bit of a soup of all of that.
00:06:10
UKRunChat
Yeah, gosh, there's a lot to unpack there then, isn't there? Yeah. I mean, an ultra is not easy either, are they? So, I mean, it's it's interesting that people feel that they can go straight to an ultra, but perhaps like you said, it's more achievable than running a very fast 5k for many.
00:06:28
Mike James
It is. And of course, the the interesting thing with the world of ultras, if we were all to say, I want to run a fast 10k half marathon marathon, and as much as the individual courses change and the time of year and the preparation time we have would change, ultras are ridiculously wide world.
00:06:48
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:06:48
Mike James
where there's very few ultras that you would class as the same. So when someone says they want to run, obviously, like they could run a 30-mile ultra that's relatively flat and well-martialed and easy to get around, or they could be doing something really extreme.
00:07:04
Mike James
and And straight away, that's my question when someone says, oh, I'd like to get some coaching or I've got injury. Oh, tell me more about your ultra because is it a short single stage, a long single stage, a timed event, a multi-day event? How much elevation is there?
00:07:18
Mike James
And see a lot of people in clinic who, well, I only went for an easy one. I went for like a 50k, but there was like 5,000 meters elevation on it. And I'm like, where where did you think that was easy? Because you just missed the whole profile of of the race course.
00:07:33
Mike James
um So I think there's there's there's more to unpack in the word ultra than just it's running more than a marathon.
00:07:39
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:07:42
Mike James
And I think that catches some people out sometimes. And of course, the other thing we probably should always, and it's brilliant that there is, but there's probably never been more races available as well. You know, i so I say to people back in my triathlon days that one of the biggest factors to limit my injury risk and improve my performance was the fact that we were sometimes handcuffed with, it just wasn't the ability to race as much as people race these days.
00:08:08
UKRunChat
yeah
00:08:09
Mike James
I couldn't race every week because there wasn't races every week. and um And I soul search myself and reflect back and think I'd have probably fallen into a lot of the mistakes people I see in clinic make today, just based on my personality type.
00:08:22
Mike James
um But now, of course, you jump on more websites than ever, more Facebook forums than ever. You could probably find 10 races most weekends within a couple of hours at home if you really wanted to do them, barring the geographical sort of outliers that we we have.
00:08:39
UKRunChat
Yeah, that's and that's a good point, actually. So, yeah, we've got an awful lot of choice, haven't we? And we need to exercise a bit of bit of willpower and a bit of discipline in choosing what races we can actually do.
00:08:47
Mike James
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's certainly something I talk about on the webinar with the whole sort of fear of missing out for more type of effect is that um you think of something, you know, everywhere you look now, someone is talking about a race, they've done a race, and you can imagine someone comes in and this applies to any runner any distance.
00:08:53
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:08:56
UKRunChat
yeah
00:09:08
Mike James
They start running. They see three to five races that they fancy in year one. They do them. They go well. Year two calendar comes around. Well, I still want to do the like five I've done because I want to be better at them. Or there was a great finisher T-shirt. Or I just had a good laugh, met some nice people. I want to meet up with them and do it again.
00:09:26
Mike James
But of course, now there's these other three to five races I really want to do. And we survived that year and year three comes and now it's even more and even more. And we probably end up that the only thing that restrains us anymore is we run out of money or run out of time to do more races a lot of the time. So um we have to be very smart in picking the races that we're going to do and preparing
Mike's Background and Coaching Philosophy
00:09:51
Mike James
properly for them.
00:09:51
Mike James
Yeah, I'm sorry.
00:09:53
UKRunChat
Yeah. Okay. So yeah, let's unpack that a bit then.
00:09:54
Mike James
think that's a lot.
00:09:56
UKRunChat
and Just before we get into kind of the the actual training and approach for an ultra, can you just give us kind of a ah bit of background to yourself and your endurance running just so people know what kind of an expert you are kind of helping everybody on this podcast?
00:10:08
Mike James
Yeah, absolutely. um i always describe myself as a failed footballer. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, absolutely desperate to be a footballer and and in in fairness came quite close.
00:10:22
Mike James
um But the higher I went up the ability ladder of football, I realised that perhaps the thing that gave me my biggest advantage was my fitness. So from early teens, I'd always been a bit of a roadrunner, very naive, walkman on, out the door, run till I had enough and come home.
00:10:41
Mike James
But once the football dream died, it aligned with me joining the military as a physical training instructor, where a lot of my work involved runs and weighted runs and and military type things.
00:10:53
Mike James
I just suddenly realised I really enjoyed running. and I was OK at it. And marathon was my first venture. I think by the time I had 25, I'd probably done about 200 marathons, managed to get down to a 238 PB, always self-coached, always sort of just or feeding off the experienced runners that were around me at the time.
00:11:05
UKRunChat
Wow. Yeah.
00:11:16
Mike James
um Continued to run for a long period of time, but Ironman took my sort of bug and passion and chased that for a long time.
00:11:27
Mike James
um But even within that world, ended up going into the ultra distance Ironman, double, triple Ironman type things.
00:11:31
UKRunChat
yeah
00:11:34
Mike James
Always ticking along with marathons and other things along the way. And then after a period of time in open water swimming and doing a lot of those big events, just realized about 10, 15 years ago when kids came along that um the easiest thing, and I don't mean easiest as in ability, or just practically easy because of you just need your shoes and I don't need my bike or my wetsuit or whatever else, let's just fall back into running.
00:11:57
Mike James
And this fitted in with that ultra distance stuff.
00:11:59
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:12:00
Mike James
So then spent the last 10 to 15 years really just playing around, enjoying as much experience as I could. I think my marathons are up to 400 and something now.
00:12:12
Mike James
um The PB's never got anywhere near since. and But anything that felt like it was... silly for want of a better word or unachievable was the things that I tend to get drawn to.
00:12:25
UKRunChat
yeah
00:12:25
Mike James
I am a psychological beast rather than a physiological beast. I do thrive on seeing other people struggling and me continuing to do okay relative inability wise, not, not so much as in Excel inability wise.
00:12:38
Mike James
Um, So if it's the middle of winter, if it's cold, if it's wet, if it's horrible, I will drift towards the events there. I love the single stage stuff. I love the ah the the longer single stage stuff, the the multi-day ultras.
00:12:52
Mike James
i I've done loads, but I tend now because of family commitments, work commitments to podcasting. them on the back burner my my art i'm a very all-or-none type of person so for me if i can't commit fully to something i don't really get pleasure from doing it so whilst the kids are the age of their art it tends to be the single day ultras we moved back to south wales seven eight years ago now and we're very lucky that there are some fantastic companies with some fantastic people running them
00:13:07
UKRunChat
yeah
00:13:22
Mike James
um who have an absolute wealth of races along the South Wales coast. So it's very easy for me to pick up a training plan for 10 to 12 weeks from my baseline and just go, right, there's a 40 mile of air or there's a 30 mile of air and just tap into them and do them. But it's very much now for pleasure for a while.
00:13:41
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:13:41
Mike James
ah do I will go back to the long ah the last really long one that I was due to do was MDS, but it was literally bloody COVID time.
00:13:51
UKRunChat
oh what shame.
00:13:51
Mike James
And it just got... rained out weeks before and then never really materialized again, which has probably burnt me a little bit to step back for a while.
00:14:00
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:14:01
Mike James
But right now, um for the last five to seven years, i thrive on my coaching. I'm coaching more than rehabbing these days.
00:14:08
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:14:09
Mike James
um And I love sharing that practical experience of being a runner and an athlete with the and educational background of my physio and my sports science lives to to help people get to those goals in a realistic and safe way.
00:14:22
UKRunChat
Yeah. So what, um how have you kept yourself kind of injury free and continuing running? Cause you know, you're the physio have you got, do you have somebody who works on you as well?
00:14:35
Mike James
Nope.
00:14:35
UKRunChat
are you all kind of self self coached and
00:14:37
Mike James
Self-coached,
Training Strategies and Injury Prevention
00:14:38
UKRunChat
yeah.
00:14:39
Mike James
there are times when I'm in heavy, heavy training that I might tap into people for soft tissue work or if I do pick up AXP.
00:14:45
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:14:48
Mike James
I think it's always a um sos always a very difficult topic to say injury prevention.
00:14:56
UKRunChat
yeah
00:14:56
Mike James
I think risk reduction is a far more sensible understanding of it.
00:15:00
UKRunChat
yeah
00:15:01
Mike James
People will pick up injuries. It's the nature of what we do. And that particularly when we're trying to run really far, then they're part and parcel of it.
00:15:12
UKRunChat
yeah
00:15:12
Mike James
i'm I'm always a big fan of understanding the context of people's pains and injuries.
00:15:14
UKRunChat
and
00:15:19
Mike James
there's There's niggles that are part and parcel, and I've often coined the phrase, I've got enough aches and pains to know I'm doing enough, but not too many that make me worry I'm doing too much. And of course, context is key.
00:15:31
Mike James
If I'm in the heaviest block of my training and I'm in 100 plus mile weeks, for example, I'm going to be a bit stiff and sore. But what I don't want that to do is prolong and and manage itself.
00:15:42
Mike James
If I'm honest, my approach has always been an individually as far as managing injury. and And again, it's more because of my personality type than a deliberate plan. I go so all on and into certain events or certain distances for a period of time that after a while I need a change, I need some variety.
00:16:01
Mike James
So that has always, retrospectively, as I look back over the last 20 odd years, that's always sort of naturally tended to never stress the same bits of my body for enough periods of time that they need help or support to to keep going.
00:16:16
Mike James
It's always been able to just ok chain play with speed for a little bit, change with distance for a little bit, and um and I manage it out. And that would always be my advice to most people, that you can't train hard or long constantly.
00:16:29
UKRunChat
no
00:16:30
Mike James
And ah that's probably the number one mistake I see people making is they're always trying to be race fit and they're always trying to find things. I pick up some athletes in clinic.
00:16:41
Mike James
I pick up some athletes in a coaching context where when I look at what they do, I go, well, we're never really training. All we're ever stuck in is a three to four week cycle of race, recover, prepare, race, recover, repair ah prepare. We're never really dedicating specific time to work on things or develop things or just sometimes go, I'm just going to chill out for a while and just just recover.
00:17:05
Mike James
So I think it's thinking bigger picture.
00:17:05
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:17:08
Mike James
Looking at what where you want to be in five years, not five months, is a massive thing I think can massively help people with that but their injury risk. But personally, and and and it's it's how I would... but what Most of us are relatively well-versed in, I don't need to fuel perfectly or hydrate perfectly all year round.
00:17:31
Mike James
What i really need to do is make sure that that's on point when my training and racing needs it to be. So I'm the same with things like rest, recovery, management, physio, those type of things. By all means, you've got people in the background supporting you.
00:17:45
Mike James
But realistically, you you increase the need for those things at the time that you need to increase those need and you should be able to step away from them. So you may well have a a massage once a month because it feels nice.
00:17:58
Mike James
But you may not need a massage once a month because you need a massage. You just want the massage. um And then as much as I can with people there is if they can find self-help ways of doing a lot of these things, then that's probably better for them.
00:18:12
Mike James
think the biggest thing most people do is they get sucked into the things that make one or two percent difference and they miss the big rocks. You know, the the number of people who train really well, they got all the kit dialed in, they're following all their metrics and all this, but they're watching Netflix at one o'clock in the morning.
00:18:30
UKRunChat
yeah
00:18:30
Mike James
And they're sleeping for four to five hours a night instead of whatever they should be doing. and And then they're grabbing people like me and going, what do you think about cherry juice as ah as a recovery thing? Or what do you think about turmeric?
00:18:42
Mike James
And I'm going, well, they're all right now and again, but look at the things you could be doing well to then get it right. So I think bigger picture management is probably the biggest advice I'd give to people. But of course, that's not sexy. It doesn't sell. There's no...
00:18:57
Mike James
glitter to it in some ways. It doesn't shine. So it's it's a it's a boring strategy, but it tends to work.
00:19:04
UKRunChat
Yeah, no, that's a really good point. So how I'm going to put you on the spot a bit here. So and say somebody's decided to run their first ultra. Let's say let's say it's a 50K.
00:19:14
UKRunChat
Let's go for kind of a a small, in inverted commas, ultra. and They've never done that kind of distance before. They might have run a few 10K races. How long should they realistically be giving themselves to train for that kind of event?
00:19:30
Mike James
Depends person to person.
00:19:32
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:19:32
Mike James
Depends on their background. Depends on their injury history. Depends on how often a week they can run. How much their body will tolerate running a week. But I would generally say most people could probably get to that period in 16 to 24 weeks. Depending on on what those answers are to those questions.
00:19:51
Mike James
My formula normally for working people out is to just reverse engineer it.
00:19:56
UKRunChat
yeah. Yeah.
00:19:56
Mike James
So I tend to go... Where are we needing to be? Where are we now and how long have we got to get there? So I write someone's plan backwards.
00:20:07
UKRunChat
yeah
00:20:08
Mike James
So what I need to because it can be daunting, if you're only doing...
00:20:13
Mike James
20K a week now over three or four runs. Longest run has been 10K and you're looking to get to 50K. That's a scary thought. That's like, how am I going to do that? And if someone is writing their own plans or they're grabbing plans off the internet or or whatever, you know, plans friends have done in the past, et cetera, they normally overestimate what needs to be done in the first couple of periods.
00:20:36
Mike James
And that's where that too much too soon problem kicks in. So what I would sit down with someone and say is, right, okay, If we need to be here in 20 weeks, 19 weeks from now we need to be here, 18 weeks we need to be here, and we're just backward from there, suddenly where we need to be in weeks 1, 2, 3, 4 is probably far more achievable and closer to where we are now than they really realise.
00:20:51
UKRunChat
yeah.
00:21:01
UKRunChat
yeah
00:21:01
Mike James
So we control the trajectory then as we move forward. So in the perfect world, I prefer someone to say to me from a coaching point of view, I'd like to train for a 50.
00:21:14
Mike James
um What do you think? We have this conversation. And when we work out what that number is, 16 weeks, 20 weeks, whatever it is, potentially then we go, these are the races that would fit that time zone. Let's pick one.
00:21:26
Mike James
But of course, that doesn't happen. I'll get a text message or an email going, and I've entered a 50 in 12 weeks. It's happening. It's this day. are you going to get me there?
00:21:35
UKRunChat
yeah
00:21:36
Mike James
So the answer is normally dictated to you from the people rather than what I'd like them
Customizing Training for Ultrarunning
00:21:41
Mike James
to do. And then I just need to know a little bit about themselves and their history and their background and their availability, of course, because one of my questions to someone is normally, right, tell me how much time you have to train per day, per week, whatever.
00:21:56
Mike James
And once they've given me that answer, I say, no, tell me now about your country and Western song day. Tell me about the worst day of your week when you've got to do school drop offs. You haven't got time to eat. It's your late night in work. that The cat needs to go to the vets.
00:22:13
Mike James
Because the plan that's realistic for you might not be the perfect plan, but it's the perfect plan for you.
00:22:19
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:22:19
Mike James
So if that's the day where we need a rest day or that's your short day and we just overload other bits and manage a week, let's let's work it out that way. And if that's the case, then that the steepness of the trajectory to get you where you need to be depends.
00:22:35
Mike James
And of course, with some of these things, I might like if so if I was to say 20 weeks, that may look like five, four-week blocks, which are three weeks of progressive work, one week of easier recovery, and we just repeat that.
00:22:49
Mike James
But if someone comes to you and says, 12 weeks, I've entered, I'm doing it. then that trajectory would completely change based on a number of factors. So um I think you can prepare for one in about 12 weeks, depending on the athlete.
00:23:02
UKRunChat
yeah
00:23:03
Mike James
um Of course, the other question that needs answering around how long to prepare is, what are you looking to get out the race? you're looking at walk, jogging and just getting in across the line for the experience of finishing a 50k race and then reflect, reveal and plan again after that, then you might even need less than that. Maybe we can just get you to survive it in 8 to 12 weeks.
00:23:24
UKRunChat
yeah yeah
00:23:25
Mike James
If you're looking at doing the fastest time you could possibly think you could do or finishing in a certain position or beating your mate who's done 10 because he's annoying you talking about his 50k times all the time, then different parameters needed for different outcomes.
00:23:40
UKRunChat
Yeah, yeah, that's great. Does that advice in terms of timeframe, will that change for say a 50 miler or one hundred k Because we're seeing quite a few first time ultra runners tackling the 100k distance now, aren't we?
00:23:52
Mike James
Yeah, yeah, we are.
00:23:52
UKRunChat
and so that's going to take lot more time to get up to that sort of distance, isn't it?
00:23:53
Mike James
um
00:23:57
Mike James
Yeah, potentially. Again, depends on the runner.
00:23:59
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:24:00
Mike James
and Depends on what their background is and what how what they might have done previously. But generally, yeah, they probably need a little bit longer.
00:24:09
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:24:09
Mike James
The reason I normally prefer longer is because I want to soften the trajectory of that progression. It's nothing more than that. It's not that I think you need to run X hundred miles more or whatever it is, but...
00:24:22
Mike James
We probably need a bigger base period, a bigger foundation to be able to lay something else on top of that. and The hundreds... course-wise, route-wise, terrain-wise, will tend to have a little bit more nuance than some of the shorter ones.
00:24:37
Mike James
So maybe we have to factor in periods of working on elevation and descent or different surfaces that we you're running on. so So I think, yeah, adding a little bit of time to that, how much time depends on the people.
00:24:49
Mike James
Of course, what you don't want to do sometimes is have a plan that runs for so long that it just becomes monotonous and and you lose interest in it. so So potentially sometimes what I would do then is either split it into mini plans.
00:25:04
Mike James
So, okay, part of our 100, even if it's just a solo training run, might be a 50K day. And that 50K day could be through multiple runs one-off or whatever it is.
00:25:15
Mike James
But let's work 16 weeks to that and then we'll work 16 weeks to 100 afterwards. Okay. um It might be that we have preparation races in that as well, so that we're building up to those in mini blocks. But but we take our eye off the end goal for a long time because it's too far away. And if we're goal orientated, not process orientated, we're not going to get there.
00:25:37
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:25:37
Mike James
ah Sometimes what I'll do with people is like a pre-planned plan.
00:25:38
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:25:40
UKRunChat
yeah
00:25:41
Mike James
So let's say the race is 30 weeks away. And in conversation, we we agree that potentially 20 weeks is about as much as we've got. Sometimes i'm working with a few students right now. where They've got exams coming up, for example. So we're factoring things around commitments in their lives.
00:26:00
Mike James
So potentially sometimes I'll say, OK, so based on the 20 week plan I want you to do for week one of that plan, I want you to be able to do this. You're going to run this often this many times a week with a maximum distance of this and an average distance of that.
00:26:16
Mike James
All I need you to do for the next 10 weeks is gradually build to that point. So it is 30-week plan, but it doesn't look like a 30-week plan. It's split into just preparation phases and an actual training plan. And sometimes people will manage them themselves. Sometimes I'll write them that 10-week plan, but it'll generally be a little bit longer.
00:26:37
UKRunChat
Yeah. I mean, what what kind of, and I know, again, this will differ for everybody, but what kind of like weekly mileage of ah volume or like number of runs would you expect to see in a typical, let's say a 50K ultra plan, for example?
00:26:52
Mike James
Yeah, so again, I'm probably the worst guest in the world to have on for this because nobody's plans look the same for me.
00:26:58
UKRunChat
No, no.
00:26:58
Mike James
It's it's so bespoke that I probably frustrate the listeners, but just give me a bloody answer, Mike, and it's hard to give it.
00:26:59
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:27:04
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:27:05
Mike James
But I think as a general rule, but think you'd struggle to get safely to that distance running less than three times a week.
00:27:14
UKRunChat
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:14
Mike James
If you're doing
Long Run Strategies and Pain Management
00:27:15
Mike James
in two runs a week, those volumes would have to build up so much that they're probably going to be difficult. Could be done, but you'd have to support it with some other sort of conditioning work. When you do see some, you'll see some things on online where someone says, you know, I run a three-hour marathon of two runs a week.
00:27:35
Mike James
My first one, what else you doing?
00:27:36
UKRunChat
yeah
00:27:36
Mike James
What you'll probably find is these people are doing like six hours on a static bike or something as well. So it's not as as exclusive as it looks. But I think three runs is probably a baseline.
00:27:46
UKRunChat
yeah.
00:27:48
Mike James
Most people prefer to run day on, day off. If someone wants to run four runs a week, I tend to do sort of like two on, day off, two on, day off. Um...
00:28:00
Mike James
I would probably push towards five or six at some point. That's the key thing in my plans is that month one might look completely different to month four. So you might be running three times a week for a couple of months and then four times and then five times. And then we have a huge block of six days of running, but the six days of running and the total volume might be our biggest week.
00:28:20
Mike James
But the longest run within that week is actually shorter than some of the runs we did in weeks that had less runs because we're just balancing.
00:28:26
UKRunChat
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:28
Mike James
Um,
00:28:31
Mike James
I guess, like, I think the thing, the key question I always get asked is the longest run distance.
00:28:37
UKRunChat
Yeah, that was going to be my next question, actually.
00:28:39
Mike James
So I think for me, where we get a lot of mistakes with runners here is that most if we go right up, you know, we think something like 5K, most of us would think, well, I'd normally do like a 10K slow run and then my speed work. We tend to do 200% race distance.
00:28:55
Mike James
At 10K, we tend to go maybe 10 miles. ten miles And then up to half. And then at a marathon, it's still widely accepted. Your long run is about 20 miles, about 80 odd percent.
00:29:05
UKRunChat
yeah
00:29:06
Mike James
What I generally think then is the longer, the the further you go up as far as total race distance, the lower percentage your your long run needs to come down.
00:29:15
UKRunChat
yeah
00:29:15
Mike James
So for something like a 50, I might only do a 20, 22, 24 mile long run For something like 100, I probably don't get people going over 40 miles. And that 40 miles wouldn't be the run that you'd think of in a marathon or below. it would be a walk run day.
00:29:32
Mike James
It might even be something like I want you to do four over 24-hour period.
00:29:38
Mike James
with a couple of hours in between so you feed and you recover and you go again. And there's that mental skills training as well as physical skills.
00:29:43
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:29:45
Mike James
so So general percentage would come down as you go up. And even for something like 100 miles, 40 miles tops, in some more seasoned athletes who tolerate volume well and like to do a bit more, sometimes we throw a 50 in perhaps,
00:30:01
Mike James
but it would need to be fatten north no closer than six to eight weeks out from the race, so we've got time to recover and go again. And, of course, with long runs and frequency of runs, we've always got to be conscious of...
00:30:14
Mike James
um what's the consequences of that weekend or that day or that week on the subsequent weeks? So you think of our weekend warrior type athletes who love to accrue huge volumes in weekends.
00:30:28
Mike James
They might not be able to train properly for two or three days afterwards or even a ah lower grade week afterwards. So lot of discussion between me and the athlete, lots of plotting and planning around what are we trying to get out of this week or this block and how does it affect the next block?
00:30:44
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:30:44
Mike James
So wait if you had, for example, we're in the fourth week of a four-week build block and it's half term next week and you're off on a family holiday and fitting in running on holiday is going to be a problem.
00:30:58
Mike James
We might really overdose you in the couple of runs. I know we're going to fatigue you. We might even irritate your body a little bit with some with some problems. But it's fine because a couple of easy plods on holiday and we're going to feel great. And when we come back, we go again.
00:31:14
Mike James
That would be different than if you weren't going on holiday and you wanted to do consistent training the week after. So um generally for a 50K, I guess my longest run would probably still be no more than about 20 miles.
00:31:27
UKRunChat
Yeah. Yeah. and You mentioned kind of irritating the body there. What's kind of, what's normal in ultra training in terms of pain and niggles? Are you going to pick up things like that? Is there anything we can do to avoid that?
00:31:44
Mike James
it's Yeah, there's my key word when it comes to this is always appropriate.
00:31:50
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:31:51
Mike James
Depending on the sessions you've done, depending on the training blocks that you're in, it's absolutely fine to be fatigued and a little bit achy and so. In fact, at certain blocks for certain things, I'm almost wanting it.
00:32:04
Mike James
I'm i'm more worried if we're not stiff-zone achy because then I'm thinking, have we done enough here?
00:32:09
UKRunChat
yeah
00:32:09
Mike James
Have we pushed you hard enough for this? and The key word, though, is that it's always appropriate. so So for me, couple of delineators between an injury and a niggle, and a niggle, certainly if it's a very British term, niggle, um I'll put niggle on some social media posts and I get comments from across the water going like, what do you mean by a niggle, dude?
00:32:30
Mike James
um But that those aches and pains that aren't really injuries. and And for me, it's like and and they're not theyre subject subjective more than objective and they're not categorical or or sort of exhaustive in the evidence base. but If someone has pain that is transient for the session or a few hours a day after dependent session, I'm not overly worried about that. I'm worried about consistencies and themes.
00:32:58
Mike James
So, for example, if you... These are my worries. These are the things I worry.
00:33:02
UKRunChat
Thank you.
00:33:04
Mike James
If the pain is making you change or affecting the run session we have planned... for a prolonged period of time. I'm a bit more worried about that. We need we need to look into that a bit closer.
00:33:17
Mike James
um If it starts to affect non-running activities, Now, I don't mean that. Listening to this now, there's probably 15,000 people limping around after running Manchester or London on the weekend.
00:33:30
Mike James
that That's appropriate pain based on 48 hours post-marathon. But if you are sort of on a consistent day-to-day basis, limping, hobbling, avoiding stairs because your knee pain is through the roof or whatever it is, that's not appropriate pain. That's not an ache and pain niggle. That's a problem that we need to jump on potentially.
00:33:51
Mike James
And then thirdly would be more how it affects how you run. So without going down the whole can of worms around biomechanics, we're not saying what is good running gate or bad running gate, but imagine what your running gate is, your normal way to run.
00:34:08
Mike James
If you're having to massively change that to offload or avoid pain, for example, you've switched from a heel strike to a toe run purely because it's really painful to heel strike.
00:34:21
Mike James
Again, we probably need to jump on that and try to see if we can affect it. But if it's all of those, because we had a huge weekend where we expected a little bit of soreness and stiffness and but within 72 hours, it's all settled down.
00:34:35
Mike James
um What you'll find a lot of physios and schools of thought saying is that they'll use this 10 point scale. Anyone who's been to see physio in the NHS, you'll normally get asked, tell me what your pain is out 10. 10 the worst pain you've ever imagined. Zero is no pain at all.
00:34:49
Mike James
It's better than nothing. And it's not the end of the world. But we assume that everyone is sitting on a zero and then we can spike it up and down.
00:34:58
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:34:58
Mike James
And most people would then say if it's three or four out of 10 or less, then keep going. You're fine. Train. It's all good. If it goes to six, seven, eight or more, we need to adjust things and change things.
00:35:09
Mike James
But of course, you might be working with someone who's got some longstanding arthritic pain, some legacy problem from something or other, and they wake up in the morning on their best day, two out of 10.
00:35:20
UKRunChat
yeah
00:35:21
Mike James
For some of these people, knowing the context of their pain, I might say to them, look, I'm happy with five or six out of 10 for you because that's normal for you.
00:35:29
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:35:29
Mike James
What I want everyone's pain to do is return back to their baseline. So if normal pain is zero, fine, we're looking to get down to there or whatever that number is within 12, 24 hours of most runs to be able to continue forward.
00:35:44
Mike James
And then, of course, you get to the point where um you might be on the final two or three weeks The pain isn't where we'd like it to be. It's a bit more, but we know we're about to go into a taper or the race is just around the corner and we just manage the symptoms rather than trying to fix it, so to speak.
00:36:04
Mike James
Because if run if that ultra runner does what we need them to do and then isn't going to jump into another ultra race in the next month or so, then naturally dropping down our training to a baseline maintenance plan two, three times a week, X amount of miles, whatever.
00:36:22
Mike James
every Most of these things will settle and die down. We're not dealing with life or death things with most runners. We're dealing with um irritations and absolutely painful things, but they're not detrimental to our long-term health in any shape or form 99% time.
00:36:41
Mike James
caveat being certain bone stress problems in certain areas that have poor blood supply can absolutely be detrimental to long-term health if managed improperly.
00:36:51
UKRunChat
yeah
00:36:51
Mike James
and And of course, as we step up to ultras and beyond, that that spectrum of injuries that are bone stress-related can become more sinister. um So it's never a case of just grin and bear it and push through it. I definitely advise people to make sure they have a good understanding of what those things are.
00:37:12
Mike James
You know, don't go asking the bloody social media group on, which I see all the time.
00:37:17
UKRunChat
Yeah, we see a lot of it as well.
00:37:19
Mike James
Yeah, got a little picture of their foot with a big swelling around a bone like the navicular, which has a really poor blood supply, with a little strawn on circle going, got pain here, anyone?
00:37:19
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:37:28
Mike James
i and And people going, ah, you'll be fine, it's some tendon, crack on. And I'm sitting there going, oh my God, it could be so bad if it's the wrong person and the wrong thing. and but And I know why people do that. People do that because, unfortunately, my side of the fence are pretty bad understanding runners.
00:37:47
Mike James
My side of the fence tend to go, oh, you get pain when you run, stop running.
00:37:52
UKRunChat
Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:53
Mike James
And I always, whenever I teach, I teach a lot of therapists how to work with runners and athletes. And I'll say to them, like, imagine that you've got a problem with your cars making a noise or a sound or whatever it is.
00:38:04
Mike James
And you take it to the mechanic and he goes, so when you drive your car, this makes us, yeah, or just don't drive your car then.
Cross-training and Recovery Techniques
00:38:10
Mike James
You know, we're not going to accept that as as good advice, but physios sometimes think that's the advice to give.
00:38:11
UKRunChat
Yeah. thats really yeah
00:38:16
Mike James
Now, the context often is, well, actually, it only gives me pain if I've done this type of run or this distance or this speed of run. So potentially managing someone's pain in there would be, okay, we're going to keep training. We're going to keep the volume the same, but we're going to lose some of those, like something like a patella femoral knee pain.
00:38:36
UKRunChat
Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:37
Mike James
Generally, that's going to be brought on with descents on elevations. Okay, can we manage our terrain for a period of time that just takes away those factors?
00:38:45
UKRunChat
yeah
00:38:46
Mike James
Can we walk down instead of running down? can we Can we do things? Can we use poles instead of not using poles? As long as we've cleared those things and know that this isn't a sinister thing and it's all going to settle when the time's right.
00:38:59
Mike James
Modify someone's plan. mode And I think that's perhaps where and myself and similar people to me who have that healthcare care background, but also coach and run a little bit, perhaps have that nuanced understanding a bit better of, I'm not really worried about this and they're not really worried about this.
00:39:09
UKRunChat
Yes.
00:39:16
Mike James
we can keep going. um But I think we're too keen on our side of the fence to stop people.
00:39:23
UKRunChat
yeah
00:39:23
Mike James
So then they don't seek that advice and support. So definitely look to find a ah core therapist who runs, has worked runners, understands runners and knows what we're looking at doing.
00:39:30
UKRunChat
yeah
00:39:35
Mike James
Because yeah, absolutely. If someone comes to see me five weeks before 100K and they've got loads of little niggles and pains going on, and overly as long as I know it's not sinister,
00:39:47
UKRunChat
yeah
00:39:48
Mike James
Fine. They're all going to go away.
00:39:50
UKRunChat
yeah that's really reassuring to hear actually um what what else apart from running and we've talked a little bit about the importance of rest and recovery as well and what else should runners be including they're training for an ultra i'm thinking of things like you know strength work and um what what sorts of things would you be recommending people
00:40:05
Mike James
Yep.
00:40:09
Mike James
Yeah. So i think I think something that's underrated a lot is cross-training.
00:40:12
UKRunChat
yeah
00:40:13
Mike James
Certainly in the early stages of someone building up to big ultra distance, then, you know, the the yes, we want specific work in the leg and the muscles that work climbing and stuff. But ultimately, your heart and lungs work or they don't work and they work harder or they don't work harder. And they can't really differentiate and say, oh, I better turn my cycling lungs on today.
00:40:34
Mike James
So if we can build up volume and fitness and base level ah ah aerobic capacity just through things that aren't stressing the system as much as some of our running does, just feels like a no-brainer.
00:40:45
Mike James
um But of course, the difficult thing to pass that message on is that runners love to run.
00:40:51
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:40:51
Mike James
And a lot of the time, we're limited with the amount of time we have. So if we've only got a couple of hours, we're going to tend to run. So um strength work is something I'm a big advocate of. It's something I'm a big sort of fan of of personally and professionally.
00:41:06
Mike James
I think what we always have to be um aware of, which is a misconception now, is that um all of the literature and evidence of the last sort quarter of a century strongly supports us being able to improve performance through being strong.
00:41:24
Mike James
But we don't have a great deal of evidence that it reduces injury risk. Now, you can feel stronger and a bit more bulletproof and a bit more robust by being stronger. and maybe that evidence base will change.
00:41:36
Mike James
the The evidence that people tend to push for it being injury reducing is extrapolated from other bits where it really isn't able to be extrapolated from.
00:41:36
UKRunChat
See ya.
00:41:46
Mike James
and What often happens with people's strength work is they clash with the running. So that's when it tends to get binned. So when I've mentioned about how long someone's plan will be,
00:41:57
Mike James
It might be that we've got this 20-week plan. And I know that if on day one of their plan, I start a strength training plan and a running plan, it's going to be fine for a couple of weeks until they're both not fine because they're both quite taxing and demanding and something's going to give and it's not going to be the running.
00:42:13
Mike James
So I tend to chat with people and say, right, for three months prior to our run plan, when we're ticking over with our runs and they're not the priority session, let's get really strong.
00:42:25
Mike James
And let's work on some of those muscles that we might need now. you know Perhaps our hip flexors, perhaps our core needs to be a little bit better for an ultra than it would for maybe a 10K.
00:42:29
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:42:35
Mike James
Different muscle work rather. you know Perhaps we don't need to be absolutely strong. We need to have more muscular endurance. and Perhaps you're someone who's going to start integrating some pole work. Okay, let's bring some upper body work in and just get ready for that and start explaining why you we're doing it.
00:42:51
Mike James
So I think it's probably the combination of strength work and ah cross training from an activity point of view. We probably can come away from the myth of stretching.
00:43:03
UKRunChat
yeah.
00:43:03
Mike James
You know, we're we're not really needing to do too much of that the longer we go. um Yes, we can get stiff and sore and achy when we're out, but it's normally fatigue, not tightness, even though it feels like tightness. um And then I think for me, the bigger one is just recovery.
00:43:18
Mike James
You know, everybody should be recovering perhaps a little bit differently or better than they are. But when you're going to go that long, you know, metabolically, you're taxing the body really hard.
00:43:29
Mike James
you're You're depleting multiple body systems beyond musculoskeletal and cardiovascular. and Neurologically, you're getting fatigued. ah Your sort of lymphatic system's getting stretched.
00:43:42
Mike James
Your digestive system's getting stretched with all the stuff that we're eating. and And we need to factor in these things, having the capacity to recover. so so So I factor in recovery into someone's plan. It's not ah something else we just ignore. and It's like, how are we going to recover and plan from this?
00:43:58
Mike James
And and that doesn't necessarily mean you're jumping in your ice baths or sticking your compression boots on or whatever. They might form part of it at some point.
00:44:05
UKRunChat
yeah yeah
00:44:06
Mike James
But it's just like, tell me about your sleep. Tell me about your eating. Tell me about your hydration. Because going out, we're all benefiting from this lovely weather right now in the UK. But... going out now and doing a three, four, five-mile steady run probably doesn't bother us as much as if you were trying to go out and stick two, three hours on your and your legs in this heat, in this weather they that we're not
Training and Race Day Strategies
00:44:27
Mike James
acclimatized to. so um And I think that's an important thing with my yeah with my thoughts on the difference between shorter distance and ultra.
00:44:35
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:44:36
Mike James
A lot of my training plans start off and sometimes only stay with time on feet.
00:44:42
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:44:42
Mike James
they not They don't necessarily have to be pace or distance based like we would with the shorter stuff. Time on feet and perceived exertion. So I want you to do 90 minutes to two hours at three to five out of 10.
00:44:50
UKRunChat
yeah
00:44:56
Mike James
That's it. That's what today's session is. Tends to be a little bit easier to manage and control. And then I tend to get people to work to arrange more.
00:45:04
UKRunChat
yeah
00:45:05
Mike James
So shorter distances, we can be very specific. Whereas the longer ones, it could be this time to this time, at this effort to this effort, or or whatever it is.
00:45:14
UKRunChat
Yeah, and I guess and that but enables people to know exactly how much time they've got to train as well if they are struggling to fit training in, doesn't it?
00:45:19
Mike James
Yeah.
00:45:21
Mike James
Yeah.
00:45:22
UKRunChat
Yeah, they've got a kind of framework there.
00:45:23
Mike James
Yeah. yeah If you're only going to focus on one metric as the overriding aim in a plan for your first ultra, time on feet is very underrated.
00:45:38
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:45:39
Mike James
How many hours a week are you actually out doing stuff versus miles or intensity?
00:45:44
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:45:45
Mike James
So if someone's just worried about being out on their feet, then work into time and work into um effort levels is great because ultimately, if I want to work at three out of 10, so now not on the pain scale, but on a 10 being bleeding from the eyeballs, can't speak more than two words and one being and I could do this all day.
00:46:06
Mike James
Actually, with variability of us being tired, being dehydrated, being hungry, whatever it is, three will always feel like three. You might be slightly faster or slower on different days or different terrains, but cool, I'm ticking off the boxes in my plan from from being out there.
00:46:18
UKRunChat
yeah
00:46:23
Mike James
And of course, that then probably brings in what what for me is the fundamental difference between ultras and shorter distances. It's the inclusion of walking normally and
00:46:34
UKRunChat
Yes, I was going to ask them about that. So time on feet will include walking.
00:46:37
Mike James
Absolutely.
00:46:38
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:46:38
Mike James
Absolutely. You know, I think I personally find it easier to, although we've saying like the pitfalls of this, if there was one massive benefit between someone coming to me who's a seasoned runner and wants to step up to ultra versus a complete novice, I'm going to do whatever you tell me to.
00:46:46
UKRunChat
yeah
00:46:58
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:46:59
Mike James
The seasoned runner needs to lose the ego. Walking in a race at the shorter distance is seen as a bit of a failure and a bit of a no-no. And oh my God, my world's falling apart. But actually, it should be a fundamental strategy to build distance and volume because it's it's much easier and less taxing on the body.
00:47:17
Mike James
And it can be a nice way to accrue that time on feet. you know, going to go out and I'm going to three hours. And all I'm going to do is I'm going to run at three out of 10 for 10 minutes. And going to walk at five out of 10 for five minutes. I'm just going to repeat that.
00:47:29
Mike James
or 20 and 10, or 8, whatever whatever you know numbers you need, basically.
00:47:33
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:47:34
Mike James
But um you'll go further than you think, and it'll be easier than you think.
00:47:40
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:47:40
Mike James
And all of a sudden now, if you do want a couple of longer runs in the week, they tend to be absorbed better with that supporting walk run.
00:47:49
UKRunChat
Yeah, that's brilliant. So would you coach somebody to do that during a race then to a specific like ratio of walk to run?
00:47:57
Mike James
I think so.
00:47:57
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:47:58
Mike James
I think so. Again, I tend to... I think, again, what are the differences? What are the considerations that differ from shorter to longer races? Then I've just coached five people for London on the weekend that's just passed, and most of those had a little bit more specificity in their race day strategy.
00:48:16
Mike James
um I've always been a fan of um having a I tend to set my runners or any athletes like parameters rather than specifics.
00:48:26
UKRunChat
Yeah. Yeah.
00:48:26
Mike James
So let's say someone's going for an eight minute mile goal for a marathon whatever. We train for them to be 7.45 to 8.15 because we all know that races don't always go to plan. London none was boiling. Some people's paces were all over the place.
00:48:43
Mike James
If you're very specific, you're either winning or you're losing your targets. But if it's like, well, if you feel great, don't hold back. Go a bit faster. But your ceiling is this speed because we're not conditioned to go faster than that.
00:48:53
UKRunChat
yeah
00:48:56
Mike James
Similarly, if the world's falling apart and you you're losing the will to live, then as long as you don't go slower than this, we're going to be okay and we'll finish an acceptable time. Now, ultras, based on the nature of you're out there for twice to three times as long as most of these other races or more,
00:49:13
Mike James
generally mean that you have to be a little bit more wider with what your baseline and your your ceiling targets are.
00:49:20
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:49:20
Mike James
So we would tend to chunk our race strategies more.
00:49:20
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:49:24
Mike James
In the first 10 to 15K, we're going to do this. In the next 15K, and the walk-run ratio might increase later in the race. So maybe we're going to run the first three to five miles. based on it might It might all be – I called someone for the –
00:49:41
Mike James
it was OCC a couple of years ago in UTMB. Like first 510k is all uphill.
00:49:46
UKRunChat
yeah
00:49:46
Mike James
So we're not going to run that straight away. But other ones, you might be, okay, we're flat. Let's work out. there And I don't see enough athletes do that where they bring up the race profile and go, right, let's plot my strategy for this particular race.
00:50:00
Mike James
But generally it would be, yeah, we might run more at the start. We might then have a walk-run strategy where it's more run than walk and the percentage changes or the percentage stays the same, but we walk for longer as we fatigue.
00:50:07
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:50:14
Mike James
Because the key thing with most of these longer distance races you just need to keep moving.
00:50:19
UKRunChat
yeah
00:50:19
Mike James
You just need to be moving. The worst thing you can do is just stop. So, um you know, the ability and it's a trainable skill.
00:50:27
UKRunChat
yeah
00:50:27
Mike James
People don't learn to walk fast. Going back to my military days with all our tabbing and our marching type stuff, you know, you you would train people and they could walk a 10 minute mile with weight on their back.
00:50:39
UKRunChat
Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
00:50:40
Mike James
And it was achievable by most pretty quickly. Yeah. Whereas most of us don't know how long it takes us to walk a mile. They don't know what that pace is. um Certainly, you might even have a course profile where for present... Because i I always think of it this way, that we're never going to prevent someone's energy deterioration. We're never going to stop someone fatiguing in a race.
00:51:04
Mike James
Perhaps our best strategy is to just reduce the decline. So if I can get you to walk up a hill fast... We might be slower and feel worse than if we were to run up the hill.
00:51:16
Mike James
But if I can run off the top of that hill and then back down near the other side, cumulatively, moving faster and I'm probably depleting my energy systems at a slower rate.
00:51:23
UKRunChat
yeah
00:51:28
UKRunChat
yeah
00:51:28
Mike James
So why wouldn't I do that?
Fueling and Psychological Preparation
00:51:30
UKRunChat
yeah
00:51:30
Mike James
You know, walking with poles. I spend a lot of time coaching people to walk better with poles because, again, it's all moving to the race distance and the the end of the race or the next checkpoint whatever you want to split it up to. So to walk in being a deliberate plan. Now, of course, there'll be outliers who don't need to walk very much in it. They can run most of it.
00:51:50
UKRunChat
yeah
00:51:51
Mike James
ah I had an athlete last year who came to South Wales to do one of our 100-mile summer races. And the guy who won it was training for a 200 miler and practically ran the 100 miles.
00:52:04
UKRunChat
Wow.
00:52:05
Mike James
And in record time, i I remember dot watching him at the start, wasn't aware who the athlete was, but I dot watched his first 10, 15 miles thinking, who's this nutter? He's not going last. and And he just kept going.
00:52:16
Mike James
So you'll always have those outliers where, you know, I wouldn't say to someone if I felt that they were able to, you have to walk run because they may not need to.
00:52:18
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:52:25
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:52:26
Mike James
But it's probably something that someone, particularly if they are new into it, but let's get comfy with that as a strategy.
00:52:33
UKRunChat
Yeah. Okay. I think the only thing we've not touched on that would be important on race day and in training actually is, is fueling. What would you, what you generally recommend to athletes around fueling on the day?
00:52:44
Mike James
Again, it depends on the athlete and what they tolerate.
00:52:47
UKRunChat
Yeah. Yeah.
00:52:48
Mike James
I think ah we are very accustomed that the shorter distance stuff are trying to get the fast release quick stuff in, the gels and the drinks and all of that stuff. And although that might be a ah valid strategy for some people, some more slow release stuff and maybe some solids is probably sage advice.
00:53:09
Mike James
and I know I certainly get bored of the same stuff. I don't want sweet stuff all the time when I'm doing long things. So um certainly the longer you go, if when I've done things like 100 milers, I take food for 10 people with me because I just don't know what I'm going to want at some point.
00:53:22
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:53:27
Mike James
And I want something like a bacon sandwich or a pasty or a pot noodle. And I'd never want that in a shorter race, of course. But actually, you might stop in a checkpoint or you might eat something on the go.
00:53:39
Mike James
um And the the the salt rather than the sweet is perhaps a good strategy. Um... I think we then need to, if we're going to go for those type of strategies, employing them in training perhaps more than we would at shorter distances is is wise because your body does need to adapt to some of these things. You need to train your gut to tolerate certain things.
00:54:01
Mike James
need to know how much of these things you need. um And of course, then you need to be a little bit more diligent in the opening stages of these type of events.
00:54:10
UKRunChat
yeah
00:54:11
Mike James
Because if I'm planning on running for 10 to 12 hours or more, I'm going to mourn that I was from hour six on. I just started getting these stomach problems and I couldn't feel well. And then the wheels fell off.
00:54:21
Mike James
Well, actually, it's probably because we did in the first six hours or didn't do in the first six hours is the problem.
00:54:26
UKRunChat
yeah
00:54:27
Mike James
so So having a wider range of feeding strategies, understanding that perhaps your carb intake needs to be a bit more because of the sheer burn of energies that you're going to do
00:54:38
UKRunChat
yeah
00:54:39
Mike James
and But that might not be something we worry about for the first half of a training plan because we don't need to at that point.
00:54:44
UKRunChat
No, no.
00:54:45
Mike James
That's where the long walk, run training days come in really well, the time on feet, because we get the opportunity to try that stuff out.
00:54:51
UKRunChat
Yeah. Well, i was going to say, if we're not doing like super long runs, we're obviously never going the full distance. It's hard to know how your tummy's going to react, isn't it? To to foods at that later stage.
00:54:58
Mike James
Yeah.
00:55:00
UKRunChat
So the kind of the double run days and that maybe the back to back weekends help there.
00:55:05
Mike James
Yeah, absolutely. Could be. And then sometimes I... I don't want them to have to expose themselves to that level of in-run fuelling.
00:55:13
UKRunChat
yeah
00:55:13
Mike James
So maybe sometimes I've got someone we've just done a weekend now. They're training for a really long race and it's all a bit hush-hush right now. That's why I'm keeping coy you about it. But it's it's it's a it's um an attempt on a Strava segment that's really long.
00:55:28
UKRunChat
Right.
00:55:29
Mike James
And... um They've just done so much in-race fueling that they need a break.
00:55:37
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:55:37
Mike James
So we did a session a couple of weeks ago where it was two hours on, two hours off for 24 hours. Purely based on we're going to get more volume in without absolutely ruining ourselves.
00:55:49
UKRunChat
Okay.
00:55:50
Mike James
But the key thing was that in the two hours off, I want you to fuel. I want you to replenish. I want you to be as fueled and fresh as you can per run.
00:55:59
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:55:59
Mike James
rather than us looking for this depletion effect that most traditional long long runs would take at shorter distance.
00:56:06
UKRunChat
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, yeah, we'll, we'll look out for what that is then. I'm sure you'll let us know in due course.
00:56:10
Mike James
Yes. Oh, it's coming soon. Coming soon.
00:56:13
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:56:13
Mike James
But, and I think the only other thing I'd top on, on on and it's not that shorter distances don't need psychological training and approaches. They do. It's hard to run hard.
00:56:26
Mike James
but it's a different mental skills training for going longer. It is it is ah is a lot different to work through. this you have more stages and more periods of different mental phases, and I think the training needs to reflect that sometimes to be able to expose yourselves to those things.
00:56:43
UKRunChat
Yeah, no, that's, yeah, that's been brilliant. So is there anything we've missed? I think the only thing we've not touched upon is kind of recovery after an ultra. What might that look like?
00:56:52
Mike James
Yep.
00:56:53
UKRunChat
Like would would people be having a complete rest period from running?
00:56:58
Mike James
It depends what they're looking at doing in the subsequent weeks and months. um If it's one of these things, like we mentioned, where perhaps they're training for a 24-hour race and we did a six, eight-hour race in between, there'll be a period of reduced training so that we can continue training well afterwards, but that might be days to a week.
00:57:17
Mike James
If it's the end of their season, I would generally tell someone to really dial down their running for a period of time. and do something different. Try sports that you've neglected or missed for a period of time because you sacrificed them for running.
00:57:29
Mike James
um I tend to be quite relaxed in the initial stages. that The body tends to tell us what it wants in those first periods of time. You know, what it wants to eat, how much it wants to eat, how much activity it wants to do.
00:57:44
Mike James
And someone this week recovering from London who literally walking the dogs for 10 or 15 minutes, she can feel her heart rates just up. And isn't ready for any more. So body's being quite honest with them about what it does or doesn't want to do.
00:57:56
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:57:57
Mike James
And then I tend to not catch up with an athlete for three to five days after the race, other than a few text messages, because we're emotional beings at that point where we tend to make knee jerk reactions.
00:58:06
UKRunChat
yeah
00:58:08
Mike James
And then when the dust settles, okay, how are we feeling? How sore are we? How stiff are we? What do we need to get back to? And then just gradually and introduce other things. And at that point, if people feel that ice baths and energy drinks or whatever it is help, then that's their choice.
00:58:25
Mike James
That's their choice to do it. They're never fundamental parts of our recovery.
Long-term Planning and Race Calendar Risks
00:58:29
Mike James
But I think mentally as well, from the longer stuff, we often need to recover from the the strains and stresses of those extended training periods and the race.
00:58:38
UKRunChat
Yeah, it can it can take a while, Kanek, to kind of process all those emotions from completing a big big event like that.
00:58:44
Mike James
Absolutely. Absolutely. And if if I were thinking for most, because there are people who obviously are a one and done type of of athlete, most of us want to go back and do more.
00:58:54
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:58:55
Mike James
So I'm always thinking like, well, think where you want to be in the next five to six years, not the next five to six months. So to be able to bounce back and then prepare for the next thing and the maybe the bigger thing and the bigger thing.
00:59:07
Mike James
you need periods to come down. You know, a boxer who's just had a fight doesn't jump back in the gym and train really hard straight away. They have a period of just recovering, healing, and then they tend to tick over with their training and then they ramp it back up again. And that's where this loaded race calendar can be the Achilles heel to a lot of these people because they're never really recovering.
Conclusion and Recap of Key Insights
00:59:29
UKRunChat
Yeah, yeah, that's that's fantastic. That's been a really interesting chat, Mike. Thank you very much for your time today.
00:59:34
Mike James
My pleasure.
00:59:35
UKRunChat
and I hope that everybody out there listening has found that helpful. and Do get in touch with Mike if you want any more advice. Work and listeners contact you.
00:59:45
Mike James
anywhere on social media with the words endurance physio, um, or it's Mike at the endurance physio.com. If you want to ping me an email,
00:59:53
UKRunChat
Yeah, are brilliant. Thank you. As always, if you've enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review and share it with a running friend, of course, who might be making that leap to ultra. Thank you so much for listening in Thank you for your time, Mike, and we'll see you next time on the UK Run Chat Podcast.