Ultra Runners

1

Ultra Reading List (Read 95 times)

PaulyGram


Fast is better than long

    By title alone, I must read this. or for free, here.

     

    Never Wipe Your Ass with a Squirrel: A trail running,
    ultramarathon, and wilderness survival guide for weird folks

    2017 Goals: Give up goals; they're stoopid

     

    Give a man a fire and he'll be warm the rest of the night;
    Set a man afire and he'll be warm the rest of his life.

    What in the Jehu?

    LRS


    Chasing Muses

      Never Wipe... is a great book. Covers alot of topics and is written in a way that is fun to read. As a relatively new trail/ultra runner, there was some good info on managing terrain, running at night, etc.

      NYCNorma


        I'm sure that's good advice.

        bhearn


          I've heard over and over that the only really decent all-around book on ultrarunning is Bryon Powell's Relentless Forward Progress (2011), so I finally bought it the other day.

           

          Haven't read the whole thing, but so far I'm rather disappointed that he seems to be toeing the sports-drink industry party line on hydration, electrolytes, and cramping. Drink ahead of thirst, replace all that is lost, performance suffers with only 1-2% dehydration, low electrolytes / dehydration cause cramps, etc. Not even any mention of alternative points of view. Yes, this was before Waterlogged appeared, but even in 2011 "drink ahead of thirst" was pretty passé, and electrolytes-vs-cramps has been hotly debated for many years. I would be tempted to toss the book were it not for the author's running credentials.

            I got side-tracked and never got back to RFP, maybe a year or so ago. Much of what I read sounded like a regurgitation / condensation of the ultra-list (probably back when it was one list, the 2nd time round) with all the cool stories removed. Yea, a few pages of posts can be condensed to a sentence or two, but I remember things better with stories. A Step Beyond didn't cover as many things, but it was more first person stories (aka ultralist posts). But that's just me. (I'll have to see if I can find my copy of RFP.)

             

            When I started running / jogging, I hadn't heard the guidelines to drink however much they told you (which I think would have caused me to gag), then the hyponatremia cases seemed to hit in the early 2000s (or at least the ones we heard about) shortly after I started more structured running (2001). So it's been a good 10 yrs since people were aware of hyponatremia and its causes.

            "So many people get stuck in the routine of life that their dreams waste away. This is about living the dream." - Cave Dog
            TeaOlive


            old woman w/hobby

              I think that the training plans were a bit light too.  Not that you bought it for the training plans. Smile

              steph  

               

               

              bhearn


                Well I was curious. I still don't think I really know the right way to train for a 100. But yes, they did look a little light to me. The "70 mpw plan" only hit 70 I think twice, and looked to average 50-odd.


                Uh oh... now what?

                  I was thinking (burning smell) about the books I used when this ultramarathon

                  running thing started for me.  They were mostly books about running in general

                  --a psych help here and there, do it yourself injury recognition and treatment,

                  but all were about running on pavement of some sort.  Almost no mention of any

                  distances beyond the standard marathon.

                   

                  There is one book that was good then, is good now, and will be good for a long

                  time to come... Tom Osler's Serious Runner's Handbook : Answers to Hundreds

                  of Your Running Questions, 1978, World Publications, Mt. View, CA

                   

                  Whereas there are a lot of time-range marathon training plans, the widely diverse

                  venues of trail ultras coupled with the varying distances makes for an almost

                  impossible widely applicable training plan.

                   

                  For a 6 - 6½ 50-mile time, do ...

                  For a 6½ - 7 50-mile time, do ...

                   

                  If it is in

                  20ºF-30ºF -- add this...

                  30ºF-45ºF -- add this...

                  ...

                  95ºF-110ºF ... why are you out there?  Oh, 'cause everyone else is.

                   

                  Fun to think about the variations of where we run, what we encounter (both internally

                  and externally), the terrain, the level of effort for the day (and when you decided what

                  the day was to bring), and other stuff.

                   

                  rgot 

                    Well I was curious. I still don't think I really know the right way to train for a 100. But yes, they did look a little light to me. The "70 mpw plan" only hit 70 I think twice, and looked to average 50-odd.

                     

                    Well that solves that.  I was hoping to find a book or training plan with a base of 80-90 MPW topping out around 100 -110.  If more I could adjust down.  Maybe I'm crazy, but I can't conceive racing 100 miles with a base less than my marathon training plan...


                    Uh oh... now what?

                       

                      Well that solves that.  I was hoping to find a book or training plan with a base of 80-90 MPW topping out around 100 -110.  If more I could adjust down.  Maybe I'm crazy, but I can't conceive racing 100 miles with a base less than my marathon training plan...

                      Just find a plan -- doesn't anyone develop their own? -- and then add to the long run

                      to make up the mileage you think you need.  If it doesn't work, revise for the next

                      attempt.  It might take through the first and second year to find what works and then

                      you tweak it during the third year... after that... piece of cake (all else being equal).

                        I went back and looked at RFP. It's more of a light-duty training handbook, with some things coming from blogs, whereas A Step Beyond is a collection of articles from Ultrarunning, including a lot of history, which I find interesting. There's some good things in RFP, to be sure.

                        "So many people get stuck in the routine of life that their dreams waste away. This is about living the dream." - Cave Dog