My first 50k is in the books! I did the Moebius-Green Monster 50k in Aurora, OH. The race was 5 loops of a 10k course, with aid stations at the finish line and halfway point. It was the very definition of “old school”: no run/ultrasignup, no chip timing, no course photographers. The finisher’s medal is a wood disk with a hand drawn sticker. The only internet presence is a facebook group. Steve the Race Director didn’t even have a bullhorn. He literally just yelled GO real loud.

I had a great time! The course was beautiful. The weather was perfect. The crews manning the aid stations were attentive and helpful. They usually knew what I needed before I did. They were able to interpret my babbles and grunts as “please pour this tailwind into my handheld”. Every single person who passed me said great job or something similar. And I did the same for the (two) people I passed.

I knew I wasn’t winning any awards, (I came in 24th out of 36 finishers) so I simply let my legs do what they wanted to do. At the final mile, I looked to the sky, said “You ready kid? Let’s fly!” and finished the race with all the kick I had left.

Hi everyone!!

I have been running for years and years, and my relationship with running is one I'm sure many can relate to.

I HATE marathons lol. Love a half, but I typically hit the mile 18 mark and have a meltdown. Something keeping me from ultras has been a worry that I'm not mentally tough enough (also rather injury-prone lol).

That being said, a friend of mine has never run a marathon but has completed multiple ultras, explaining that it's just a completely different mental game. You aren't necessarily focused on pace; you're focused on yourself - type of deal.

I also keep seeing all of these incredible women run these ultras, and it makes me so emotional seeing how strong and resilient they are - I want that to be me. I want to represent women in these spaces; I'm just also so scared of being "bad" at it and perpetuating a stereotype.

I feel like I give up pretty easily (re: mile 18 meltdown); however, I think it's important to note that I still FINISH my races. If I'm having a terrible run, I'll walk the rest of it before I consider going home.

I guess what I'm looking for is what made you start trail running or ultra marathoning? How do you avoid injury (to the best of your ability)? How do you pivot from a half marathon mindset to something like this? Tips and insights appreciated !!

I have an ultra in 2 weeks 100miles but only have 1 pair of shoes I intend to run in. I read on a lot of drop bag posts about a change of shoes. Do people do this often? Am I mad for not considering it.

For reference I ran half the course 2 weeks ago and at the halfway point everything was great.

I'm planning to run my first ultra on October 17th. My latest long run on Saturday was 18.4 miles with the last 10.4 at goal pace (5 hours, ~9:40/mile). That wasn't really planned, it just happened that way. I didn't sleep well at all and the early miles were pretty ugly, but as the carbs and caffeine started to hit, the pace improved dramatically. I had 2 bottles of 120g carbs each with 100mg caffeine total between the two. I finished the bottles around 16 miles in. The current plan for race day is to swap bottles at 11 and 21ish miles at aid stations that are crew accessible. I bounced back to run 10 miles the next day, feeling fine, and covered 65 miles for the week. I've been above 55 mpw for months now.

My HR generally climbed throughout the long run from below 130 for the opening 3 miles to the 130s through mile 11 and then into the 150s by mile 16. I felt great through 16 miles so I pushed for the last 2 and change since I knew I was going to make my goal for the day. This has been a common theme throughout my long runs. The 18.4 was outside, but most of my recent long runs have been on the treadmill and the room gets very hot so I just assumed it was largely that making my HR climb. Now, I'm wondering if 100mg of caffeine is too much. On a regular day, I consume about 150mg of caffeine total so 100mg isn't crazy, but I also would prefer to be in the 130s HR wise on race day until at least the 3 hour mark to make sure I don't overcook it since I've never run this far before.

So, do you think I should reduce the caffeine intake or delay it? I'm a little concerned about delaying it because I usually sleep like crap the night before races so I'm worried about a really slow start without it. SHould I drop it back to 25 mg per bottle instead? Or should I just go full throttle and not worry about being HR in the 150s 3 hours in? I do some workouts now where I push my HR into the 160s early and still go for more than 90 minutes (I don't stay in the 160s all the way through, but I do spend a lot of time in the 140s and 150s). It is a race and those are the times to push the limits so maybe I just run the pace that feels good and see if I can cover those last 2 hours with the taper, more carbs, more caffeine, and race adrenaline?

If things are still looking bad at the canyon what are my options for minimal ice and snow and close to Phoenix? Have microspikes and winter gear. Ideas besides the Zion traverse

I've spent the past year developing Route Squiggler, a site where you can make many kinds of map animations of your GPX files and other run data you collect with sports apps. It has more ways to customise the videos, doesn't collect personal information, has no ads, and is mainly free to use (only sells credits for a few extra features).

If you like to record and later watch or share your ultra runs, this site might be for you. I've opened it fairly recently and any feedback would be very useful. :)

I mentioned I have been spending a week+ writing an article about the live media coverage of UTMB in a few posts and was asked to share it when i'd finished, well here it is.

My thoughts on this years UTMB live media coverage and the state of trail running media landscape at the moment.

I basically go through what we saw, in-depth and then a summary of what i'd like to see change in live media.

Cover the rest of us, don't just cover the podium (or first and second position in case of UTMB), 99% of the field never gets their story told, yet we're the ones paying for the race.

Cover the natural world, imo, its the trail/ultra/mountain running blindspot, nature.

Cover the race as it unfolds, it felt very sterile this year, not just who is in first or second place, which was the majority of what we got shown, show us people moving through the pack. Case in point, Yngvild went from 24+ minutes back at 54km and ended up finishing in first, we saw nothing of it live, not a single second, only two slow-mo replays were shown after the fact and for no more than 1 minute, that was 2+ hours of live media and race that wasn't aired.

If anybody has any contacts with UTMB, I would be more than happy to help work on the "cover the rest of us" stories, this is my bread and butter and have worked in this area for over a decade.

Hi everyone!

I'm doing my first ever 110K race (60K is the longest I've done so far) on Saturday and I'm super excited and a little bit scared!

Got a favour to ask. Someone on reddit suggested I get notes from my friends for my drop bag to read when I'm struggling. I made an email account and am asking people to send encouraging messages or funny messages or whatever you feel like sending; sent it all around to friends and colleagues but thought I'd drop it here too in case someone's got a spare minute, would be quite fun to receive something from a stranger! :)

[readwhenincrisis@gmail.com](mailto:readwhenincrisis@gmail.com) (was really surprised this name wasn't taken yet haha)

I'm setting off at 5am GMT on Saturday!!

I'm from a Southeast Asian country. I moved to the States, picked up ultra running, and I think my social media algorithms picked up ultrarunning too lol One thing that stood out to me, though, whenever I look at local races in Asia, especially where I'm from, the majority of the entrants are men. Even when I look at the local ultra scenes there, they're very much majority men. All of this are not necessarily surprising in itself. However, it seems that the major, "celebrity", if you will, ultra runners from Asia in general, they tend to be women. I'm talking Yao Miao, Fuzhao Xiang, Ha Thi Hau, Mira Rai, Sunmaya Budha. I'm sure there might be some major men runners, but when it comes to major races, it's the ladies I always hear about.

Is there some kind of reason for this or is my algorithm being weird?

Hi all,
I’m running my first backyard ultra in 6 weeks and was wondering what shoes people could recommend please? I tend to prefer a wider fit. Thanks very much :)

Waterproof jacket and pants for UTMB Kodiak 100k ideas please. So of the top rates brands are so expensive. Anyone have any suggestions for less pricey options for waterproof required gear? Please and thank you.

I am 7 weeks out from my first 50K. I have a pretty good VO2 max (52). I have focused on building base, time on feet, strength training, elevation and increasing my long run for my training in my first ultra.

I did not do any dedicated speed work. I pushed pace at times on shorter runs, and at times on my long runs.

Did I make a mistake? What about the next 7 weeks? Could I throw in some higher tempo intervals on my weekly training runs?

A little over two weeks ago I sprained my ankle (grade 1) on a trail run about a month out from a 50k trail race. I’ve been doing PT and ankle feels basically back to normal and was able to get 25 miles in last week and some longer bike rides. Today on a run, I rolled my bad ankle pretty badly. Had immediate pain but was able to walk it off and get ice on it. It doesn’t seem like I re-sprained it but it’s definitely agitated. I’m 11 days away from race day and questioning if I should just call it. It’s clear my ankle is pretty weak post injury and being on a trail obv raises re-injury risk. I haven’t tried taping or a running brace and wondering if that is a good option to consider for race day recognizing there is a decent DNF possibility if I roll it again. This is my first ankle sprain. I was feeling super confident about race day and recovery up until this morning. I’m also working with a PT but would love to know anyone has had similar injuries close to race day and tried tape/brace that provided enough stability/support to still race.

hello friends! was worth a shot to ask if anyone has a discount code or may know know where i can find some? i’m ordering my first salomon shoes from the website, i signed up for their newsletter to attempt on getting a 10% off code, but i think they stopped doing that.

anything is greatly appreciated, stay awesome, thank you ! :-)

Hi everyone, my heart goes out to everyone affected by the flash floods yesterday, and to the families who lost loved ones. It's just devastating.

I was set to do R2R2R October 2nd–5th, but with everything going on, I'm rethinking my plans. If anyone has suggestions for a similar hike/challenge elsewhere, I'd really appreciate it.

I’ve hiked the west highland way before and I’m getting into running, I’ve actually found I’ve got a knack for running long distances such as running a 2 hour half marathon like 2 weeks into getting into it. I’m wondering how much training/conditioning I’d need to do to run the west highland way?

Hello, I am planning on running a 24 hour race at the end of October. I have been running for about 4 years and currently average about 50 miles per week. I have run several marathons and this will be my first ultra event.

What are some ways that I can be preparing physically and mentally for a 24 hour ultra. The race occurs on two alternating 4ish mile loops with one having about 500ft of gain and the other with 200ft. I want to run as far as I can but don't know should I enter the race with a distance goal in mind or some other goal.

Any thoughts on training physically and mentally, goals, expectations and approach to the race would be helpful.

anyone here tried ANTA trail shoes?

Planning to get a pair but I can’t find a single review online.

Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!

After the second big uphill at km 45 I could’t recover and maintain a decent pace but I learned a couple of things!

I’m not sure what the status was before yesterday but there was a major flash flood on Bright Angel Creek yesterday that took out every bridge along the creek and likely large sections of trail as well.

Phantom Ranch was evacuated by helicopter. This is breaking news right now so surely lots of video and photos will emerge soon.