How to Prepare Your Body to Run an Ultra Race

As the winter slowly begins to loosen it’s grasp, runners everywhere begin to set their new running goals for the spring, summer and fall.

For many, setting personal records and getting healthy are at the top of their running to-do list. However, there are a brave few who look to tackle new adventures and challenges. Most notably, and perhaps most impressively, is running an ultra marathon.

Preparing your body to handle the stress of racing and training for an ultra marathon is a unique challenge. The distance is unlike any other and the challenges of training countless miles can deter even the most dedicated runner. In this article, I am going to outline the step-by-step preparations you can take to get your body ready to tackle the ultra marathon distance.

Step 1: Get your muscles, tendons and ligaments ready

To successfully train for a complete ultra marathon, it is essential that you have a consistent block of healthy training. If you’re injured and can’t put in the training, I can almost guarantee the race won’t go well. You can’t fake your way through an ultra race.

One of the main reasons runners get hurt is that they attempt to increase their training volume and running speeds at a rate that their body is not ready to handle. Initial improvements in aerobic conditioning are often biochemical in nature and thus can happen somewhat rapidly whereas changes to the physical structure of muscle, ligaments, tendons and bones is a far more time consuming process.

A good example of this development is how you may be able to head out the door and hammer out a long run or a tempo run at 8 minutes per mile (or whatever your tempo pace is), but your hips might not be strong enough to handle the stress of the pace or the length of the run and, as a result, your IT band becomes inflamed the next day.

To train for an ultra race that could be two or three times the distance of a marathon, you’re going to need to increase your training volume. As such, it is critical that you take the time to prepare your structural system (muscles, tendons and ligaments) to handle the increased demands of training.

To address the structural system, you should start with a running-specific strength routine that includes lots of core work (core refers to hips, glutes, lower back and abdominals) so you can isolate and strengthen any weak areas. Research has shown that hip and core strength, or lack thereof, strongly correlates with running injuries. By strengthening the core, you can develop the foundational strength in your running muscles to support your increased training demands.

Start with four to six weeks of structural work. After which you’ll have developed the necessary strength to safely increase your mileage and incorporate the long runs necessary to train for the ultra distance. During this period you should maintain the same training load and intensity you usually perform. Of course, if you have the time, you should continue with running-specific strength training after this initial four to six weeks.

Step 2: Increase your mileage

Now that you’ve developed the structural readiness to increase your training, the next step is to methodically build your mileage to develop your aerobic system and prepare your legs to handle running for increasing lengths of time. But, how should you go about this increase?

Most running books will tell you that you shouldn’t increase your mileage by more than ten percent in any given week. Unfortunately, science doesn’t support that the ten percent rule decreases injury risk.

In 2007, a group of researches set out to test the effectiveness of the 10 percent rule. The researchers studied 532 novice runners training for a local 4 mile race by assigning half of the runners to a training program that followed the 10% rule and the other half to a more aggressive training regimen. Each runner followed the same warm-up process and the overall structure of the training was the same – minus the training volumes. The results? The two groups had the same injury rate — about 1 in 5 runners.

I prefer to follow a “3 week up, 1 week down” philosophy. Whereby, you increase mileage slowly for three weeks and then take a step back and bring the mileage total back to the number at week 1 on the fourth week . For example, your mileage totals might look like this: 50, 55, 60, 50, 60, 65, 70, 60 until you build to the maximum mileage you want to hold.

You don’t have to follow this formula exactly. This is just one example of how you can uniquely structure your mileage build-up. Some runners respond well to down weeks every five weeks, while some runners need them every three weeks to stay healthy. The beauty of the system isn’t in the exact formula, rather the notion that mileage progression doesn’t have to follow strict linear increases.

My suggestion is to aim for a mileage total about 30 to 50 percent higher than your highest marathon training week. Once you’ve reached that mileage level, you can start implementing the back-to-back long runs outlined below.

Keep workout intensity lower

While building your mileage, keep the intensity of your workouts moderate. Increasing two stimuli or stresses at the same time (in this case speed and volume) increases injury risk. Because you’re training for such a long race, you don’t need to be ripping off 400 meter or even mile repeats. Keep your workouts in the marathon pace range, which is fast enough to elicit training gains, but not enough to significantly stress your legs.

Step 3: Implement some back-to-back long runs

After you’ve run a few weeks at your peak mileage and developed a strong structural and aerobic foundation, you’re ready to introduce the final stimulus to prepare for the ultra marathon – back-to-back long runs.

Like running specific workouts for common distances like the 10k and half marathon, back-to-back long runs are a specific workout you can perform to prepare optimally for the ultra distance. Running 30 or more miles in training is extremely difficult unless you’re a very high mileage runner. Even then, it’s not something you should do very often. Rather than trying to get in multiple super long runs, elite ultra runners, like 2012 USA mountain running champion Sage Canaday, simulate the demands of the extreme distance by performing back-to-back long runs.

Start by running 60 percent of your normal long run distance the day before your scheduled long run. For example, if you normally run 16 miles for your long run on Sunday, you’d run 10 miles on Saturday. The next week, increase the mileage the day before the long run by two miles and keep your long run the same. The next week, increase your long run by two miles and keep the day before the same.

I prefer to stop increasing the long run at 22-24 miles and only increasing the day before distance until 20 miles. Depending on your experience level and how your body adapts to the workload, you may find a more optimal balance. However, this should be a good starting guide.

Follow this simple step-by-step process and you’ll be running your first ultra marathon in no time. You may even get hooked!

A version of this article originally appeared on Active.com