Here are a few pieces of advice that might not be so obvious to those who are new to the sport of trail and ultrarunning.
Sarah Lavender Smith
Sarah Lavender Smith
Sarah Lavender Smith lives and runs near Telluride, Colorado, and publishes “Mountain Running & Living,” a weekly newsletter at sarahrunning.substack.com.
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Our once-fringe-now-mainstream sport used to be its own cozy niche, but over the decades, it has split into many niches loosely defined by geography, age, distance of trail routes, clubs …
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Success at ultras depends in part on striking an appropriate mental balance between ambivalence and obsession, between not caring enough and too much. You should feel invested in the race …
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Training independently—doing things your way, free of charge—is appealing. You can train more intuitively, like Courtney Dauwalter (who isn’t coached), less beholden to a coach’s workouts that might not fit …
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Unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, the end of the calendar year brings colder temps, shorter days, rain and perhaps snow. Between Thanksgiving and January, I tend to run less …
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While running the 40-mile Telluride Mountain Run in late August—an extremely tough high-altitude ultra that circumnavigates the town and crosses four mountain passes—I felt a bit glum that I didn’t …
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Around mile 28 of the High Lonesome 100, when thunder rumbled overhead from slate-gray clouds to the west, a man ahead of me turned back to ask, “What do you …
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“I’m just going to run it for fun.” I hear that phrase all the time, and I understand the sentiment behind it. It’s expressed partly to lower expectations and self-pressure, …
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“Anything can happen in the mountains,” I tell my 19-year-old son, Kyle, as I show him how to use the SOS button on my GPS tracking device. When I hand …
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When the pandemic erased the motivator of ultras from our calendars, we had to reconnect with deeper reasons why we run long. Personally, I desperately needed to re-establish and fortify …
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Ultrarunner Jared Campbell started the Running Up for Air timed event at Grandeur Peak (Outside of Salt Lake City) to raise awareness and money to fight air pollution in his …
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When my son, Kyle, proudly grasped his diploma and pumped his fist in triumph during his high school graduation this past June, I cheered loudly while infused with feelings of …
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As I considered the apples-to-oranges comparison between road marathons and mountain ultras, I wondered. What if, instead of trying to be the marathon runner I used to be, I embraced …
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A decade ago, at 42, Kami Semick reached the pinnacle of ultrarunning. She won every race she entered in 2009, including two world championship events in the 100K and 50K, …
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In this era of 200-is-the-new-100, it feels almost inevitable that many runners and race directors will super-size perfectly good and satisfying ultra routes, and we ultrarunners will feel compelled to …
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The sound of a helicopter circling over our property near Telluride, Colorado, filled my ears for several days straight. The sight of teams of volunteers dressed in hiking gear, fanning …
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Barely past the halfway point of Run Rabbit Run 100 last September, my legs and feet rebelled. Stiff muscles, achy joints and soles so tender that I winced with each …