The training/race cycle goes on and on, and can easily lead to burnout, overtraining or wilting into staleness. The all-important positive attitude about running that supplies so much of the motivation to get out the...
Articles by Gary Dudney
One great aspect of ultrarunning is that, for the most part, it happens outdoors on trails, along country roads or across leafy suburban streets. We get the exercise and cardiovascular blast that long-distance running...
If you have experience in ultrarunning, I’m sure you’re familiar with the “pain cave.” It’s that bad mental place you go when you’re pushing through a tough workout or the last half of a difficult race. In the pain ca...
I love the idea of doing a 100-mile race on the anniversary of 9/11. It will give me a chance to do something special and positive on that day, and it will also give me a wonderful backdrop for reflecting on these las...
ABC’s Wide World of Sports crushed its weekend time slot for 37 years on network television from 1961 to 1998. The premise was simple: people would love to watch sports coverage that went beyond standard baseball, footba...
Faking it until you make it doesn’t seem like it would work in the sport of ultrarunning. After all, what could be more impervious to fakery or trickery, than slamming down a gnarly trail for hours on end? How do you...
The race directors seemed pleased as punch about the prospect of putting runners through the wringer. This Kentucky course promises below-freezing temperatures at night, rugged and rocky trails, numerous steep climbs...
It’s the perennial question for ultrarunners: “Why in the world do you want to run so far?” The question is usually meant rhetorically, as if it is self-evident that no reward could justify such pain and suffering. The a...
About two hours into the Maah Daah Hey Trail 100, I paused to take stock. Since the race began, we’d been riding roller coaster, twisting single track through the classic badlands terrain of western North Dakota, surroun...
There is a dynamic that runs through an ultrarunning career: the process of searching for the perfect clothes, equipment, food/drink and other products to use for racing. This includes things like ideal running shoes, ju...
The most remarkable thing about our sport is the sheer distance we cover during an ultra event. Yet it doesn’t take much ultrarunning experience to realize that your focus during a race is almost never on the entire dist...
I follow a few basic rules in running that have served me well over the years. One of my rules is: don’t think about it. It’s a rule I follow each day, right when I’m about to make that decision whether to run or not. I’...
I’m going to go a little grim here. Everything about your first 100-mile race is going to be over-the-top, out-sized and epic compared to the shorter ultras you’ve done. The sheer distance, the time it takes, the highs a...
The Prairie Spirit Trail Ultra 100 Mile in eastern Kansas is a rails-to-trails course that follows an old route of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad through the small town of Garnett. A brick depot building, bui...
24 Hours of Adrenalin was a popular mountain bike race that consisted of riding a technical course all day and night until 24 hours had elapsed. I’ll never forget a biker grinding to a halt near the timing table in the m...
Welcome to the wilds of central Idaho. Race director Jeremy Humphrey doesn’t sugarcoat his remarks at the race orientation. “Every big animal you’re scared of will be out there,” he said, “bears, cougars, wolves and snak...
Granted, we’re not all dressing up in Starfleet uniforms or going gaga over Spock lookalikes at Star Trek conventions, but I think all ultrarunners are Trekkies in a deeper sense. We embrace the starship Enterprise’s mis...
A thick mist hangs in the air above Chagrin River Road. It is very early and still dark as we pass through an idyllic pastoral farmscape of stone walls, duck ponds, rail fences, shade trees and brown horses. The hundred...
The first time you run an ultra you’re probably going to get a whole new perspective on what it means to suffer. Getting way out beyond your training at speeds and distances and numbers of hours you’ve never experienced...
It doesn’t matter which distance you pick, the 100-mile, the 50-mile, or the 27-mile “fun run,” at the Lake Martin Trail Races. You’ll use the Russell Forest Trail System on Lake Martin in east central Alabama near Alexa...