Toeing the line and completing an ultramarathon is a huge accomplishment. But racing an ultra is an entirely different proposition. Both are wonderful and life changing endeavors, but since this is our racing-themed issu...

Dear Ann, I hear advice all the time from friends about the things I should be doing to be a better runner. I try to be consistent, but I sometimes find myself slipping back into old habits or too busy to do everything....

Some of the hardest lessons are learnt during the first attempt at a given distance. The more experience you build up before taking on a new challenge, the better it’s likely to go, but there are always unexpected diffic...

“What’s your next race?” “What are you training for?” “Sorry your race didn’t go as planned.” “Are you happy with your result?” So often in our sport, it’s racing – performing at our best on one particular day – that is...

Just as you train your body to run miles and miles on end, you should train your body for your optimal nutritional status. Here are 10 common nutritional mistakes ultrarunners make, and how you can prevent them. 1. Un...

Over the course of the year, we have outlined the fundamentals of running stride efficiency: trunk alignment, arm swing and hip drive. If those three elements are well executed, the fourth and final element – the foot st...

It is funny how words can become charged with emotion, above and beyond their actual meaning. Diversity is one such word. By its true definition, diversity is one of the great strengths of the sport of ultrarunning. U...

Is it a race or is it a trail run when we toe the line at an ultra event? Or does that seem like a dumb question? An ultra is obviously a race, right? Well, even ultrarunning’s most iconic event, the Western States 100,...

We don’t do ultramarathons because they are easy. In fact, we often choose races because of specific physiological and psychological challenges: heat, terrain, nocturnal running and my own moth-to-flame nightmare: altitu...

My friend Emma Roca is a Renaissance woman. The 42-year-old mountain rescue firefighter from Spain’s Catalonia region in the Pyrenees recently finished a Ph.D. in biochemistry while raising three children and earning pod...

It’s hard to believe that Greg Soderlund has passed away and his unflappable nature, his adroit organizational skill and his calmness under pressure serving as race director of the Western States Endurance Run are just m...

For ultrarunners, summer running apparel needs to be more than simply lightweight. It also needs to be durable and comfortable enough to withstand long days on the trail, with innovative design or fabric technology as a...

Zach Miller thrills. He bursts from the line like his life depends on it, accelerates through aid stations as if chased by a specter, crosses the finish line limbs flailing, elation and agony twisted across on his face....

What do running, public nudity and democracy have in common? More than you might think. To understand why, let us step back in history to the original Olympic Games of Greece. Early Olympic athletes competed in attire...

Hey, ultrarunners! Mid-Pack Zach here with some great tips on how you can step up your humblebragging game. You didn’t train that body until it was like a finely tuned Ford Pinto and manage to stumble across the finish l...

Above all else, I believe that running should be two things: 1) A perfectly legitimate justification for the combo meal at In-N-Out Burger, and 2) Fun. I’ve come to realize that one of the best ways to sprinkle a dose of...

It was zero-dark-hundred and I was driving to a 100k event that I'd be working for the next 14 to 16 hours. I reflected on the many times over the years that I'd gotten up at such an hour to work or run a race. I...

The inaugural year of the UltraRunning Race Series was a big success, with the overall series being won by Paul Terranova and Devon Yanko in equally dominant – but dramatically different – fashion. After focusing on a...

Just when you think no one could possibly run faster, someone does. That was the opening sentence to last year’s race report, and I’m going to use it again. Remarkably, for the ninth consecutive year, the course record w...

A flicker ignites the end of a cigarette. A deep inhalation precedes a release of smoke into the Tennessee sky. Less than three weeks later, this very gesture will launch 40 people into the wilds of Frozen Head State Par...

The North Carolina State Park system’s 2016 theme is “100 s’more years” in honor of their 100th birthday and that campfire staple, the s’more. This milestone celebration became a perfect background for this year’s Umstea...

Kansas is thought of by many as a sandy, flat landscape with views of wheat and cornfields, unfettered by mountains or trees. With this stereotype in mind, it’s no wonder why runners are surprised when they participate i...

The Grasslands Trail Run is run on 50 miles of multi-use trail in the LBJ National Grasslands outside of Decatur, TX. The winding, nontechnical trails make Grasslands a perfect trail race for a first-time trail runner....

Most ultrarunners are trying to scratch an itch they didn't even know they had, or at least don't fully understand. We’ve all run a good number of races, but the ones that really stick with us are those that come...

About 20 minutes west of Salina, KS, we steer the Jeep south. The landscape around us buckles and folds into undulating topography in shades of gold and green. This year it’s an early spring, so the Chickasaw plums are i...

The Long Island Greenbelt Trail 50K Run was held on May 7, 2016, but the weather would have made you think that we were in the middle of March. It didn’t matter though, as it didn’t dampen the excitement and smiles aroun...

On March 19th and 20th, we had a little 100-mile race down in Alabama. Most people who aren’t from around here think of east-central Alabama as pretty flat. East-central Alabama is where Lake Martin, one of the most beau...

Is that the racecourse? No, that’s a lake. Wait… that is the racecourse. When I packed my suitcase for the trip to Wendover, UT, my mask, fins and snorkel fell off the closet shelf. In retrospect, that was an omen. Th...

The race promised a trot down idyllic trails winding through the oak and hickory woods of Chain O’ Lakes State Park in North Central Indiana in cool air under an overcast sky. The park is home to a string of charming, pe...

I’m staring at crystalline water and a spattering of earth and trees that jut abruptly from the horizon to form nearby islands. I’m sitting on a damp wooden staircase sprinkled with sand and salt under the shade of a cab...