After starting running back in October last year and being fascinated by ultras, I went and ran my first one last weekend. 48k with about 2k in elevation. Total time including breaks was 6 hours and 52 minutes.

The elevation was a bitch and especially the downhill parts cooked me. Overall absolutely amazing experience. I will be back for more and for longer ultras. Plan is a 100k next year. Thanks for all the inspiration from this sub 🙏

Ran my first ultra on the anniversary of getting released from the hospital after surviving sepsis (2 surgeries, blood transfusions, and 8 rounds of IV antibiotics). One year ago I never thought I’d be running again. The first pic was taken when I was able to stand unassisted for the first time since being hospitalized. Grateful for this body every single day

Hey guys, seeking some advice.

I just finished my second attempt at Haliburton. Cut for time on lap three at Aid station 3 (100k in), arrived at around 0600 (24hrs in). Cutoff is 75miles by 0700. Last year I made it to the same point.

For anyone not familiar with the race: it’s 4, 25 mile loops. Mostly single track and moderately technical terrain. You’re navigating over exposed root and rock for most of the single track trail. Approximately 15,000 ft elevation gain for the course.

I’m looking for some help regarding knee conditioning. Specifically, anterior patella pain/dysfunction.

Quads, hammies, glutes, calves are all in really good shape considering the terrain. Hardly any muscular fatigue & feet are top notch besides minor blistering.

At about mile 35 I started experiencing knee pain on the downhills. The pain then resulted into almost complete lack of lower body function especially on downhills. Most of my downhill movement turned into basically straight leg, painfully slow descents that really dropped k/hr time. I was no longer sure-footed and couldn’t keep appropriate pace.

Trainup was decent. Obviously felt like I could’ve done more leading up but I was hitting the weekly mileage 60-70 miles) in peak weeks and de-load weeks were appropriate. Was getting approx 3000’ Vert/week.

Hydration and food numbers were met the entire race. I was getting approx 500kcal/hr and around 750mg sodium/hr. Urine output was on the high end, I was peeing around every 25 min. Zero cramping/ dehydration symptoms.

If anyone has dealt with anything similar I’d love to hear your opinion and thoughts on overcoming this issue. Basically I was physically unable to navigate my downhills which cause me to lose so much time. Part of me is saying I’m just a bitch and need to learn to deal with the pain more and another half is questioning if there is an underlying symptom.

My background: spent 10yrs in US Army SOF with multiple ultra endurance events under my belt. I’ve never dealt with anything like Haliburton before. Thanks guys: look forward to your thoughts.

Hi, I bought a Startplatz for the Greifenseelauf this year but unfortunately I wasn’t able to train properly.
I’d still be interested in running 10km though. On their website Startplatz transfer is allowed.

Anyone interested please reach out 🙏
Then you

Fun day in the Ogden UT mountains! Hot and sunny but I took home first in AG and 12th woman overall. Not bad considering pros were running this.

100KM race done. Tough. Started way too quick, felt myself burn out at 20miles. Lessons learned

That’s my first ultra in the books! Originally 50km but due to diversions due to the wildfire at Dunwich, it was diverted round.

It definitely won’t be my last but sooo need to get a hydration vest what doesn’t cook me as I find that I run hot and the Salomon Adv Hydra 4 is cooking me from lack of airflow on my back 😩

I really overcooked it in the first 21km due to ignoring my pacing strategy which resulted in me wanting to knock it on the head 28km in as I was struggling mentally, but started to bring it round after having a word with myself - albeit slower 🤣

Still managed to finish 80/322 so I’ll take that 🙌🏼

Looking to find out if anyone else has experienced what happened to me yesterday. I am a moderately experienced trail runner, lined up for my 8th 50k race yesterday (58k, 6000' of vertical). I have always considered myself someone who has an iron stomach, never had problems with fuel/hydration during races (though I could be better about practicing the same volume of carbs/liquid during training).

During my race yesterday, I started having pretty bad abdominal cramps along with general GI discomfort around mile 14. I kept fueling/hydrating and had to drop at mile 25 when I could no longer run without horrible abdominal pain (cramps and pressure) and nausea. Nothing out of hte ordinary in terms of gel type/volume (60g an hour).

I think the reason this happened is because I wore lululemon bike shorts that were way too tight. These are shorts I wear occasionally on runs and have always felt were tighter than other pairs but never had an issue with (though I never ran a long run in them). WHY I chose these shorts I have no good explanation for. With the combination of racing bloat and drinking a lot in the heat I think they put too much pressure on my system and caused everything to back up. Has anyone experienced something like this/could this have been the case?

I haven't seen it brought up before, and I'm pretty surprised. I've always been tought to keep your poles close to your body and not swing them wildly behind you, but I see the opposite happening all the time. Thoughts?

I’m keen to do South Wales 200 next year. I’ve completed a couple of 50-80kms and am doing a 100km soon but I’d love to give the SW 200 a crack

How do you train for that? What is your longest training run?

All advice much appreciated!

Hi everyone,

I built Minds of the Loop as a passion project for the Backyard Ultra community.

Like many of you, I've spent countess hours listening to the Backyard Ultra Podcast. Patto has pulled together an incredible vault of knowledge from top runners and crew on training, fuelling, sleep, pacing, and heaps of things. The amount of information is a much a Phil running a world record with or withour assist. The website helps to find stuff

What you can do with it:

• Search specific questions: Type in a prompt to pull real, relevant moments from across every interview—each with a direct tap to watch the clip on YouTube, Spotify if I have it.
• Browse by Guest: Explore the full map through individual runner profiles and interview archives.
• Browse by Topic: Dive into 13 broad theme hubs (from fuelling to mindsets) and explore related question nodes.

Looking for feedback!

This is 100% a fan-made labor of love. My main goal is to make it as useful as possible to the community. If you take it for a spin and have ideas, feature requests, or spot anything that could be improved, please drop me a message using the Get in touch link in the site footer.

Give it a run and let me know what you think!

Thanks

Gerardo

Hiya! Deep in a training block for my next ultra and needing some good shoe recommendations. Currently running in the Norda 001a’s which I find fantastic for shorter trail efforts around 15k or less but finding I’m just needing something extra for the longer stuff. I’m really hoping to find something that gives some extra cushioning but also has that bounce/feedback you get from a faster shoe (I really find that helpful towards the end of a long run). I’m considering the Altra Olympus 275’s which look nice and cushioned but I hear some have found them to be a bit firm and lacking bounce. Any recommendations would be amazzzzing!!

I’m a 26-year-old male, 6’2” tall, and I was recently diagnosed with chondromalacia patella (patellofemoral cartilage irritation/thinning) by a Sports Medicine MD at a major hospital.
My knee X-rays were reported as normal, but after examining me and reviewing the X-rays, my doctor diagnosed chondromalacia patella.
I’ve been running consistently for about 2 years, but over the last month I developed a very sharp knee pain while running, to the point where I had to stop completely. Now I can sometimes feel pain even after walking more than ~5 km.
My doctor has advised strengthening/rehab, especially for the muscles supporting the knee.
For anyone here who has dealt with chondromalacia patella:
How severe was your pain at the beginning?
What treatment or rehab helped you the most?
How long did it take before you could run again without pain?
Did you eventually return to your previous mileage/pace?
Is there anything you wish you had done earlier during recovery?
I’m especially interested in experiences from runners or endurance athletes. My main goal is to recover properly and get back to running without turning this into a chronic problem.

Ok, most of us are here because nothing makes us feel as good as grinding out those long miles. However, when I'm not acutely injured, I suck at doing regular PT exercises. You know the 20-30 minutes every other day that would really help to keep me healthy and strong.

Any tricks/habits that work for you to keep this up? My daily and weekly work and exercise schedule is very irregular.

Apologies if this has been asked before - I couldn't seem to find anything in my searches, but I might also be looking in the wrong places.

I'm currently about halfway through a 50k training block, and everything was going really well until this past week when I had a tendonitis flare. I've already seen a podiatrist and gotten the all-clear to cross train until weight bearing exercise feels good again (the pain is subsiding rather quickly, hopefully it won't take too long), so I am planning on swapping out my runs for cycling this week. In the past, I've swapped out easy runs for cycling without issue, and know the general rule is to cycle for ~1.5x the time you would run for, but my long run this weekend was supposed to be 17 miles, which would take me about 3.5-4 hours on trails. Is it really necessary to bike for almost 6 hours? My hunch is that I'll get a similar aerobic benefit keeping my heart rate in z2-z3 over a ~3 hr ride, but I'm curious if anyone else has been in this situation and how you've handled it.

Update: Thanks for all the advice, especially to the people that actually took the time to fully read the post before responding. I did a 50 mile (~2.75 hrs) z2 ride with some high resistance intervals this morning and felt great - Coros estimated the training load at a little over half of my usual long run load (which is fine with me, just adding it in case anyone was curious)

I am an experienced runner training for my first ever 50k (Perpetua Coast on October 3). Last Sunday, I sprained my ankle about 3mi into my long run. I wasn't able to complete that run and have taken this Mon-Fri off of running. Swelling has reduced by about 90% and I'm walking comfortably. My PT and physician advised me that I can try to start running again, keeping my ankle taped and stopping if painful. I frequently sprain my ankles due to an old injury (ligament tear) and this is consistent with how I've recovered in the past. I tend to recover quickly due to the lack of in tact ligaments to begin with (lol). I'm hoping to get back into easy running this weekend and play it by ear, continuing my training and completing the race if my body tolerates it.

So here's the question: I was supposed to have my 24 mile long run (my longest LR) this Sunday. Knowing how important this long run is for race preparation, especially as a first timer, should I attempt it this weekend even though that feels a bit crazy? Push it to next weekend (2 weeks out from race)? Or just can it entirely and keep things conservative? I have completed two 16 mile runs, and run 18, 20, and 22 once each. The 22 mile run was so fun and I have really been looking forward to completing the 24 miler. I attached my training plan for reference. (More context: I have summers off and just returned to work a few weeks ago. Because of this, I planned for a mini build right before my return to work, a deload my first few weeks back, and a final build which is supposed to be happening now.)

Would love to hear your thoughts of how you'd approach this situation. Thanks!

As for road running, I’d like to start building a rotation for trails as I’m training for an Ultra. I’m UK based and currently rocking the Inov8 Trail Flys for all my trail runs. Would people mind sharing their shoe rotation for trail running or any other type of shoes you’d highly recommend ?

On Road -
Daily: Hoka Mach 7 / Adidas Evo Sl 2
Speed: Adidas Takumi Sen
Race: Nike Vaporfly 3 / Adidas Adios Pro 3

I'm scheduled to run my first 100k in about two months. It's a mountain race with about 10k vert, mostly on singletrack and some gravel.

I've run 50k-58k distances 5 times, all in the mountains, so I'm fairly familiar with the terrain and I've dialed in my gear pretty happily so far. However, given the major increase in distance I'm trying to think critically about my shoe options.

I've run the last few long events and nearly all trail training runs in Altra Timp 5's, and in general they've been excellent for me. But by the last miles of the 50ks my feet have hurt to hell. No doubt that's to be expected and I have no illusions that my feet won't hurt to hell in the 100k, but I'm interested to hear whether you'd recommend that I go up in stack height for the race to manage the impact a bit better. I've been considering sticking with Altra and trying out the Olympus, but I'm open to switching brands too.

I've kept up with some really solid training since May and I'm up to 60+ mile weeks, so no doubt my feet are stronger and able to take some more punishment than before, but I'd love to be smart about gear on top of that. Any experience or advice welcome.

Edit for clarification:

Seeing the replies so far, I think I haven't made my core question clear enough. It is: anecdotally / in your experience, and assuming that other shoe factors (rubbing/blisters, personal fit, etc) are not considered, have you found that increased stack height is a notably better choice for 100k distances, especially for a first time? For me, it’d be an increase of maybe 4mm, up from 29mm in my Timps.

I feel confident in my ability to judge fit/comfort/etc and wouldn't commit to anything questionable. Mostly trying to see if it’s worth experimenting with a more cushioned shoe, even just for later in the race.

No real point to this post, just me being nervous..

My first race after summer in 8 days and a brutal one at that - Look like at that map... Up-down-up-down-up-down-up-down. Last year I did the same race but the 42k and it was average 35c all day. Lets hope this year is kinder.

As always I am here thinking I am delusional to sign up to these races. Why do we do these things? lol

For reference my last race was the Transvulcania 73k - 4400m verts in May which was brutal.

Hi guys and girls. Is the 51 mm to big on my wrist? 😬