Are you lazy? Become an ultrarunner!

I'm lazy. It's true. You may ask, if you're lazy, why aren't you running ultra-short marathons instead of ultra-long marathons? Good question. Thanks for asking. You're welcome. Stop evading. I'm not evading, I'm just making conversation. Conversation? You're writing!

There are many ways that an ultrarunner can be lazy. I’m not going to list them all, frankly because I’m lazy and I don't want to pull a muscle in my brain, but here are a few.

I make my training plans with a lot of hand waving. Well, not a lot of hand waving because that could be too much upper body work, but some hand waving as in, “week 1, start with a 5k, some stuff happens, and week twenty-something, I'm ready for a 100k!”

Tim Olson training to be a lazy ultrarunner

Road marathons are hard. You have to run the whole time because people are watching you the whole time. On a trail ultra, there’s nobody around. You can walk the hills, take a nap, poop behind a bush, take lots of pictures and post them online, say hello to the salamanders. We tell ourselves that it’s all part of the experience.

Ultra-races, for most of us recreational ultrarunners, are about making the cut-offs, not making the best time. Since trails vary so much, you can't compare one trail race to the next. Just because I spent 7 hours on one 50k doesn't mean I necessarily ran slower than someone running a different 50k in 5 hours. I just have to convince myself that my course was way harder. So as we get closer to the end of the race, if there's 2 hours left before cut-off, we might take 1:45. If there's only an hour, we'll take 50 minutes. Why bother working harder to run faster - we get the same finisher's medal anyway.

Strategic tapering

Tapering and recovery. In no other sport is the act of NOT doing the sport such an integral part of participating in the sport itself. One, two or more weeks before an ultra marathon, it's necessary to rest and "give your body time to heal". I spent half of last year tapering and recovering. If you don't run, don't say that you're not a runner. Say that you're an ultrarunner tapering for your first race.

All those chores that have to get done this weekend? “But, honey, I’ve got to run 8 hours to train for my next ultra!” Of course, that includes at least an hour of walking uphill, several nature calls, a half hour meal break, walking the “technical” sections, stopping for a selfie every 15 minutes, coffee before and beer after. That leaves about 40 minutes for actual running.

How far are you running today?

You may not know this, but to be able to run long distances, one must prepare by running long distances. Shocking, I know. Aside from the smell, it's probably the most unpleasant thing about being an ultrarunner.

The hardest part of a long run is the last third. The last third is hard because our simple minds make it hard. And believe me, we ultrarunners have simple minds. If we had complex minds, we could run and dribble a ball at the same time - you know, something that takes talent. Sometimes, we struggle to walk and remain upright at the same time. Whenever we set out to run a specific distance on a training run, whether it’s 10, 20 or 30 miles, those last 3, 7 or 10 miles are the hardest. If we weren’t 3, 7 or 10 miles from our car/home, we’d call it quits there every time. That’s why we don’t run laps like real runners. That’s why most of my runs are out-and-back, so I'm forced to run the second half. I have to trick my stupid mind to get over my laziness.

I recently had a 30 mile training run planned with the course roughly plotted out. Roughly. Like I said, lazy. I left the house at 4:30AM, down a road, up a couple mountains, and back. On the way back, I realized that I’d get to my house after 28 miles, and would have to do an added mile out and back to make 30. You guessed it, I wanted to call it good enough. 

My wife had to coerce me to do those last 2 miles. Bless her heart. If it weren’t for her, I’d just be a marathoner, not a lazy ultrarunner.