Running my first Ultra-Marathon

Ultra - in Latin, it means beyond. Spain's national motto is 'Plus Ultra' - which means 'to go beyond'. And in the world of running, Ultra-Marathons are runs that go past the marathon length of 42km, 26.2 miles. It could be anything from 50k to 1000 miles, as long as you go past marathon length in one run. This is a world even more niche than that of Ironman, as the continual pounding of the same muscles all day gets quite tiresome, tiring and painful after a while, as I'm sure you can imagine.

But, since the Ironman I was doing got delayed until next year, that left me with no choice but to do something roughly as crazy. And that's why, earlier today, I completed my first 50k run in about four hours and fifteen minutes. I didn't have a race or team, but I had a phone recording my distance, headphones with some grade-a tunes and just enough crazy to pull it off. As such, this was all I needed. I didn't have a bag either to carry around nutrition, so I grabbed two apples, two bananas and an oat and honey bar, which was all I ate in the interval. I had no room for water so I brought none. In retrospect, I should probably have had a bag to deal with that. I should also probably not have pre-fatigued my legs with an 1hr30min workout on Saturday the day before, which I felt all over on Sunday morning. But I'd already told people I was going to do it, and little is more motivating to me than the thought of the shame of not doing something after telling people you would.

I set out at 7:30 on road. Yes, I did the whole thing on road. This is heresy to most ultra-distance runners, who insist on running on trail. I had run my whole life on roads, mainly for the sheer practicality of 'Hey, there're roads around my house, I can use those'. Granted, given how sore my legs now feel, I think it's about time I took up that advice.

The first hour consisted of running around Belfast City Centre up to the Sea, then running back, past the park I always went to as a toddler, past my old Queen's University past my Grammar School, then began the extra hour it took to go home. One great way to not feel trapped inside with nothing to do is to run around for more than four hours in a day - you'll certainly not be willing to go on any excursions after that.

It wasn't until the third hour began that things started getting serious. My feet weren't as light as before, that was for sure. Or my knees, or my thighs. My arms were so locked into position that I couldn't suddenly change their position without feeling like they were suddenly electrified. The bananas and apples were whittling down, which had the added benefit of meaning I was carrying around less. I'd gone through almost the entire history of music at this point, from Japanese Pop to 80s Rock to 70s Funk. Using metal for the last ten proved to be a wise decision. I was grimacing then, but I quickly ended up smiling and laughing again.

Just before midday, I returned home and took out my phone. It said that today I had travelled 51km in one day. To say the least, this slightly altered my weekly average. I can confirm that by the end of legs were seconds from calling a UN intervention to stop me from putting them through any more. All the same, I had finally done something the vast majority of people will never do in their lives: I ran an Ultra-Marathon.

My hope is that in the next few weeks I will transition to trail and do an even longer run for my 25th Birthday. Don't tell my legs - they'll probably get quite angry with me ...