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Do you dare run an ultramarathon?

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Ryan O'Dell at the Winter Beast of Burden.


You've accomplished a marathon. Is it time to run an ultra?

“They‘re not as hard as I think people think they are,” says Ryan O‘Dell, 26, a neuroscience and physiology MD/PhD student at Upstate who runs 65 to 90 miles per week.

An ultramarathon is any distance greater than the 26.2 miles of a marathon. O‘Dell compares ultras to feats of every day life, such as the quest for medical and doctoral degrees. When the going gets tough, you take a breather, “and then you get up and carry on,” he says.

O‘Dell was the slow kid on the high school track and cross country teams. Today he realizes that “in these ultras you can do really well at a slower pace if you

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At the Green Lakes 100K Endurance Run.


keep that pace.” He began college at the University of Rochester intent on focusing on his studies. But he missed running.

He began signing up for 5Ks, then 10Ks and half marathons. By Thanksgiving of his sophomore year, he completed a marathon. Then he began tackling ultras. His first 100-mile race was in 2007.  Two years later, he ran 250 miles from Syracuse to New Haven, Ct., to propose to Nilda Alicia-Velazquez, now his wife. “She was very surprised,” he recalls.

If you want to tackle an ultramarathon, O‘Dell advises building your training from a solid base. He prefers doing two “long” runs of 18 to 24 miles each on back-to-back days “so you kind of get your legs used to running when they‘re tired.”

Ryan O'Dell at the Bull Run Run

At the Bull Run Run.


Overuse injuries such as shin splints and plantar fasciitis are one of the biggest dangers of ultrarunning, so increase your mileage gradually. Rest is also important, so your muscles can recover. “I take a day off a week, sometimes two,” O‘Dell says. “Otherwise, you are just breaking down muscle constantly without building it up.”

He says ultrarunners have to train themselves to eat and drink before hunger or thirst sets in. Over time they will learn what works for them. Some runners strictly ingest a certain number of calories per hour; others go with their cravings.

When the race begins and everyone blasts off quickly, O‘Dell says it‘s tempting to try to stay with the pack. Resist that urge. Let them go, and tell yourself you‘ll see them in 60 miles, O‘Dell says, adding, “You want to run your own race.”

Ultrarunning requires:

  • time commitment to training

  • gradual increase in distance

  • adequate rest

  • learning about nutrition and hydration

  • awareness of your body‘s signals

  • understanding that it‘s OK to stop running and walk during a race

  • being friendly, supportive of others

  • fortitude to keep going

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