How Ultramarathon Coaches are Changing the Sport
This article originally appeared on Trail Runner
Ultrarunning has changed in several major ways over the past decade, increasing excitement and participation. With the sport’s growth, the coaching industry has also blossomed, with books published on the subject and specialized coaches who work entirely with ultra-marathon athletes. The United Endurance Sports Coaching Academy (UESCA) premiered the first ultramarathon coaching certification on January 1, 2023, and has had 823 coaches complete the program as of October 25th of the same year. Says Cidy Abrami, the director of operations at UESCA, "We created it due to the feedback and requests of the running coach community, many of whom coach ultrarunners. Coaches were looking for science-based coaching education specific to the sport of ultrarunning." While many people's journeys in the sport are profoundly personal, how does conscripting support via coaching change how athletes engage with trail and ultrarunning?
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A New Frontier
When Salida, Colorado-based husband and wife Melissa Lee-Sobal and Tom Sobal started running ultras in the 1980s, it was a fringe sport with few participants. Lee-Sobal started trail racing in Atlanta in 1986 after watching her mother survive Stage 4 lung cancer and inspiring her to push her body in new ways.
"Gary Contrell [Lazerus Lake] was the main one putting on races at the time, so we would all pile into a car and drive to whatever state he was holding the next race," she says. Lee-Sobal explains that she was part of the Atlanta Track Club, which formed an ultra team of two women and four men. In her time running, Lee-Sobal completed dozens of ultra marathons, often finishing on the podium at a time when few women were entering these endurance-focused races.
Tom Sobal started his trail running in Gary, Indiana, where he would take to the trails to avoid the harassment he endured while training for track and cross country. "Gary was a rough place then," he says. "People would chase me in cars. I had guns and knives pulled on me. Running in the dark on trails was the safest option." Sobal explains that in the 1970s, it was typical for a high school runner to log serious miles in their training, with him running his first marathon before graduation.
After completing school, Tom moved west. Having never obtained a driver's license, he explored Colorado by bicycle, meeting his future wife, Melissa, at a race before settling in the desolate mining town of Leadville, Colorado. Together, they started to become well-known in the local running scene. In Leadville, Sobal became a world-class snowshoe runner, well-known burro racer, and race director.
During their heyday in ultrarunning, the atmosphere was more rugged. Even the premier runners didn't abide by a coach or a structured training plan. In 1994, Ann Trason set records at both the Western States 100 and the Leadville Trail 100, both of which remained hers for many years. Trason set the Leadville record running by feeling and pushing herself faster than she knew possible, finishing just 36 minutes behind the male leader, Juan Herrera, who had traveled from the Copper Canyon in Mexico with his group of Indigenous athletes, the Tarahumara. That was the second year that the Tarahumara made the journey north to race in Leadville; the year previous, several of the athletes were hosted by the Sobal family.
“When Victorino [Churros] won, it invigorated me," Tom says. His wife, Melissa, recalls that Churros left his finisher's trophy behind, not caring that he had won the race, just that he had the experience.
There were books on training for marathons, but the counterculture trail runners were blazing their course. Guidance on nutrition and hydration was limited, and fatigue or stomach issues were either tolerated with a grimace or a reason not to finish. "Most aid stations were just a couple of jugs of water in the woods," states Lee-Sobal. She goes on to say that everyone had to find ways to be more resourceful, describing cutting holes in shoes to relieve swelling or borrowing a fishing vest for a race so that more items could be held in the pockets. With necessity being the mother of invention, the sport’s growth in 2010 and the publication of a certain book would bring significant changes in gear and training.
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A Boom in Popularity and Training Literature
Data published in 2020 by the International Association of Ultra Running (IAU)/ Run Repeat, the sport gained popularity by 1676 percent over the previous twenty-three years. Over the past decade alone, ultrarunning has grown 345 percent, while the popularity of the marathon and 5K have stayed relatively the same.
David Roche, an elite-level running coach based in Boulder, Colorado, and founder of the Some Work All Play coaching company, experienced this major boom firsthand. "Coaching had never been my plan, but my wife encouraged me, saying I was born to be a coach. I was coaching a lot of trail runners at the time, then suddenly, around 2010, it seemed like everything became about ultra running."
Christopher McDougall's New York Times bestselling book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen was released in 2009. Though Dean Karnazes had written Ultramarathon Man four years prior, McDougall's book essentially started the modern barefoot shoe movement.
It could have easily encouraged more people to examine ultrarunning. Two years later, Bryon Powell of iRunFar.com published a manual on Ultramarathon training, Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultramarathons. This quickly became the staple for creating and understanding ultramarathon training and a place to start for new athletes. But while the literature and gaining popularity of ultra-specific websites and periodicals grew, athletes needed more guidance.
Kevin Goldberg, head of the Coach Match program on the TrainingPeaks coaching software company, has noted a change in athletes looking for ultra-specific coaches in the past seven years. "When I first started with the Coach Match program, we would maybe get one ultramarathon athlete a month. Now I get one or two a day inquiring for a coach," he says. He explains that, while many marathon athletes are content finding a static training plan, ultrarunners are looking for someone who can help them with big-picture logistics and have first-hand experience with a particular race.
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Coached by Community
Finding a guide in racing or training before taking on an ultramarathon is not a new concept. For example, before internet forums, there were community potlucks where runners would gather and share their experiences. The [Lee]-Sobals were common attendees and hosts to these gatherings. They brought everyone together to discuss their training or pour over Ultra Running magazine, where upcoming races and results were listed.
"I had a background in human physiology. I had planned on getting a masters in it, so I had an idea of what my body needed to train," says Sobal. "People would ask me to coach them, and I would say, 'Hell no! I'll advise you, but you need to figure out what is going to work best for you.'" Both Sobal and his wife speak of the ultrarunning community they grew up in as being like a close family, with support and encouragement to find their way in the sport.
As the sport has grown, and these pockets of close runners have disbanded to fill more races worldwide, it is easy to wonder if ultrarunners are getting the same insight and support that those racing in the early days experienced. Runners represented in the American Trail Running Association’s (ATRA) spring 2023 survey reported that only 13 percent of ultra runners have a coach, with three percent saying they might consider getting one.
For Roche, these numbers would change depending on the definition of a coach. "I think everyone has a coach; it is either yourself or someone else," the accomplished distance runner and professional coach explains, "I think the importance of coaching should be played down because a lot can be learned more from the self-coached like Jim Walmsley," Roche says that the communities that shared ideas around training at the beginning of the sport are not too different than run clubs or internet forums today.
Goldberg agrees with this concept, saying, "I wonder, of the people who are not working with a coach, how many are getting support from a training group or professionals and peers on social media."
While ultramarathons seem like a solitary sport--with hours spent training alone--there is also a resounding theme of community in the learning process. In the 2023 ATRA survey, 60 percent of ultra runners stated that they used Facebook to follow running or fitness accounts, while 55 percent used Instagram for the same reason, and only 20 percent of respondents did not use social media whatsoever. With connections being made worldwide, posts and comments could be the post-run potluck of the future.
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Can Mental Toughness Be Coached?
Knowledge is power, especially in training science, but nothing will make an ultramarathon easy. "Even with how catered to ultrarunners are now with full aid stations and new gear, it does not mean it is easy," says Sobal. "Running a 50- – or 100-mile race takes a lot of mental and physical strength." As published in the Journal of Perceptual and Motor Skills, the article Mental Toughness and Resilience in Trail Running pointed to a correlation between perceived mental strength and athletic performance in a race. Mental toughness and resilience are considered psychological constructs, meaning they are theories on human behavior rather than proven without a doubt, so there is no scientific standard practice for increasing mental strength.
In an article written by Roche, mental toughness is more than a choice made every day; it is a skill that can be practiced and fostered with an encouraging community and practicing resilience with gradually more challenging activities. "The resilience to run an ultra is harnessed with a series of small choices in training that build up to big potential on race day. A coach can help with physiological resilience via training theory and mental resilience with support and belief in the process," writes Roche.
According to Goldberg, who has completed the Triple Crown of 200s, the desire for a coach to tackle the mental side is more common in athletes seeking a trail or ultra coach. "Often, they want someone who will look at coaching from a holistic angle, not just at the data," he says, adding that mental support also can come from crews, pacers, and training communities.
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Do Metrics Matter?
When it comes to being coached, there is the matter of metrics and whether or not they have a place in ultra running. Heart rate monitors arrived around 1977, though they have recently become more popular for the average runner. While more training science exists for the road running world, where there are more controlled variables, there is growing science around proven methods for training as an ultrarunner.
"The big change is that there is more science around ultras," says Roche. "Before, there was a lot of superstition that masqueraded as science. As the sport has grown, there is a better system with better feedback from intervention to results."
With training data readily available on several platforms, there is no shortage of information at the hands or on the wrists of a runner. "It is easy to feel bombarded with data; it can be helpful to have a professional break it down for you," says Goldberg.
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A World for the Wild
As ultramarathons continue to grow in popularity, with new races and distances being added worldwide, there is more room for people to push their limits. There is room for growth from the back of the pack to those on the podium. "It is going to get faster and faster," says Roche. "What we see in road marathoning is going to happen; people are going to push what is physically possible. Ultras have so many variables that people can work on. As the gets faster, more will be achievable." Ultramarathons are built by and for athletes who want to see what their bodies are capable of, and the increasingly competitive nature of the sport leaves room for improvement for anyone willing.
In the 1980s and 90s, the ultramarathon was for the wild and restless. There were fewer participants, but the athletes training and racing did so with an intensity that matched the sport's insularity. Coaches and technology were not readily available, so races were run by trial and error. With a sudden rise in popularity, the coaching industry has boomed, with runners- from amateur to elite, hiring coaches. Though the additional support might not lead to the same experience the athletes experienced three or four decades ago, it has not made the sport any easier. The ultramarathon still requires a strong mind, heart, and a desire to go against the grain.
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