Summary

Anna Gibson is the gateway inspiring a late 50's hobby jogger to run her first ultra marathon. Momma discovers that 11 feet of elevation does not count as hill training. After running her town’s one bridge approximately eleventy zillion times, she accepts her fate, if she wants “triple-digit vert,” she’s gotta leave the swamp.

Cue state park field trips and back-to-back long runs with actual hills. Gasp.

Meanwhile, the Winter Olympics introduce her to Ski Mo (ski mountaineering), which is basically: ski uphill, rip skis off, sprint upstairs in ski boots, ski again, and casually launch off a jump. Completely unhinged. She’s obsessed.

Training update:

1. Block one DONE
2. Block two WTH
3. Looking ahead at the full plan? Absolutely not.

Momma's running by effort, ignoring her humbling paces, dodging sketchy gym-bro advice, and kindly requesting five-star reviews because that’s how podcasts survive.

Vert is here. Momma is nervous and talking a little too fast. But she’s running it anyway.

Chapters

1. 00:01 - Introduction to Ultramarathon Running
2. 00:46 - Training for My First Ultra Marathon
3. 03:58 - Introduction to Ski Mountaineering
4. 06:24 - Entering the World of Ultramarathons
5. 08:54 - Starting a New Journey in Ultramarathon Training

How I Procrastinate

1. Sleep with Rock Stars, the Gen X Sleep Podcast
2. Country Fried Rock, Podcast Archives from 2009-2020
3. Music Playlists
4. Support This Podcast
5. Dive Bar Music Club, the Low Key, High Taste Happy Hour for Music Nerds

Recommended If You Like

ultramarathon training, running in your 50s, first ultramarathon tips, ultramarathon preparation, elevation training for runners, long distance running, running hills, ultramarathon coach, trail running advice, South Carolina state parks, running routes, running heart rate training, ultramarathon nutrition, running gear recommendations, overcoming running challenges, hill training for ultramarathons, ski mountaineering, ultramarathon community, running motivation, female ultrarunners, Anna Gibson, skyrunning, skimo, golden trail, subultra

Mentioned in this episode:

Sleep with Rock Stars

Sleep with Rock Stars, the Gen X sleep podcast. You deserve a good night's sleep...or whatever.

So anyway, Ana Gibson, gateway to running your first ultramarathon in your late 50s.

I hope she finds that funny.

Not like she's ever going to hear this.

Hey y'.

All, welcome to Mama Runs and Ultra.

I'm a runner on the downhill side of my 50s who decided to train for my very first ultra marathon.

And this podcast is where I think out loud about all the things of what the hell am I doing?

So I'm well underway of my first block of ultramarathon specific training, working with a coach that I'm super excited to be learning from.

I'm not gonna share any of their trade secrets during any of this time, but there are some general things that are brand new to me because I've never run an ultra and if you're new here, I've never run more than 16 miles yet.

It's about to happen.

We'll come back to that because the thing that I have been learning in this first block is a new to me term avert.

So I live in nowhere land of the swamps of South Carolina and we have 11ft of elevation in my town.

Yes, 11ft of elevation change.

There's one human made dam in the middle of a neighborhood that has one hill and there's one bridge over the interstate.

So I have friends in other places who are like, oh yeah, you can just go run miles on the bridge.

I'm like, first of all, our bridge has under 30ft of elevation and point to point 0.4 miles.

And I'll just tell you that I've already done 12 miles back and forth and back and forth.

And I thought that the hill where the dam is was steeper, but turns out that's not the case.

Not even 25ft of elevation and not even 50 yards long or meters as we tend to go, doesn't matter because it's not even that much.

So I am at the point of training where I need to get enough vert that I gotta go somewhere to do these long runs.

And honestly that's fine with me.

I am so sick of running on the same four routes all the time and I'm fortunate to have the time to be able to do this as I semi retired a few years ago.

So I'm starting with places that I already know so that the variables are running the hill or hills rather than also figuring out a brand new place.

So thank goodness South Carolina has fantastic state parks.

We don't do a whole lot real well here in terms of public good, but our state parks are fantastic and within an hour and a half of me, I can reach several that actually have hills.

Yippee.

So that's the plan for the back to back long runs this time of double digit run with triple digit vert.

Yeah, if I say it out loud enough, it sounds less terrible.

Not really.

But, you know, talking myself into it, actually, I'm excited about it because I'm from Atlanta originally, and Atlanta is very hilly.

If you've never been to Atlanta, like Atlanta proper, very hilly.

And when I visit my mom there, I walk up to the top of her driveway and I need to stop for a rest.

That's how hilly and steep everything is around there.

So adding this vert is a real challenge for me, But I know that it is the thing that is going to make me stronger and more able to feel good during my race this summer.

And that's really the thing.

And in retrospect, when I thought I was running hills here locally, preparing for my recent half marathons that have not gone the way I wanted, I'm thinking that's the deal.

It was nowhere near enough vert to be properly prepared.

So, speaking of vert, I don't know if y' all watched anything of the Winter Olympics recently, and I am not a snow person.

There's a reason I live in South Carolina, where we sweat to death most of the year.

But I love watching these sports because I have absolutely no knowledge about them at all.

Nothing about the technicality.

The last time I went skiing was like 20 years ago, and I was like, this is the last time I'm going skiing.

I'm never doing this again.

I'll just sit in the hot tub.

Y' all have fun.

Just, it's not my thing.

I don't like to be cold and wet, but it also means that I have none of the skill set of any of the things that they're doing.

So it's all absolutely fascinating.

So the sport that most caught my attention this year was not a new sport, but it's new to the Olympics.

And they were calling it Ski Mo stands for ski mountaineering.

And there is massive overlap in the trail world with skimo.

And this is brand new information for me.

Those of y' all who are like, big time ultra runners and into, like, sky running in Europe and Golden Trail.

All this stuff, y' all know this stuff, this is new to me.

This is new to those of us who are new to this world.

So I was fascinated by it.

Ski Mo, in particular, the sprint one, which is what came first in the Olympics, was a Sprint short, but they skied uphill and then they skied uphill around.

They called it the diamonds.

It was basically like zigzagging around obstacles, sorta.

Then they ski uphill again.

Then they took off their skis, put them on their back and ran upstairs in their ski boots.

Then they put the skis back on, they uphill some more.

Then they got to the top, they took the little skins off the bottom of their skis and they skied down the hill again with a ski jump in the middle.

It was bananas, absolutely bananas.

Especially if you've never heard of this sport until like two weeks ago.

So a number of the folks who participated in that have storied careers in trail running, ultra running, mountain running, and all the different versions of this world that I'm still just learning about.

It was pretty darn cool.

As an American, want to give big old shout out to our very first competitors, specifically to Ana Gibson, because she is the reason that I've heard of this sport.

So I knew Ana Gibson because she was a track runner and so she was kind of my entry into following this whole world of trail running and ultra running.

So I followed her from track.

So a few years ago, as she very early got into trail running and ultra running, like relatively soon after college, I believe.

And Ana, feel free to correct me, but more or less much younger than a lot of folks do.

And I followed her success there.

And then she was on somebody's podcast, or maybe it's her podcast, I don't even know, maybe a month ago and I first heard about this schemo and I was like, this is bananas.

I'm absolutely following it.

So I am now the biggest fan of this sport that I'd previously never heard of before.

And just congrats to y', all, Congrats to everybody who competed in that.

Absolutely incredible.

As a fan of just getting out there and trying new things, it was fantastic to watch and I hope you go on to have a wonderful and enjoyable career in whatever the heck it is want to do.

So anyway, Ana Gibson, gateway to running your first ultramarathon in your late 50s.

I hope she finds that funny.

Not like she's ever going to hear this.

I'm kind of proud of myself for making it this far into my ultra training plan.

First block down into the second block at this point, definitely glad that I don't know what's coming up.

I find out my training in like two week segments and probably that's a good plan because I think if I knew a whole lot more about what kind of vert and what kind of distance was coming my way.

I might freak out, I might not.

I don't know.

But I might so try new things or something.

Thanks for the suggestions on shoes.

Y' all recommended some brands that I've never heard of before, so I don't know if this is where trail and road running differ or if it's just that the purposes of my previous running and my current running are a little different.

And say you're recommending things that I didn't know existed before, I'm not sure.

But thank you very much for the who have reached out when I've asked these questions.

It's been very, very helpful, especially as a newbie to the world of ultramarathon.

I mean, I don't know.

I don't have any friends who do this, so anything you can do to be helpful.

I'm super appreciative of.

The biggest thing y' all can do to be helpful is go ahead and leave five star ratings and reviews and whatever podcast app you listen to and leave a nice comment.

It can be short, but that's the currency of podcasts these days.

I don't have a ton of questions this week for y'.

All.

I'm not even advanced enough at this point to know about the whole vert challenge of whether when you walk versus when you run because I'm not skilled enough yet to actually run some of these huge steep hills.

So it's not a joyous.

I'm walking it because that's all my legs are capable of right now.

But I like the fact that I am tracking what I'm doing mostly by heart rate and effort rather than by pace.

Because if I was looking at my paces for this stuff, I think I would be really, really down on myself because I feel really powerful doing this training.

But those numbers are not pretty for a former flat road runner.

I'm still a flat road runner, but you know what I mean.

I don't be that kind of flat road runner.

So anyway, if you have hill suggestions and that could include things to make sure that I'm adding in the gym because I do love the gym, let me know.

I will take all of that advice.

I found a lot of super griftery self proclaimed gym bros on the Interwebs, but I'm super cautious of taking any sort of advice from those people.

So if you have solid advice that's actually helped actual people who run actual ultramarathons, yeah, I'd love to hear it.

You can leave those in the comment sections of whatever podcast app you listen to or on YouTube.

YouTube makes it easy to leave comments.

I do eventually get a little alerts about that too, so it's easier to reply back.

Anyway, super appreciate y' all listening and kind of excited for whatever I have coming next in this second full block of ultramarathon training.

I haven't looked at my training plan yet.

I guess I should peek into that.

We'll see where this all goes with Mama Runs an Ultra.