r/Ultramarathon

Covering the Boston Marathon is always a highlight. This year, seven runners with the Trail Animals Running Club in Massachusetts, in partnership with the Hong Kong-based shoe company Mount to Coast, took on the Boston Double. They began their journey shortly after 3 a.m. on Boylston Street, running the 26.2 mile course to Hopkinton. Then they toed the start line and did it again.

Read about in the Boston Globe (or below):

Most people who take on the Boston Marathon find running the fabled 26.2-mile course from Hopkinton to Boylston Street is a big enough challenge for one day.

Then there are those who crave even more. On Monday, seven runners completed the journey . . . twice.

Members of the Trail Animals Running Club, a nonprofit grassroots trail running club based in Massachusetts, started at the finish line in Boston before the sun rose — when most to-be Marathoners were still fast asleep — and ran toward Hopkinton.

Later in the morning, they toed the start line to run the official race.

The 52.4-mile ultramarathon dubbed the “Boston Double” — also known as the “Double Boston” or the “Boston Yo Yo” — is a relatively little-known feat, but has been going on for at least three decades, said David Desnoyers, a 38-year-old endurance running coach from Nantucket who was part of the group on Monday.

“It’s a thing that happens in the ultra community,” he said. “This iteration had a lot of upswelling behind it.”

After the registration period for Boston closed last fall, one of the race directors for Trail Animals put some feelers out asking if anyone was interested in tackling the Boston Double.

A handful responded, Desoyners said, and the club partnered up with Mount to Coast, a Hong Kong-based company that specializes in making shoes for long-distance running that sponsored the runners.

Embarking on this undertaking requires intense training and mileage.

The first ultra-marathon 41-year-old Justin Hetherington ever did with Trail Animals was called the “Do Not Run Boston” in 2018, a 50-kilometer race that took place the day before the marathon.

From there, Hetherington said he fell in love with going the distance — and then some — partly because of the resilient by nature and “extraordinary” type of people who are attracted to the endurance sport. Although he had run Boston three times before, Hetherington said he had never heard of the “Boston Double” until last year.

In the month of January alone, he ran a little over 500 miles to prepare.

“People are testing themselves in ways they haven’t before,” he said. “Doing these things keeps us sane.”

The hardy group gathered on Boylston Street at 3 a.m., donning reflective gear and headlamps to help them see.

Most of the seven participants were meeting for the first time but said they quickly felt a sense of camaraderie about the grueling task ahead.

On the front of their shirts they wore their Boston bib; on the back, their “Double Boston” bib.

“You think to yourself, like, what are we doing? This is incredible,” Hetherington said.

After beating her personal best during the last four Boston Marathons, Kathryn Zioto, a 40-year-old psychiatrist who lives in Winchester, said she was eager to chase a new experience.

More than a dozen support runners accompanied the crew on the first leg, and a van stopped with aid stations along the way. They also swung by a few Dunkins so the group could fuel up on sugar.

The sun rose around mile 20 of the first leg, Zioto said.

“The energy really picked up,” she said.

Time seemed to fly by as they chatted and got to know each other, Desnoyers said. They made it to Hopkinton with a time of 4 hours, 15 minutes, where they took a couple hours to recover at an Airbnb rented by Mount to Coast.

Then they were back at it. The group mostly went their separate ways during the official race. Zioto ran with her husband. They soaked up the sun, the cool breeze, and the exuberant hollers of the crowd.

At mile 16, the couple passed their two young children and her mother, who was screaming “She’s doing Double Boston!” with pride at the top of her lungs.

By the time they got to mile 23, her husband, who does not run ultras, looked at her with pure wonder.

“I don’t know how you do this,” he said, Zioto recalled. “At that point, I was at mile 49.”

For her, it was more of a mental game on the way back to Boston.

“Am I only in Framingham?” she thought.

But she powered through, and the pair finished the race with a time of 3:25.

“This experience would be hard to beat because it was so perfect,” said Zioto, who has been running ultras for more than a decade. “But if you called me up in 48 hours or more, my answer would probably be yes.”

Hetherington said he found the back-to-back marathons harder on his body than he was expecting, but his push to keep going was buoyed by having teammate Brendan Morgan, 28, running alongside him.

At times when he wanted to walk or jog, Hetherington said, Morgan refused to let him.

They crossed the finish line with a time of 3:37, he said. At the end, he had logged nearly 90,000 steps.

Morgan, who works at a manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania, said they motivated each other. He was struggling when he spotted Hetherington just ahead at mile 6 and quickened his pace to catch up.

“We found each other at the perfect time,” he said.

The crowds grew electric when they hit Newton Hills, Morgan said.

Morgan ran across the Keystone State last year, but this was his first time completing Boston. For six weeks in a row, he ran 80-plus miles to prepare. He does most of his runs at 2:30 a.m., so the early start was no problem.

Whenever he told others he was running the course twice, they looked at him with disbelief.

“It’s just a great collective group of people who love doing crazy things,” Morgan said. “It was honestly magical.”

A couple of the runners said they were nursing sore calves, but were otherwise riding the high of the day.

This was also the first time running Boston for Desnoyers, who began doing marathons and ultras about a decade ago. He has done a handful of world majors, he said, but nothing compares to the roaring crowds in Boston.

Desnoyers finished the race with a time of 3:25.

“I thought that this was a great way to celebrate being a runner from Massachusetts. Why not do it twice? The course is amazing, the community is amazing,” he said. “I can’t gush enough about how awesome today was.”

Hey everyone!

I have been regularly trail running for about 2-3 years now. I find myself falling consistently and in all different types of terrain. At first, the falling felt like a part of the experience and even became a joke amongst my peers since I was still racing well. But it has gotten to a point where my knees are constantly busted and I feel like it is holding me back in training.

Most recently, I tripped on a rock which required staples in my head, stitches in my knee, and a partially torn PCL.

I am so tired of the pain of falling (both physically and with my ego.) I was hoping with experience, the falling would decrease but it still feels like more than the average person.

Does anyone else have a similar experience and/or advice?

I have been thinking maybe it’s a mix of needing more strength training/cross training, staying focused while I’m running, better awareness of overtraining, etc. I just wish I could figure out why I’m so clumsy … Lol

Hi everyone.

So Feb 7 I did a local event with 9500 feet of frozen downhill and immediately after could not bend my knee. MRI shows serious patellar tendonitis. My activity has been extremely limited the past 11 weeks as even biking has not been tolerated, so I’ve only been able to do about 1-2 hours cross training a week without flaring it. This week will be my first 1.5 hours biking with elevation, it’ll probably be hard. Fast forward through lots of PT, and yesterday I started a 4 week return to run that caps with 45 minutes sustained flat running.

So I’m signed up for CCC, and really really really want to show up for and healthy. My PT thinks I’ll be fine but as an injury prone runner, I cant get it out of my head that starting to rebuild my fitness and base in May just won’t leave me with enough time to show up prepared. I really wanted to use this race to truly see what I could do. I have the option to defer as I direct qualified. I work with a coach, who thinks I could make it to the start line if we take most of the intensity of this block. I’m the last three years I’ve run two other 100ks and several 50ks, so I have some fitness hopefully stored away. I’m sourcing what people think- the race is 17 weeks away- is that enough time or should I defer to when I can really show up with a solid spring and a full block executed?

I have my first 100 mile race in October. I’ve done a couple Ironmans and want to transition into doing an ultra. I just want to finish don’t care about being competitive. My mile plan is this

April- 40 miles a week

May- 50 miles a week

June- 60 miles a week

July- 70 miles a week

August- 80 miles a week

September- 70 miles a week taper 3 weeks out from race.

Going to do a 50 mile in the start of August for training. Doing a lot of weighted vest walking for mileage along with getting 40% of miles on the weekend with stacking long runs on Saturday/sunday.

Complete beginner here and looking for advice.

Thank you!

I finished my first 100 mile ultra at Zion in just over 22 hours a couple weekends ago. I'm 51 and an experienced runner with my previous longest being 50 miles. My body held up great and I felt like I could physically run the day after, but wow, the brain fog that lasted for days afterwards was unexpected. I had a concussion about 10 years ago and it was a similar feeling. Processing things slowly, mental fatigue, trouble sleeping, not hungry, etc... it started to clear a few days after finishing and has progressively gotten better each day.

Anyone else gone through this or seen research on it? I'm wondering if it's an actual concussion or perhaps the brain is being starved for energy too long as the body is using nearly calorie taken care in during the run. I slept about 8 minutes during the race so maybe sleep deprivation is also involved?

I did my first 70k with 3700m elevation gain on the weekend. I did it in 13h. It was nice and I enjoyed it a lot.

However, when I saw the margin to the winner, it was 5h! How are you guys doing it? What did you do to get to that point other than volume? Any specific things that you do to progress? I'm planning my next block of training and am very motivated to do so after seeing the gap lol

I am looking into doing a trail ultra just a simple 70k near my home in Tennessee. I haven’t really done any crazy distances before, but this is just calling to me lately. I am wondering if someone without huge weekly mileage (20-24) could build up and be ready for a trail ultra in July. I would love to do it, but I am on the fence about doing the 70k or a 24 mile mountain challenge during the same event. Thanks in advance!

So I’ve recently been interested in my first 50. But now I’m kind of terrified after reading some horror stories (seeing a colon cancer article related to ultras?) etc etc.

Back story - I ran in high school and college competitively for a total of 8 years. Got burnt out by it…but then gained autonomy over running and now love it again. Side note: having two children also unlocked this level of “wow women are badass! What else can my body do?!” mentality. I did my first marathon with four weeks of training (regularly ran but did four long runs leading up to the race) and ran 3:29 on an absurdly hot April day. (They even ran out of water on the course and I was drinking sweat from my sports bra 🙂). I loved the event but honestly feel like 5ks to marathons all have a “cold shoulder” competitive vibe these days that I’m not feeling. I had enough of that in college tbh. I want community (and feral hippie vibes) honestly bc that’s me anyways. It seems like that’s more of the ultra community vibe?

Since having my second kid and breastfeeding for years, being pregnant for what felt like years, I’m finally feeling like my body is mine again.

I’ve ran all while pregnant (2-3 miles daily) with some strength training and have continued that. Yesterday I ran ten to see how it felt and ran 8:52 pace. I’m sore but wanted to see how it felt. Mentally and cardiovascular felt great.

I’d like to not “overdo” my training while also getting in a 20 and maybe (?) a 30 miler before the race in the end of July. I’ve overtrained before and don’t want to do that again. My body has done well with less mileage in the past.

My biggest concerns are:

- can I complete 50 with that ^ training?

- how the hell do I know how to eat? I’m seeing tailwind, canned potatoes, hydration but not too much…and it’s all intimidating me

- how to figure out your individual “pace”?

- do I need a support crew or are the aid station people enough for a 50?

- how long should you stay at each aid station without getting sucked in lol?

- camelback vs water vest?

- would new balance Fresh Foam X Hierro v9 shoes be okay? It’s a mixture of road, limestone with some trails. Do people switch shoes or is that just for longer?

I have a question about some hip pan. I have a 50k in late August, I’ve been training since February but have been into fitness in some capacity as long as I can remember. I have this crazy nagging hip pain, doesn’t stop me from running but it’s super annoying. I’m sure my muscles are imbalanced and I know what I should be doing for the long term, but is there something I can do for the short term? I’m not sure if strength training will help at this point? Any advice would be appreciated!

I just did a HR drift test for the first time and figured out my aerobic threshold to be right around 147bpm. I want to focus on aerobic threshold training as I get ready for a 50 miler in September, solely focusing on volume, while increasing pace/lower HR slowly through this training method. A few questions on this for those who have been utilizing this method for a while:

1: What would be the HR I would want to target for AeT training? If the top of my zone 2 is between 147-150bpm, would I target a HR of 144-146bpm? Or should I be running at the top of my Z2 every time? Or would you just target that easy “talk in full sentences” pace?

2: How many workouts are you doing at this specific HR? Are you still following the 80/20 rule with one "harder" day mixed in the routine? Or are all your runs at this Hr right below your aerobic threshold?

3: what should the effort feel like training this way?

4: on days where you are tired, or where your Aerobic Threshold might be lower than a day where you are more recovered, how do you adjust training? Is it simply just find that easy, talkable effort? Does this still improve your Aerobic threshold/help you get faster?

Any comments from your experience training this way would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance!

Title says it all. LSD + 50mi? Epic yay or epic no? Pros and cons? Would go through the entire trip on this run.

I've got a 50mile route organised for end of March next year, Manchester to Liverpool - and a friend has just asked if I'd like to do the Manchester Marathon with them.

The Manchester Marathon is only 3 weeks after the Ultra, so I'm just wondering if that's enough time in-between to recover?

It took me probably a fortnight to recover from my first marathon, so could I expect it to take 3-4 weeks to recover from my first Ultra? Is it a silly idea to do this so soon after?

So basically I'm just gauging how long it takes people to recover after their first 50mile ultra!

Thanks!