In Praise of Ultramarathons

Why running more than a marathon isn’t as bonkers as it sounds.

Last week, I ran a 50K ultramarathon.

If you’re keeping score, this is my fourth ultra (a race, usually trail with some elevation, that’s longer than a marathon). My first came in Schwäbisch Gmünd in late October 2023 after runner’s knee forced me to DNF (Did Not Finish) my first attempt in Innsbruck, Austria.

Then, in June of last year, I joined my friend Danielle to head off the beaten path (Hey! That’s my thing!) to try a 55-kilometer course in North Macedonia’s Pelister National Park. I ended the year with another ultra, Japan’s Ninja Trail Run, just a month-and-a-half after running a PR in the Berlin Marathon.

My fourth took place in Alsace, France –– a wavy, runnable, and forested 50-kilometer course starting in Barr, a small town of half-timbered buildings. Melanie and I got a taste of these trails last June on our way back from a month of co-living in Caldes d’Estrac, Spain.

We actually wanted to run this race last year, but we learned the hard way that it sells out quickly. So, we figured we’d stop on the way back from Spain and visit a couple towns in the region that’d been on our wish list, like Strasbourg and Colmar.

I didn’t know we’d get our shit together and actually register a solid six months in advance of the 2025 edition, which is what you need to do to guarantee yourself a spot. But we did, we trained, and we won!

(I mean, we won in our own personal way. I finished in the top half and Melanie completed her first ultramarathon.)

I know I’ve talked about this before, so bear with me. But I remember when I finished my first half marathon. It was in Cleveland roughly 14 - 15 years ago. I crossed the finish line with zero interest in going even one step further. And I promptly got sidelined with plantar fasciitis, so that helped cement my disinterest.

Obviously, that changed. Trail running, the gateway drug to ultramarathons, introduced a different kind of running into my life. Perhaps because I’ve always lived in cities throughout my adult life, road running quickly became unfulfilling and monotonous.

But trail running? Trail running throws you into the great outdoors, and with faster feet, you can see more than you would on a gentle hike. It rips you away from the predictability of the road, forcing you to focus that much more on each and every step. Three hours on the trail goes by faster than an hour on the road. Trail running defies the laws of time.

Technically, my first trail race was a 10K at a park outside Cleveland. I remember loving it then, but I still can’t tell you why I never did it again until moving to Germany. My best guess? Trails aren’t accessible without a car when you live in most American cities. So maybe I viewed my dalliance with the trails as a one-time thing.

I’ve written before about how Germany better connected me with nature, thanks to fast, frequent, and widely available public transportation that can whisk me away from the city to a national park in a few hours. Melanie and I made frequent use of our local trains early on during our Düsseldorf days, hopping on for many-a-weekend getaway to hike with Moses.

At some point, we visited the Ahr Valley –– a relatively off-the-beaten-path (for American travelers) slice of German wine country. We must’ve seen some advertisement for a trail race, because we were back later that year to run.

It was a sweltering summer afternoon. I remember feeling like death when I crossed the finish line, collapsing to the ground like a deflated lawn ornament. It was, at the time, the hardest thing I’d ever done, likely made so because I knew nothing about proper nutrition and hydration.

Like after the half marathon in Cleveland, I don’t think I wanted to go a step further after that race. Little did I know, I’d been bitten by trail bug. And like an actual disease, it takes a few days for symptoms to come up.

The most obvious symptom is the whiplash of going from swearing off races once you cross the finish line to eagerly searching for the next race a few days later. With time, you look back at a tough race with rose-colored glasses and convince yourself it wasn’t that bad –– only to sign up for something harder that’s much, much worse.

That’s me in a nutshell. I knowingly have the bug. It’s incurable. So the best I can do is manage the symptoms by signing up for more races and physical challenges.

In all seriousness, it’s not a disease. It’s a blessing. Many of us grow up playing organized sports. Once that’s over, you’re left with rec leagues. Nothing against them! I did my fair share of soccer, basketball, and volleyball. But you’re reliant on others organizing themselves to play, and no matter what, you’re likely going to hit a plateau in terms of your skill level.

With ultras, you generally always have to work on improve your strength and endurance. Of course, you can do this without ultramarathons. And I did. I’d regularly go to the gym, do my strength workout, and that’s that.

But I need a goal. I think most of us do. I need something I’m training for, because I don’t get excited about increasing my bench press by a couple of kilograms every few weeks. Ultras not only give me something to train for, but by the very nature of the sport, they fill my life with core memories.

Case in point, watching Melanie crossing the finish line in Obernai last week, her face sliding into a happy ugly cry, is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Seeing my watch tick to “50” for the first time after my race in Schwäbisch Gmünd is as vivid to me now as it was when it happened. And for God’s sake, where else can I run alongside people dressed as ninjas, fighting off assassins along the course?

Ultras and running in general have done a lot for me in my 30s. They’ve inspired me to write, they’ve taken me to Oman and Nepal, and given me a physical purpose –– something I think we’re increasingly in dire need of in our sedentary lives.

I’m not alone in my gratitude for ultras. Recently, I threw out this question of why people run ultras and got a few responses back.

Amen. To all of it.

I don’t know what the next challenge will be. There’s an FKT (Fastest Known Time) I’m interested in challenging, a trail Melanie and I are looking into fastpacking, and a handful of races I have on my radar. But first, I have to get an MRI on my groin to make sure I don’t actually have a hernia or any other issues. (I held up in France far better than I could’ve ever expected, so I’m cautiously optimistic.)

That’s the other thing. Ultras teach you to take care of your body. Yeah, you might ding it up. But what good is a body if you’re not going to challenge it? It’s like having a nice car and leaving it in the garage because you don’t want to risk the scrape.

And if you are going to challenge your body, you gotta do everything you can to keep it strong and healthy. So that’s what I’m doing over the next few weeks (while editing some overdue videos from Nepal and this most recent race).

But rest assured I’ll be back on the trails, sooner rather than later.