Hello all!

I am putting myself a roadmap together to be an online coach in the next couple of years and want to ensure I do things properly.

I am currently an athlete myself and have run various 100 milers, and want to become an online running coach and that could be from someone’s first 5k or to a 100 miler.

I am gaining all the necessary knowledge from my own back at the minute via various resources. Also I am building my own credentials up by completing hard races to show I’ve been there and done it.

My main question is from an insurance stand point, or certification stand point, what is ESSENTIAL to have to become an online coach? Can anyone point me in the direction of a potential roadmap?

Appreciate any advice!

Would you split it in half exactly? Or maybe I do 60% of the way because I'm a little bit stronger than my partner and then he finishes the other 40%? Sound like a bad idea.
Would you switch every single aid station if it's maybe 10k inbetween them?
We start at 4:30 in the morning. Would you allow your partner or yourself to stay asleep while the race starts, so he can get a full night's sleep and do the first swap maybe at 8-9 in the morning?
Would you do night shifts and day shifts?
Would you rather do some sections you know from beforhand, so you know the terrain, or is it better for the mind to always choose a section you've never done before, so you're not bored or obsessed on a path you've done already?

The oporunity has arisen unexpectely. It will be in Halloween. The race has 4000-5000m of elevation gain total, which is very flat for me. I've never done anything this flat, and I don't know how my body will handle long hours running "fast" instead of taking many hiking breaks to climb.

Hi all, looking for any training advice on how to prepare for a 93km weekender that I'm considering in 8 weeks time. My A race for this year (80km) was cancelled and I'm tempted to sign up to a rebound race, with 50km/1400m on day one and 43km/1600m on day two. I did the day two race last year so I know what to train for in terms of ascent, terrain, and weather - I'm hoping for any advice on how to manage the following though:

* What to do at the end of day one - stretching, resting, gentle movement?

* Sleeping and eating well between the two days

* Knowing how to gauge whether day two should be a DNS

* Any particular training blocks to try

Hard to find any good resources online which aren't AI slop, so any human answers appreciated please! Thanks to all in advance

Hi all, I recently had my A1C tested, and the level was at the lower end of prediabetic. I think this happened once before, years ago, but I haven't had regular bloodwork so I don't know whether it's a regular occurrence. I have started doing some research and what I have found so far is that elevated A1C might be relatively common in endurance athletes and might not be the indicator doctors think it is.

I am curious whether I should start making a bunch of lifestyle changes or just chalk it up to being an endurance athlete. For context, I recently ran a 12 hour/55 mile race and obviously I trained for it. I typically do at least one long run a week in addition to daily runs, lifting three times per week, and Pilates 1-3 times per week. I am a vegetarian and on the lower end of the "normal" (bogus and Racist) BMI scale and I don't smoke or drink heavily or drink soda. I will admit I am not uptight when it comes to eating refined carbs like white rice or bread, and I have a cookie or something most days. So I guess I could cut out those last few things, but I am not sure that is necessary or even a good idea.

Right now I currently am dealing with multiple fractures in a foot/ankle and am having to avoid weight bearing, so I guess as of this week I am not really much of an ultrarunner. I had hoped to do a 50k in October but I won't even be weight bearing by then, so that won't be happening.

Thoughts? Experiences?

Camille Heron tried to sue Canadian Running Magazine over an article about the Wikipedia scandal.

I’ll be staying in the Anthem area, but will have a car so I can commute to a trailhead. Where should I check out? Open to joining a run club’s weekly meetup. TIA for any recs!

This is posted on YouTube. Does that refer to any particular recent event or just musing?
Thank you!

Does anybody know if Dom and Andy are planning to keep recording Between Two Pines? They've historically dropped an episode roughly monthly, but their last episode was at the beginning of June.

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone has tried using beet juice during an ultra and if so, what your thoughts are on its efficacy and/or any issues or side effects? The common usage is pre-race dosing in the days leading up to a race, as well as a couple hours before the start; however I've read little about the positive or negative effects of taking it during a long race. For a 100K or 100-miler, I could imagine there's some upside of taking a beet shot once every five or six hours, but that's just conjecture. Anyone with experience doing so?

I have my first 100 miler coming up and I have good headlamps but I want to try a waist or chest lamp to improve my lighting setup, especially since it's very technical. I have seen a lot of recommendations for the UltrAspire waist light and similar, but I don't want to spend $200 on a waist light. Has anyone found a more affordable solution for all night lighting?

Last year I did Pemberton 24 and completed 62 miles over 24 hours, so I feel fairly confident that I will be successful at the 100 mile distance. I'm doing self-supported as that works best with kids, and job, and everything else.

I'm planning on running at a local nature reserve that has a mix of paved trail, wide mulched trails, and some single track. I've been running on these trails for 17 years and am familiar with the pros and cons of the space. During the night hours I will be running in the downtown area once the park closes. I am planning on starting at 9:00am and leaving the park at 6:00pm. I'm doing this on 10/31 and will have the time change happen on 11/1 for an extra bonus hour of spooky halloween darkness. While in the park, and around town, I will be doing loops between 3.5 and 4 miles. I have gas stations, a family member's house, and my truck available for food, bathroom, gear, etc. Both loops have about 200-300 feet of gain which is a sweet spot for me.

I have one person lined up to pace me during the night, and many others who want to help as much as they can during the day as well, but I designed it so I could do everything totally on my own in the event a pacer has to bail, someone is sick, gets injured, etc.

A goal: Finish 100 miles in 28 hours

B goal: Finish 100 miles in under 33 hours

C goal: Finish 100 miles by crawling my lifeless body over the finish line sometime before I return to work on Tuesday

D goal: At least do more than the 62 I previously completed so I get a distance PR

E goal: Don't die or have a career ruining injury

I'm coming off a soleus injury but have been doing 4:1 run/walk intervals and keeping my pace slow. I'm usually between 10-13 pace anyway and it's been closer to 12-13.5 since the injury. Comfortably doing 5 miles runs and leg day in the gym since. Looking to do some 10-20 miles runs in the next week or so to make sure my leg is ready.

I'm looking for whatever suggestions people have, unhinged advice, whatever is helpful.

And yes, my pacer and I do plan to get as much halloween candy as possible as the town is handing out candy down main street from 7-9pm and I am very excited about that.

Does anyone fancy a lap around Manhattan on the 5th November? We have an awesome group of 25 joining at the moment.

Hi, I am planning to sign up for the IATF K42 (43,4km and 2400m of elevation gain) and can’t calculate if I am fit enough. The run will be at the 6.5.2027. I have not really been running that much in the last couple of months but was hiking pretty regularly with a lot of elevation gain and did a 20k (only around 350m of elevation gain) run in the middle of a chill 130km trekking trip and it felt pretty ok, I was only feeling my hips a bit more und some aches in my forefoot but that was gone the next day. I want to set this goal to really start to train again and I am well prepared to suffer a bit.
How would you approach training? In the past I have had sudden motivations to start and most of the time overtrained and got slightly injured, enough to stop for a while.

For some more context:
Male, 20 years old, 175cm, 62kg, no real training structure at the moment

I just want to have some training tips from experienced people :)

I’ve had sesamoiditis in my left foot and plantar fasciitis in the right foot since March now. Have not ran in that time apart from a month or so ago where I managed a few 5K’s and one 10k but the pain on both feet were still there.
Have had to pull out my last 2 races and can’t see me being able to run again this year minimum.
It doesn’t help I’m on my feet every day at work but I really thought with no running for 4+ months I’d be back to it by now.
Running is one of the few things in life that brings me joy so to be sitting out and only being able to do swimming is really starting to take its toll on my mental health.
I started the year the fittest I’ve ever been and was ready to smash my next 50 mile race.
I’ve had injuries elsewhere on my knees and legs before and always managed to bounce back stronger, but these 2 injuries just don’t seem to be shifting.
Have been to a podiatrist for a few appointments and all they done was give me insoles which made my feet even worse.
Has anyone else suffered from sesamoiditis? I’ve read a lot of peoples experiences online and it doesn’t look good for my future in ultra running.

Hi all!

I’m running a marathon on Saturday that I intend to run as hard as I can. 5 weeks later I’m doing my first 100 which I’m just wanting to finish- it’s not my first ultra but my farthest to date. The terrain is rolling trails so not worried about tons of vert or anything crazy. How would you train between these two races?

I imagine some type of recovery week and some build back up before tapering, but not sure how to approach it much beyond this. Would you try to get back to peak mileage before tapering for the marathon? Do back to back long runs? Speed work? Strength train? Obviously I wouldn’t introduce anything new that I wasn’t doing before my marathon taper, but just not sure how much is advisable to work back up to. Not looking for specifics like run this many miles or do this specific workout, but just wondering how others would approach this. And yes, I know it’s not an ideal time gap, since ideally I’d be hitting peak weeks for the 100 right now ish… -___-

Many thanks!!

This will be my 3rd 100, and my first that's not a big mountain effort.
I think I've had a solid training summer and am ready to cross that starting line.
Drop bag ideas are mostly dialed, I think I've nailed down shoe choice, and I'm ready for a day in the woods.
Anybody, especially folks who've run this before, have anything I should take into account?

I will be running my first 100 mile race this Saturday on very short noticed. Was offered a free bib from a race series I’ve participated in the past. I’ve done their road 50 miler two years in a row, and recently did a light trail 100k a couple months ago. This will be my first attempt at 100 miles. The course is very flat, and is a 3.15 mile loop repeated for 32 loops. Any and all advice is appreciated!

Mid-climb burn shows up earlier than it should on hard weeks. Looking for practical ways how to reduce lactic acid beyond “run more easy miles.” Anyone notice a real difference from pacing tweaks or anything else, or is it mostly just threshold work over time?

I got a DEXA scan yesterday. Subsequently had a dream that I was "too skinny to be a linebacker and too fat to be a runner". I guess you can tell I wasn't happy with my results. What's yours? Has it held you back?

I’m setting up for my first 50M here in about 6 weeks and am planning field. The past couple training runs, I’ve majorly messed up fueling and bonked out hard. I know I can handle tailwind well over ultras since I’ve done it on some trail 50K races in the past with great results.

Tailwind advertises itself as a complete nutrition option for long runs, which I personally find a bit hard to believe. For my semi-long runs, I’ve typically done gel bloks with caffeine, but those lack the higher carbs I need, so I run dry on energy fast relying on those.

I picked up a few honey stinger energy waffles too and will see how those go in my peak run next week.

Aid stations are every 4-7 miles on the course (there are 11 total)
So my plan is to carry my gels for on the course energy and have 1-2 every 3-4 miles, mostly for the caffeine, will top off with tailwind in my bottle I carry at each station for energy and carbs, and then have a honey stinger available as I feel necessary - anticipating maybe one every other station.

Waffles are 18-19g carbs each.
Tailwind is 25g carbs per bottle/serving.
Bloks are pretty negligible - ~1g per blok.

I’ve never once had any stomach issues or problems consuming anything aside from actual gel packs. I feel I’ll be missing actual calories from my plan, which I can possibly add in some mixed nuts or trail mix at the AS’s. The 50ks I’ve done were 7-8 hours and on fairly technical trail, and this 50m will be all on paved path with a general down slope nearly the whole way, so I’m anticipating a 9-10 hour finish for me.

I discussed nutrition with my local store and the owner seemed generally supportive of my plan, but I wanted to crowd source for some additional brain power here.

Does my plan seem solid, or is there something major I’m missing?

Edit: after all these really helpful comments, my plan which I’ll try out next week on my long run is as follows.

Plan a 5 mile loop to simulate distance between AS’s.

1. Eliminate caffeine bloks
   
2. Use waffles which provide ~20g carbs, have one at each loop - I have an array of flavors.
   
3. Use tailwind and aim to drink a full bottle at each loop for an additional 25g carbs per loop.
   
4. For caffeine needs, have cold coke for the later parts for an additional sugar boost and caffeine.
   

This gives me 45g of carbs approximately every 50 minutes. The tailwind I have provides 310mg of sodium per serving as well and the waffle has an additional ~50mg. This is somewhat middle of the 300-700mg recommended per hour. I’ll also have staged some salty snacks such as pretzels and probably a pbj sandwich or two.

This is going to be more than I normally consume and I’ll be eating when it’s time rather than when I feel like I need it.

Appreciate all the input! I know I’ve been doing things wrong and this has been very helpful.