Deepak Shukla

    Ultramarathons, marathons and training for long days

    I have run marathons, ultramarathons and a few things that were mostly just very long walks in the dark. These are the race reports and the training behind them, written honestly enough to be useful if you're preparing for your first one.

    How to go from nothing to a marathon

    I ran my first marathon at 23 off about three miles a week, which I do not recommend and would do very differently now. What works is unglamorous: four or five easy runs a week, one longer one at the weekend, and months of not missing them. Speed can wait. The single biggest predictor of finishing well is how many uninterrupted weeks of easy mileage sit behind you.

    Marathon to ultramarathon

    The jump is less about pace and more about time on your feet, eating while moving, and being comfortable walking. My 42-mile prep and the 27 hours in Madeira are both stories about food, feet and pacing rather than fitness. Back-to-back long weekend days teach you more than any single monster run.

    What repeatedly goes wrong

    New kit on race day, nothing eaten in the first two hours, going out at a pace that felt easy, and ignoring a hotspot on the foot until it was a blister the size of a coin. Every one of those has cost me, and all four are avoidable in training.

    The questions people ask

    Get my 21 SAS reserve selection prep guide

    What the stages are, what I was training to before I applied, and how I'd build the twelve weeks before a selection weekend. Written from my own application, free, no pitch.

    Everything I've written on this

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