What is an ultramarathon?

Typically thought of as a 50k or higher, however there’s a case to say anything over a marathon is an ultra!

• Typical distances
  • 50k (31 miles)
  • 50 miler
  • 100k (62 miles)
  • 100 miler
  • 200+ miler
• Can be continuous or staged
• Can be distance based or fixed time
• Can take place on road, track, or trails, however you may find a majority take place on trails (easier on the body, easier to plan - more remote, less danger with cars, etc)
• Some “big names” in ultras you may have heard of - Western States 100 Miler (world’s oldest 100 mile trail race), Desert Solstice (24 hr and 100 mile track invitational), UTMB Mont-Blanc (100 miles in France), Leadville 100 (extremely mountainous and rugged), Hardrock 100 (extremely mountainous with 66,000 ft elevation gain)
  • These races all have processes of qualification and/or lotteries
• Many other factors begin to come into play with ultras as compared to other distances including: nutrition, mental strategy, pain management, blister care/prevention, technical trails & climbing, sleep strategy, running at night, etcsome text
  • Many of these topics will be covered throughout this series!

Women in Ultrarunning

• In 2022, 23% of ultramarathon runners identified as female. This is in stark contrast to the gender ratios in other distances where it is much closer to 50/50, sometimes even 60/40.
• Despite this low percentage, women excel in this sport. It’s one of the few instances where women can win races all out. It even happened last year at Philly’s Dirty German 50 miler!
  • For example - Camille Herron is a highly decorated ultrarunner and when she set the world record in the 48 hours earlier this year she also beat the men’s record
  • Another example - Courtney Dauwalter another highly decorated trail & ultrarunner won the Moab 240 outright in 2017
• So what's happening here?? Some ideas:
  • “Traditional” roles for women are still very much entrenched in our society. More guilt for women to take time away from the house/families, and ultrarunning and training is extremely demanding and time consuming
  • The way tough ultraraces are often portrayed is very traditionally “masculine” feeling, may discourage women from seeing themselves there
  • Studies have shown that men are more willing overall to attempt something even if they think they might fail, where women often are not willing to put themselves in these situations and will wait until they feel much more certain they will succeed - you can see how this lends itself to ultras which often come with a TON of uncertainty
  • It then becomes a self-perpetuating cycle, where if these above issues are occurring, women will continue to sign up and run ultras at lower rates than men, they will continue to be portrayed less in the sport than men, and women will continue to look at the starting lines of these events and see so few people who look like them
• So what do we do??
  • Showing up in safe spaces and learning from one another like you all did today is an excellent start! You are surrounded with others who are willing to feel vulnerable and learn
  • Encourage race directors to feature women equally to men in race content, social media posts, etc
  • Encourage race directors to save lottery entry spaces for women in order to ensure gender parities are reached
  • Speak up, show up, and share!