Sammy, you need to make friends with my friend Sarah C Smith. Pm me and I'll arrange it. She went from Halfs to Fulls to Ultras in a YEAR. And when I mean ultras, I mean 50 milers, not 50k.

I think your training is partly about learning how much fuel you need and what you can handle. Don't feel you have to consume as much as the gel manufacturers WANT you to consume (they have an interest in you buying lots of gels...). Maybe you should start with pre-long-run breakfast (oatmeal?) and work from there?

I'd pack light then. Probably won't need water, but a bottle would be smart just in case. It sounds like you'll be well taken care of out there. Try to train on the course and incorporate walking uphill and activating your glutes over your quads. Get the book. I wish I had read it prior to mine!

I'd say your fuel will depend on how long you think you'll be out there. If the nature of the course means you'll be out there much longer than a marathon, I'd eat real food. You can digest it without problems, usually, if you're moving more slowly than a road marathon. And trails can often make for sloshier stomachs (I don't know why!) and real food helps keep that at bay. Something as simple as granola bars of some sort. I like Honey Stinger Energy bars. If you don't anticipate running much slower than you do for a road marathon, I don't think it will matter if you eat gels or food or just sports drink. The distance isn't different enough. But the terrain is what can make the 50K a whole new animal.

Your best bet is to have fun experimenting during training. It's fun stuff.

I also use ultra training as an excuse to use Payday candy bars as fuel Have fun!!

Sammy, how fast do you run?

Because if you're really fast you might not need to eat as much.


But there's the rub.... the key to eating on the run is slowing down a bit so that your body has the opportunity to digest.

The first thing that surprises me is that you're doing 26/10 B2B runs; if you can do that, 50k will be a breeze. Did someone mention relentless forward progress? Bryon Powell's book is great; reading through it convinced me that I could do 50mi 10 weeks after my first marathon...maybe not recommended, but certainly doable. But I think that for one of the 50mile plans, he doesn't go beyond 25/5 except for one 50k.

Food is interesting...I have tended not to eat much, even when I ran my 24h run. That probably isn't a good thing. I dislike gels, so I make a homemade honey-ginger gel (ginger is good for the stomach) and put it in a gotoob. At aid stations I like salted potatoes...yeah, just wait; you'll know what I mean. I try to use cytomax to get liquid calories in because I can't stand tailwind; pierogies and chicken soup are also happy foods for me. For a 50k I just don't really think about eating much. Different people have different energetic needs, and you might find that you enjoy the buffet.

Going back to training, if you've done a marathon a 50k shouldn't be a huge deal, except for the hills that you will undoubtedly encounter. Just walk up those, and run the downs and the flats.

As for hydration, I pretty much always wear a pack. It cuts down on my time at aid stations (I may stop every 10 mi, if that) and handheld water bottles get heavy for me after a while. I also like having my homemade gel, maybe a chocolate mint cliff bar, and my salt tablets on me when I run. Think about it this way- if there are 4 aid stations per loop x 12 loops, and you take a few minutes refilling your water bottle/eating/etc at each one, that's plenty of time wasted over the course of the race. And I need all the help I can to make cutoffs lol.

Sorry for the unorganized randomness of this post; there are plenty of experienced ultrarunners here and you're certain to get plenty of advice. People have so many different ways to deal with the challenges of ultras- everything from energy to hydration to the dreaded chafing- and as you do them, you will learn what works for you and what doesn't. For your first one, just enjoy being out on the trails, thank the aid station volunteers, and have a blast!

For my first 50k the only "training" I did was run 50-75 MPW... I trained and ran 1 marathon, 4 weeks later ran another marathon, then 4 weeks later did the 50k.. I thought that was the "perfect" way to train IMO. I took virtually no time off after my fulls tho.. Learn to run on dead legs. It's a red flag to me that you "fell apart" at your first and oly full. Do you know what went wrong? How will you prevent it during your ultra? Do you realize the difference between trail running vs road? Especially for hours & hours? The longest trail runs I've done were 2.5-3 hours and I started stumbling..

Anywho.. I didn't use any gels or chews or good during any of my training or the race. I only drank Gatorade.
I ran my ultra at ~9:10 per mile [3:27 marathon Pr] 6.6MPH over 2,000 elevation with no shade from the sun. I Probsbly burned 3500+ calories, but took in maybe 200 tops? I have taught my body to run without fuel.

For races longer than 6 hours, I would Probsbly have to force myself to eat, but I prefer liquid calories myself... Seems to work well for me!

Try candy?!?