How to Manage an Unexpected Break in Training

This weekend, I plan to run Superior 100 for the 22nd time, but this one has a unique twist.

I’ve had two unexpected week-long, didn’t-run-a-step breaks in the month leading up to the race.

The first week-long break was for COVID and the second was for another unexpected event.

The breaks are so close to the race I don’t have time to make up the training, even if I wanted to.

Circumstances like this happen because you don’t run ultras in an isolated bubble. You run ultras in the middle of everyday life, so life has an effect on your training and races (and vice versa). You can’t completely separate the two, so unplanned breaks aren’t that unusual.

When a break like that happens, your first reaction is to try to make up all the miles you missed so your total training mileage still comes out the same. That way, it seems like the break won’t have any effect and you can feel confident about your fitness.

Except it’s hard to cram all the missed miles into your existing training.

And even if that’s necessary, you don’t always have time before the race to fit those miles in.

When that happens, it seems obvious you’re going in undertrained and won’t be ready. All you can think about are the climbs you won’t be able to make, how slow you’ll go, and how you now have to worry about cutoff.

You lose the confidence you were counting on having going into the race. Now, instead of feeling prepared like you would have been without the break, you’re sure the race will go badly and you’re helpless to do anything about it.

When you finally get in the race, you feel like you have to fight harder to make up for the break. You beat yourself up when you’re slow on a climb. You overcompensate and run too fast, stressed, and haphazardly.

Result: you blow up and drop.

A far better strategy is to stop trying to figure out how to make up the miles you missed.

Let them go. Their “run by” expiration date has passed. You can’t get them back…and you’ll be ok without them.

Then, accept where you are right now.

You have X amount of training and you're getting ready to run X race of X distance with X cutoff.

How can you make that work?

How can revise your race plan to set yourself up for the best chance of finishing?

What needs to change?

What are you willing to re-think?

Why is this new plan even better?

Use the answers to make a plan that gets you, as you are now, to the finish line.

And surprise - the new plan may not be that different from the original. It may only need a tweak or two. That’s what I found with my situation.

So an unexpected break - even two - when you can’t make up the miles before race day doesn’t automatically spell disaster. It’s simply an occasional part of ultrarunning life and you can revise your plan and still finish.