We are all aware of your casual Saturday park runs or coffee runs. When you want to step it up, you go to half marathons and then full marathons. For most people, it stops there, but for elite runners, there is another step up. This step up is, of course, Ultramarathons.
Ultramarathons, or ultras, are longer than your traditional marathons of 42.2 km, with the shortest generally being 50 km. Some ultras stretch over days, where runners do not sleep and keep on pushing themselves to the limit. Ultras are run on every continent, including Antarctica, where the ‘Last Desert’ multi-stage race is run.
One of the longest ultras in South Africa is the Laingsburg Ultra of 80 km, which is predominantly a gravel run through the heart of the Great Karoo. The two most popular ultras in the country and the world are the Comrades (87.7 km) and the Two Oceans (56 km). Shoutout to the Comrades for being the oldest ultramarathon in the world!
Some of the most extreme ultras globally include the ‘The Jungle Ultra’, which stretches 230 km over a period of five days. This ultra is in Manu National Park in the Amazon rainforest, meaning it is hot, humid, and gruesome. The ‘Badwater’ ultra is inherently known as one of the most challenging runs, since it is a 217 km run across the Death Valley desert in the USA. Where temperatures can soar up to 49 degrees Celsius.
A real legend of the sport is Dean Karnazes, who ran 350 miles (560 km) in 80 hours without sleeping in 2004. Courtney Dauwalter is seen as one of the best female trail runners, holding the record for the UTMB Ultra in France, where she ran 171 km with a 10 000-metre elevation gain in under 24 hours. South Africa’s Ryan Sandes and Ryno Griesel set the record for the fastest time on the ‘Great Himalayan Trail’, which is 1435 km in 28 days.
Believe it or not, there are health benefits to running these ludicrous races. Such benefits include improved cardiovascular health and increased endurance and even improved mental health and increase your self-esteem.
I hope you learned something new and that this will motivate you to go on that ‘easy’ jog of 5 km.
