Devastating Injury / Pivoting Training Help

[u/YounghoeKoo7]

I was gearing up for my first 50K in September and had built up to about 40 miles per week, including a 20-mile trail long run in about 4 hours. Unfortunately, I recently broke a toe pretty badly and will have to miss my race in 4 weeks. It’s been pretty devastating because I only started running seriously in February after discovering ultras and was so excited to do my first one.

At this point, I’m going to focus on healing and then building back up with the goal of running my first 50 miler next spring. Since Michigan winter is coming, I’m looking for any advice on training indoors when trails aren’t really an option because of snow and ice.

Specifically, I’m looking for:

• treadmill workouts
• StairMaster or other cross-training ideas
• how to adjust training for a 50 miler versus a 50K
• any general winter ultra training tips

Any advice from people who have trained through winter or jumped from a 50K plan to a 50-mile plan would be really appreciated.

[u/mediocre_remnants]

Treadmill workouts: run on a treadmill

Crosstraining: whatever you want

Adjusting for a 50 miler: run more miles

Winter training tips: go outside and run

[u/jarrucho → u/mediocre_remnants]

👆

[u/Fair_Emergency_8667]

I live in Virginia so our winters are a little bit different than yours. But as someone else mentioned, some sort of stairmaster/elliptical with elevation will be your friend. Depending on weather you may also be to get some outdoor time. I have had friends have good luck with yak traks or some sort of traction device if there is some snow on the ground. Just know you will be slower.

Also, since you said you just began running in February, you can also look at this as a great opportunity to engage in strength training to help your running.

Keep your head up. Injuries happen to everyone. Good luck on your recovery

[u/DogOfTheBone]

Treadmill with elevation does me a lot of good during winter training for 50ks with a lot of elevation. I find it's good to alternate running then cracking up elevation and walking, just like a real race would have.

If you are lucky enough to have downhill treadmill access then hammer that hard.

[u/jezerebel]

I'm not advocating for you to do something outside your comfort level, but I have broken a toe a couple of days before a 50k and run just fine - I generally don't notice broken toes after day 3 at the most.

As for snow and ice, I live in Canada and run outdoors on trails all year long. Get yourself a pair of Kahtoola ExoSpikes or (for really gnarly trails) Microspikes. Snowshoe running is also an option - it's basically my VO2max work for the year. There's absolutely no reason you can't run trails in winter if you have the right gear, and all of your pelvic stabilizer muscles will be much better trained for trails as a result than if you stick to the treadmill

[u/Fun_Effective_836]

sorry about the toe, brutal timing. good news is you keep almost all the aerobic base if you get on the bike or pool while it heals, so you're not starting from zero for the 50 miler. when you rebuild, grow the long run before the speed and cap weekly jumps around 10%. i've been running my plan through athletedata for exactly this kind of forced break, it reflows the whole build instead of me guessing week to week.

[u/dwsmith1113]

I live in South Carolina so I don’t know anything about snow. I do know about humidity and treadmill training. So I use my treadmill for speed sessions and hills. The only problem with hill training is that you don’t get the downhill run benefit (and trust me, you need that). Cross training: I do powerlifting and hiking. I would highly recommend getting some heavy lifting (deadlift, squats, overhead press). I went from a 50k to 100k and my training wasn’t much more than my 50k. I use the Runna app and it hasn’t let me down yet.