My running journey started on the trails.
I discovered my love for running in 2016 while living in South Africa for 6 months. Just 3 months after I had landed on the continent, I gained around 5 kg, which I disliked. And so I did what many people do when they want to lose weight – I started running.
I would run the trails in the Drakensberg mountains each morning before work. Soon, the desire to lose weight was replaced by the desire to experience the peaceful flow of running under the South African morning sun, surrounded only by nature’s sounds.
After returning home to Germany, I ran sporadically, entered a half-marathon every other year, and stopped running in 2013. When I re-discovered my love for the sport in 2021, I was determined to get into ultrarunning. I wanted trails and nature but lived in Germany’s capital, Berlin. Not exactly full of trails. And it’s not exactly full of hills, either.
However, just 8 months after I started running again, I successfully raced my first trail ultra and placed 3rd female. After doing primarily flat looped ultras, 1 backyard ultra, and Berlin’s 100-mile wall ultra, I ran my 2nd trail race in 2022 – a 24-hour ultra marathon on a motocross track.
While it didn’t have the navigational element of a point-to-point ultra, it did have the climbs and the underground, mostly grass and sand. And, despite living in a big, flat city and never having trained on hilly terrain for the 2 years prior, I collected 3.840 m of elevation gain in 24 hours. I won the race despite the past year’s winner running the race as well, despite not using poles, and despite living and training in a pancake-flat city.
The win and my good performance were surprising initially. Still, after reflecting, I realized I had done many things right to prepare myself for the race.
The knowledge I gained will help me prepare for my biggest adventure to date—the Race Across Scotland in August 2024. This is a 215-mile race with 7281 m of elevation gain along Scotland’s coast-to-coast trail, “The Southern Upland Way.”
If you’re a flatlander wanting to take on trail races with significant elevation gain, follow these principles, and you’ll be well prepared for your big adventures on the trails.
Have the courage to try.
The achievement of every seemingly possible goal you have starts with the willingness to try.
When I signed up for my first ultramarathon, I was not confident enough to believe I could finish it. But what I did have was the willingness to try.
I just wanted to see if I could run 61 km just 8 months after I had started running. Turned out, I could. And I even placed 3rd female.
And when I saw the course on the day before toeing the start line for the Mad Chicken 24-hour run on a motocross track, I was terrified and thought about asking the organizers if I could switch to the other race run on a flat loop 
.
However, again, I was willing to try.
I just wanted to see how far I could get on this course, even if it meant I would have to hike for most of the time.
Surprisingly enough, I won the race.
And I didn’t just win; I won despite being a flatlander who never hill trained, despite not using poles, despite still feeling the pain of a recent breakup, and last but not least, I won against people who had run (and won) this course before.
To say it was a magical day would be an understatement.
I collected 3.840 m of elevation gain and 128 km in those 24 hours. And if I hadn’t dared to try, I wouldn’t have found out just how well-conditioned my legs are for climbing through all the strength training with kettlebells alone. Realizing how strong my legs were gave me a huge confidence boost and the courage to attempt more difficult trail races.
Focus on building overall fitness.
Ultramarathons are more than just longer marathons. They are a completely different sport. And unless you are attempting to run a 50 K road ultra, your approach to training and nutrition will be different.
Most road marathons are relatively flat – even the “hilly” ones. Most are run in daylight hours with relatively even pacing and no need to carry anything except for an extra gel or two.
Contrast that with a 100-mile trail ultra in the mountains where you are on your feet for 20 hours or more, often run during the night, and have to manage moving uphill, downhill, and on even terrain – often while carrying a backpack with essential gear, food, and drink.
Hence, you will need to train more than just your legs.
With increasing distance and difficulty of terrain, the role of overall fitness becomes increasingly important. The fitter you are, the better your chances of finishing a mountainous trail ultra.
When I talk about fitness in this article, I talk about more than just being able to run fast. I am talking about the ability to keep moving forward for many hours without breaking your body.
You need to be sufficiently aerobically trained to avoid bonking so hard that you need to drop out of the race.
You need to train your legs to be vital to withstand the many hours of pounding and the high eccentric load of downhill running.
You must have a strong core and upper body to carry a backpack with your essentials.
And you must also train your gut to take in sufficient fuel during the race. Considering that 37-75% of runners who participate in events of 67 – 161 kilometers report having gastrointestinal distress during ultramarathon races, being sufficiently prepared to intake enough fluids and nutrition during the event is likely one of the main challenges you will face preparing for an ultramarathon.
In short, the better your overall fitness is, the more likely you will be able to finish your race – and finish it strong.
Strength train.
Strength training plays a pivotal role in staying injury-free as a runner.
When I ran in my early 20s, I was injured often, eventually leading me to quit running in 2013. In the following years, I focused heavily on strength training – exclusively with kettlebells – and I haven’t had a single injury since I started running again 4 years ago.
Despite ramping up my mileage very quickly and aggressively.
I believe kettlebell training was also the main reason my legs held up so well, running up and especially down those short but steep hills on the Mad Chicken Run. The downhills are usually the most stressful portion of the mountain because the eccentric loading of the legs is doing the most damage.
Make no mistake about it; running downhill is still the best way to train for downhill running. However, if you are like me and don’t have the option of regularly running up and down a longer hill, then including a few strength training movements can help prepare for the demands of running an ultra with significant elevation gain and loss.
In all variations, squats are a great exercise to condition your quads for the high eccentric load of downhill running. Lunges are a great option, too.
However, don’t think you only need a few bodyweight squats twice weekly. Train your whole body, and train for strength. Pick up some heavy weights and focus on becoming strong.
I have fallen in love with kettlebell training, and a huge benefit of training with them over the past 9 years has been my increased core strength. I often get compliments about how good my running form looks and that I look the same running at the end of an ultra as I did in the beginning. This is not a result of running a lot but of daily strength training and training the core in every session.
Seek out every elevation gain you can.
Even living in a relatively flat area, you might have some hills near you. Even if they are short with minimal elevation gain – use them.
I purposefully seek out parks with artificial hills when doing my runs in Berlin. One of my mid-week go-to workouts is sprinting up the tiny hill in my local park for 15 – 20 reps at the end of a tempo or fartlek run.
Another session includes running up and down the same 500 m long hill for as many repetitions as possible. Some days, I get around 800 m of elevation gain in a 20 km run. It’s not a ton of vert, but it’s better than the (almost) nothing I would get in otherwise.
To switch things up, I also sometimes run upstairs for repeats. This is more for uphill training, though, as I don’t feel I get a good training effect from running the stairs downhill because I run them down rather slowly to avoid falling.
Another option is, of course, to include treadmill running in your regimen. If you have access to a treadmill with both incline and decline, you can train uphill and downhill.
Personally, I am just getting started using the treadmill. My main aim is to get in long uphills because that’s not something I can train outside where I live, but what I will be doing during the Race Across Scotland.
But you can do various uphill workouts on a treadmill. From short intervals to uphill tempo runs or fartlek runs with varying degrees of incline, your creativity knows no limits.
The final and most important tip.
And finally, make sure to enjoy the process.
I grew up in a tiny village and love running and hiking through forests; running through the big city of Berlin can sometimes be draining on the body and mind.
It is during those runs when every car you hear and every person you see annoys the heck out of you because you’d prefer to be running through nature where all you hear is the rustling of the wind and birds chirping and the only person you see all day is a lone hiker that you need to practice staying positive.
Try to find the silence between the noise, stay present, and look for the beauty in the chaos of big city life.
Remind yourself why you are out there and think about the beautiful trails you can explore as a reward 😊.