Resolve

158 days to 100 miles

Sat in a café, with old friends and new acquaintances, I was asked: “Are you an ultrarunner, too, Jonathan?”

I paused, as I often do when answering a question (which is something of a family trait), and thought about my answer. “I suppose so. I have run ultras and I am training for a hundred, yet I don’t feel comfortable calling myself an ultrarunner. Maybe I will once I’ve done the South Downs Way, but at the moment I still feel like I’m dabbling.”

Reflecting on the conversation now, a few days later, I think part of my hesitation was due to the ultra- prefix.

To my mind, it’s irrelevant what type of event you focus on, or even if you race at all. If you run, you’re a runner, and all runners are equal in that respect. Further discussion can reveal what kind of running you enjoy, or the extent to which you prioritise it against other things you do, but there’s no social hierarchy in my mind

.

I’m comfortable calling myself a runner currently training for ultramarathons, but it’s a mouthful. At a push, I can just about feel OK with ultramarathoner, as that refers to an event, but ultrarunner feels self-aggrandising, as though I consider myself to have ascended to a higher state of being. It would be like calling myself a super-, mega-, or hyperrunner.

I’m overthinking this, as usual. Of course I understand that when I was asked about being an ultrarunner, the question meant “Are you also someone who spends hours training for very long events?” not “Do you consider yourself superior to others?”. I know that. In the context of such conversations, ultrarunner is just a preferred-event classification subcategory, like sprinter, miler, or marathoner. It’s not an indicator of status, achievement, or worth, but a convenient shorthand when getting to know someone.

A different café, on a different day.

I keep hearing and reading how the mental aspect is 90% of the challenge when running 100 miles. If I’m going to run all the way from Winchester to Eastbourne in six months’ time, I’m going to need to get over my semantic concerns and embrace the ultrarunner title. I can’t think of myself as an inexperienced dilettante dabbler. I need to get in the mindset of someone for whom very long runs is the norm.

That’s what this next “Support” phase of my training will focus on: being an ultrarunner, and addressing the areas that I think need some work.

For the next twelve weeks I will be:

• Building and maintaining my weekly mileage at the highest level I can sustain. I have a maximum of 70 miles a week in mind, but I’d sooner drop that down than get injured.

• Lengthening my long runs out, preferably to about 30 miles.

• Keeping a little bit of speed work, with track sessions on a Tuesday night. But this is more for the social aspect, and to keep a little pop in my legs from…

• …running slowly, nearly all the time.

• Working on my eating and drinking for long runs.

• Improving my overall strength and mobility with kettlebells and movement work (with a focus on my lower legs and feet).

• Adding a “muscular endurance” element to my training by popping in lunges or squat jumps at the bottom of climbs, to pre-fatigue my legs.

• Continuing to sleep with a Strasbourg sock to shift the lingering plantar fasciitis.

• Skateboarding to provide a mental reprieve from big mileage, while still working my legs, body and mind.

• Familiarising myself with the race route by running on the South Downs Way.

• Prioritising hilly, uneven, trail routes over flat roads.

• Running on tired legs.

• Running at different times of the day, including at night.

• Doing other, non-running things where I feel bored or uncomfortable, to improve my capacity for discomfort.

• Incorporating enough rest so I can get to the end of this block and feel fit rather than knackered.

After a couple of easy weeks after the marathon in Portsmouth, over the Christmas period, I’m feeling mentally refreshed and ready to push on with the task of becoming an ultrarunner. Given that it’s the start of 2026, I suppose you could consider that a New Year’s resolution.

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This is volume one, issue eighteen of ¡Venga!, a running journal by Jonathan S. Bean.

Volume one: ‘326 days to 100 miles,’ documents Jonathan’s preparation for, and participation in the South Downs Way 100 mile race on 13 June 2026. The journal is published on Substack and as a paper newsletter sent by post.

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