Ultra-marathoner Albert Shank says most training should be extremely easy, with harder sessions only at specific times. Power-hiking steep climbs beats jogging them, and he teaches practical safety: watch your feet, use bottle-hand technique, master the combat roll. Road runners moving to trails should expect to be slow and fall a lot at first.
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You know, even after all these years, 20 years of doing ultra marathons and 27 being consistent with, you know, running in the mountains and whatnot, I still feel like there's so much more to learn.
So what have been some of those key— if you look like high level, what have been some of your key learnings over the years that have made a big impact on you?
Uh, so I think the biggest thing was learning that, you know, I, in the early days, and many runners, uh, run too many runs at too fast of a pace. Too often. And that was one thing that I did is, as I, you know, I, back then I probably ran every single run medium to hard. I probably didn't do very much easy anything. And, you know, I've learned that the majority of your training should be easy, should be like ridiculously easy. And then you include that harder training in there at the right time. Um, you know, and, and kind of avoid that middle zone where you're not, you know, doing the high intensity that gets you to, you know, improve a lot and not doing that low intensity. Help you, uh, you know, recover and improve at that low intensity. Because in the ultras, you really do need to keep your intensity low from the very, very beginning because it's only going to get harder as you go up. And my— that was the big learning thing for me. Hydration is another thing, um, you know, getting enough hydration and figuring out the fueling. I'm still trying to figure out the fueling thing, uh, what works optimally, what kind of foods work and so on. But that's, you know, that's been a big thing is, yeah, for ultras, You kind of do have to take in calories. You can't— I mean, there are some people that don't need it, or they— that guy that ran 100 miles on zero calories, that blows my mind. I saw that.
That was mind-blowing.
He did 18 hours.
Yeah.
To me, that's amazing. But yeah, those are some of the things that I've taken from this, the biggest things that I've learned. Obviously, there's been a lot of small things. Figuring out, you know, because I do a lot of really hilly terrain and, you know, you don't really need to run that hilly terrain very hard and you don't need to run every step to be pretty quick at it. You know, as a matter of fact, you can train yourself to do a lot of the power hiking faster than what you would jog and at a much lower intensity, a lot easier on the body. So yeah, that's basically, you know, some of the things I've learned.
Like, do you have any suggestions or recommendations for people getting into trail running or ultra running?
Yeah, I mean, if you already run, it's just you're— be prepared to slow down a little bit. You're not going to run as fast on the trails. You know, trails undulate, they go up and down. You know, you're not going to run the same paces. You have to watch out for rocks. You know, you have to be— with running on the roads, you know, you can basically look straight ahead and kind of tune out. But on the trails, you have to be a bit more mindful of where you're stepping. Otherwise, you're going to faceplant, which is never fun. But, you know, get out there and have no fear and explore and just put on your shoes and go. Really, it's not a— I mean, I could give all sorts of tips on, you know, how to run downhill, how to run uphill. You know, that's stuff that you kind of learn along the way. But, you know, just if you're a roadrunner wanting to become a trail runner, just get out there and do it. You know, it seems kind of simple, but it really is. No more than that. And basically, you learn as you go. In the beginning, you're going to be slow, and you're going to be awkward, and you're probably going to fall a few times. You definitely learn how to fall. I had some pretty spectacular falls.
Yeah, I'm part of that club, too.
And you learn how not to put your hands out in front of you so that you don't break your hands. You learn how to run with the bottles in your hand and let your bottles do the work for you. And then you learn the art of the combat roll, which is always nice if you, if you have the ability to do that on the trail. But yeah, I just, you know, my advice would be just get out there and do it and have fun and enjoy the experience and don't worry about pace because on the trails you're going to run slower. It's, you know, more variety of terrain, um, and just enjoy wherever you're at. It's a lot of fun.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love, like, I used to always run on road and that was my, like, ah, I didn't really think much about trail running. Um, purely, I don't know. I'd never really looked at that area much. And then once I started, um, exploring a few of the trails, one thing that helped for me too, is I signed up with a local running crew and I just joined them. Like on Saturdays we would go for like a group run together and it wasn't a big group. It was just kind of a consistent time to meet up sometimes with a few other people who had a bit more experience. And from there on, like you said, just going out there and doing it and you'll learn so much along the way that way.
Yep, yep, it has a learning curve, and then after several years you find, "Ah, my knees don't hurt," you know, "My feet feel good," and you get stronger in different ways because it's a lot of twisting and turning and use different muscles to stop yourself, you know, you learn how to run downhill more efficiently, uphill more efficiently, and I think it makes you a better road runner. I think it makes you a stronger road runner and helps you avoid injury because road running is very repetitive, you know, think the same motion, whereas trail running is constantly changing. So when you adapt to that and then go back to the road, you know, I think you're a much stronger athlete and you have less of a chance of developing injury. Plus, it helps you ward off injury because the ground is softer, it absorbs more of the impact.
