How to plan and execute an ultramarathon like a pro

CurraNZ athlete Billy Dixon has lined up at some of the most demanding ultramarathons on the circuit.

Ask him what separates the runners who finish strong from those who struggle through the final miles, and his answer has little to do with raw talent. It comes down to preparation — not just physical, but mental. Here, Billy shares three practical tools that any runner can apply before and during race day.

Plan

"Failing to plan is planning to fail" is a cliché because it is true, and nowhere is that more obvious than in ultramarathon racing.

I think about planning in two categories: the things beyond your control, and the things within it.

For the things you cannot control — weather, terrain, equipment failures — the goal is to reduce the damage they can do. You cannot change the forecast, but you can prepare your body for it. If you know a race is going to be hot and you live somewhere cold, start incorporating sauna sessions into your training early. Research into heat acclimation shows it is one of the most effective ways to prepare your body for racing in the heat without access to a warm climate. On the equipment side, build redundancy into your kit. If you are running a mountainous 100-miler and you need your poles, carry a backup pair with your crew. Losing a pole to a snap mid-race is manageable. Losing it without a backup — and the mental setback that follows — is not.

For the things you can control, one phrase should be etched into your thinking: plan your race, race your plan. Set realistic targets. The best runners in the world know their paces, and they stick to them, especially in the first two-thirds of a race. Run at least 15 seconds per kilometre slower than your easy pace for the opening third. It feels conservative, and that is the point. Running that way means you are free to go by feel in the back half and finish moving well. Go out too hard and you will be death-marching the final miles — trust me, it is not a good time.

Visualise

Visualisation is one of the most underused tools in an athlete's preparation, and one of the most accessible. You can do it in traffic, in the sauna, on a walk with the dog.

The key is to go beyond imagining success. Visualise the lows as well as the highs. Research into multi-sensory imagery shows that athletes who rehearse difficult moments — not just ideal ones — are better equipped for every eventuality on race day.

To do this well, engage all your senses. Picture yourself at the start line: the sound of the generator powering the lights, the smell of the grass underfoot, the noise of the crowd, the feeling of nerves and anticipation sitting in your chest. The more vividly you can experience a moment in your mind, the more familiar it feels when it arrives on race day. You have already lived it. That familiarity is a powerful thing when the pressure is on.

Adapt

You have done the planning. You have done the visualisation. And now, somewhere out on course, things have gone sideways. What do you do?

The first instinct is often to push through. Sometimes that is right — in the closing miles, when discomfort is expected and the finish is in reach, you learn to filter out the noise. But earlier in a race, forcing it through a bad patch is usually the wrong call. Slow down. Spend five extra minutes at the next aid station. Eat something, rehydrate, reset. Those few minutes feel costly in the moment and rarely are. They can save a race.

This only works if you have already decided what you are going to do when things get hard. Have a strategy for low points the same way you would plan your nutrition or pacing. The runners who finish strongest are rarely the ones who avoided the hard patches — they are the ones who had a plan for getting through them.

Plan your race. Race your plan. The rest is adaptation.