Holly Zimmermann

Long runs are the pillar of training for the marathon and any other long distance race, but fueling them can be tricky. And if your mind is boggled at the thought of fueling a 3-hour run, imagine what’s required for more than a day on your feet? Beautiful wilds of Spain's Galicia I’m not a doctor nor a nutritionist but I’ve been around the block in foot races of all distances. Here’s my non-expert experience and some tips on fueling for endurance. The Marathon As crazy as it may sound, ultra runners consider the classic road marathon to be a fast race. It is a ‘relatively’ short distance, typically on good terrain, without much elevation gain or loss and the pace is at the high end of our aerobic capacity. Obviously the amount of calories that your body needs to take in depends on what you are burning. Are you jogging? Or running at your aerobic-anaerobic boundary? In general it is recommended that runners need to add in 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates each hour that they are runni...

Adventure racing is anything but mainstream. A multidisciplinary endurance sport far removed from civilization that tests the mind as well as the body. The 2021 Master course of the Nordisk Adventure Challenge in Silkeborg, Denmark was simultaneously the European Championship of Expedition-Length Adventure Racing, raising the level of the competition across the board. With a point-to-point distance of 575 kilometers, an 80-hour time limit gave us three and a half days to complete the course, which left little to no time for sleep. So what exactly is Adventure Racing? Well-known in some parts of the world, it is still an obscure sport here in Germany. Also called expedition racing, adventure racing is a team sport involving the main disciplines of trekking, mountain biking and paddling, but often include climbing, abseiling, swimming, inline skating, horseback riding, skiing and whitewater rafting, among others. Teams are generally mixed in gender and made up of two to five people, ...

Hier klicken für die deutsche Version Although a new series, the MountainMan races are professionally organized as though there are years of experience, but there is unmistakably a very familial feel. The team and support staff are always smiling and laughing, having a blast themselves, while ready to jump to the needs of any of their runners. At their races, you really feel like part of the family, meeting up for that annual reunion in some of the most picturesque locations the world has to offer. 11 May 2019 Strecke M: 16 km (17+), 960 HM (1040)  Conditions: Mud, Snow, Rain, Sleet, Wind, Cold... and more Mud Interview with Rudi and Stephan :) Is it just me or do you get the feeling that the worse the weather is, the more fun trail runners have? You don’t hear them complaining if Mother Nature is wicked and wild and pushes them to their limits, but you DO hear trail runners complain on beautiful sunny days because then it is just too… well, they say ‘warm’ but ...

The question I am most often asked is not “ How do you train for running in the desert?” nor “ How do you stay motivated during those long runs? ”, but rather two simple words, “ What’s next? ” And from those who know the type of races I prefer to run, they ask the question, waiting with bated breath, hoping that I will dazzle them with something off the charts. No pressure there. Bu honestly, I don’t choose races for the ‘Wow’-factor, I keep my eyes and ears open as to what is out there, waiting patiently until I hear of a race that sends a chill down my spine, and then I know it is the next one. Choosing races of such magnitude with any other motivation I think would make it impossible to invest in the amount of training, planning and preparation necessary to pull it off. During my down-time this past winter I created an Excel spreadsheet with all the race options that interest me including all of my standard short-distance races in and around Regensburg that I run with my...

Back in late fall 2016, as I was contemplating my race calendar for the upcoming year, I shared my thoughts with my coach and he said, “Sounds good. That gives us time for three months of base training.” What exactly is base training? And how important is it?  Base training could principally be described as ‘training to train, not training to race.’ It is a period used to strengthen the muscular and aerobic systems and get the body prepared for the greater stresses that are applied when training to race. The goal of base training is to develop a runner’s aerobic potential to its maximum before implementing anaerobic training, which fine-tunes the body to run at greater speed. Cross-country skiing is a great aerobic exercise Physiologists experimenting with endurance athletes at Cologne University found that fine muscular endurance can be attained by exercising continually for long periods, i.e. two hours or more at a time (not split up within a day, but can be a ...