How do ultramarathoners make money with all of the running they do?

Do you need that much money while you're running?

A "non-professional" (an amateur?) ultramarathoner would not need to run 20-40 miles a day, therefore... proverbial "I don't care about time, just want to finish" enters the picture and training is immaterial. Quite happy to just saunter off from aid station to aid station, training be damned, and so on--similar to that letsrun minority who can't seem to get below 2:14:31 in the marathon.

Matlock wrote:

Do you need that much money while you're running?

I used to be an ultra runner, but all the tolls out on the trails really got me. I was almost going broke, you know, having to pay so many more of them than regular runners. The fees at the water fountains were the worst though.

Let's say you work 8 hours a day 7 days a week, and also sleep the same amount. That's 112 hours gone, 56 left. Then take an extreme, maybe 4 hours of running every day. Now you have 28 hours left in the week for commutes, showers, eating, shitting, etc.

Even if someone has a family, it looks like it might be doable, but given matching everyone's schedules I doubt it. Certainly, it would be doable without a family and you could even hit the bars on the weekends.

Run in the mornings and/or evenings, and work during the day like normal folks.

Dr_Drew wrote:

Run in the mornings and/or evenings, and work during the day like normal folks.

^^^^

I think its a combination of what a lot of people have posted before.

Most of your middle of the pack ultra runners probably do not put in ridiculous mileage during the week, but concentrate on the longer weekend runs. I think people have this notion that all ultramarathoners do ridiculous miles all the time.

I do know plenty of ultra runners that say, ultimately, something suffers. Whether it is intimacy, household duties, work, etc. They say it's hard to work a 40 hour week job and put in 100 mile weeks without something suffering.

The ultra marathon training plans I've seen tend to be heavily weekend loaded, essentially doing back to back long runs on the weekend. Training during the week isn't significantly different from marathon training. Very few people running ultras are averaging 20 miles per day, nevermind 40.

I exclusively run ultras and I work 40 hours per week, like most other people. My weekends are usually longer back-to-backs. I top out at about 125 mpw and probably average 80-110 in the months leading up to a big 100-mile race.

If you run 100 miles a week consistently you are training more than 99.9% of nonprofessional ultra runners.

100 miles a week can be accomplished on less than 2 hours of running per day.