Law student hits the trails for ultramarathons

Running may be lonely, but it isn’t mindless.
“You’re in a dream the whole time,” said Michael Wolfe, 30, a third-year University of Montana law student and ultramarathon runner.
Ultramarathons are defined as any race farther than the standard 26.2-mile marathon, but Wolfe said most ultramarathons in the United States are 50-kilometer, 50-mile, 100-kilometer or 100-mile races.
Wolfe focuses on 100-mile races.
“One-hundreds are just a totally different game, even if you’re fresh,” he said. “It takes a while to figure out how to survive them.”

Wolfe said his interest in ultramarathons is based on the simplicity of the sport. There’s a challenge in the willpower it takes to get through a race while not knowing if you are able to push your body to the finish.
There’s a point, he said, that comes about two-thirds through a race when you think, “Why the hell am I doing this? This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
One’s speed during the race depends on the difficulty of the course, which can range from level road races to hilly mountain marches.
Faster front-runners on more level courses usually finish between 15 and 17 hours, while some of the more mountainous courses can take up to 30 hours to finish, potentially putting runners’ bodies through turmoil.
Wolfe said he has seen runners’ legs swell up so badly that doctors have had to cut them open with a scalpel immediately after the race.
U.S. races typically ramble through land managed by the Forest Service, requiring permits that limit the events to 350 people. But Wolfe said the races are more curbed by the number of people who actually want to run them.
While he said the niche sport’s popularity is growing in the U.S. partly because of more sponsor involvement, races in Europe draw much more public interest.
He said he recently competed in an ultramarathon in France with 3,000 competitors and 50,000 spectators.
“It’s kind of like the Tour-de-France of running,” he said.
Most ultramarathons fall between April and September. During the off-season, most runners take about a month-long break to fully recover. Wolfe said he also usually stays active in the winter with Telemark and Nordic skiing, which he said doesn’t hurt his race training in any way.
Generally, Wolfe said, there’s no specific diet that he maintains when preparing for a race.
“Your body just wants calories,” he said. But when he sticks to meats and greens and cuts down on refined sugar, he said he feels better and recovers quicker. “The engine just burns cleaner when you’re eating healthy,” he said.
Ultramarathon running is doable for most runners, according to Wolfe, who said he’s always just figured it out on his own through trial and error. He said the biggest obstacle is overcoming the mental barrier.
“People have a hard time wrapping their head around it,” he said. “You’ve just got to enjoy suffering.”
jeff.osteen@umontana.edu