In this article, I’m sharing my opinion on what does it take to be an Ultraman Finisher. It’s not easy but also not very hard, you could have some sacrifices to make it to the finish line. I will be sharing also a little bit of why I chose Ultraman, and how Ultraman chose me too 🙂
What is Ultraman?
The first Ultraman triathlon was held in 1983 on the Big Island of Hawaii, with the goal of having more than just a competition, but an event which focused on the guiding principles of Hawaiian culture…. “aloha” (love), “ohana” (family), and “kokua” (help). These principles continue today throughout all of the Ultraman branded events: a crew of 2 to 4 friends or family is required for each athlete who participates – – and those crews end up helping each other, and helping other athletes, over the course of the race. This culture of aloha, ohana and kokua is what makes Ultraman special. Athletes and crews become bonded for life, and many consider it a great honor to be a part of the Ultraman O’hana. [Ultraman Florida]
The race distance is originally decided by spanning the perimeter of the Big Island of Hawaii over a 3 day period.
- Day 1: 6.2 mile swim, 91 mile bike.
- Day 2: 171 mile bike
- Day 3: 52.4 mile run.
Each day with a 12 hour limit to finish the required work.
Why Ultraman?
The first time I heard of Ultraman was in December 2019, while I was witnessing a Guiness World Record for longest swim in 10 days in relay by a team of Googlers. And I heard that one of the swimmers is Rob Gray, and someone was saying in the background, “this guy is freakishly strong, imagine that when I reached out to him about this attempt, he said yes I would join and my 10k swim time is X. Who on earth would know their 10k swim for sure not guessing! He is an Ultraman World Champion”.
Of course, I was impressed and at that time I was thinking about starting my triathlon journey, and started to research what Ultraman is. So since then, this was something that I knew I’ll eventually do. Over the past 2-3 years I was on a journey to search for my endurance limits. Endurance is something that suits me very well and helps me to be a better person. I still remember my feeling during my early endurance challenges, C2 Rowing Marathon, and Big Sur 21 Miler, and they were very hard at that point, then I kept raising the bar with more challenges until now it’s Ultraman, but looking for more challenges after it.
Why did you want to climb Mount Everest?
“Because it’s there” George Mallory
https://www.forbes.com/global/2001/1029/060.html?sh=37084b482080
In my very early discussions with my wonderful coach Andrew Sellergren. I have brought up the idea of Ultraman in the near future, and he was very supportive, and started to be even more supportive when we worked longer together and noticed my super secret special skills and abilities! Haha.
Over the course of the past two years, I was building my endurance capacity and COVID hit the world very early when I was preparing for my first IM distance. It didn’t work well, but I ended up planning my own solo IM race. Looking back at it now, it was a great prep for the Ultraman world indeed. I had to plan the course and handle lots of logistics for me to cover 140.6 miles around SF Bay Area. It had me rely on friends and family who ended up being my crew at Ultraman Florida 🙂
The Six Disciplines
There is a misconception of the Triathlon sport that it is only three disciplines (Tri = 3), but I completely disagree, to be good or even compete in Triathlon sport, you would need to be very good at six disciplines:
- Swimming: there are natural swimmers that started swimming when they were 3 yo, and people like me started learning swimming in 2019. The longer time in the pool you spend and recess muscle memories for the proper technique the faster you’ll become.
- Biking: there is a bar of how good you are, and there is a bar of how much you spend. The more you improve your biking endurance and threshold and the more you spend on your bike gear, the faster/better you’ll become.
- Running: one friend once told, I noticed that my weekly mileage is over the marathon distance, so I realized that I could sign up for my first marathon.
- Nutritions: if all your training sessions are short and intense, you won’t need much nutritions during training, and will hit the wall for the first time on race day. Nutritions is a core pillar in triathlon. What your body absorbs well, how much to consume per hour, how much of a calories deficit you’ll have by the end of the race or training session.
- Logistics: every race you should plan its logistics from a short sprint distance to an Ultraman involves logistics, that could ruin the whole race, the amount of planning would vary based on the event. But it could easily ruin the whole event and your training season.
- Recovery: recovery during training season is crucial to be able to get back to the next session fresh and get the maximum benefit out of it, but recovery between race legs or days (like in Ultraman) is a key component, how your muscles and joints would recover, what’s your routine?
In the following sections, I will talk about what it takes to be an Ultraman broken down by the 6 disciplines.
The Three Sports
In terms of my training plan, it wasn’t a normal build as I was wishing for it would be. In fact athletes normally get a slot in an Ultraman at least 6-8 months before the event, in my case, I applied and got my slot on November 6th 2021 (exactly 3 months before the race). But I had plenty of events scheduled every month and travel plans since September that Andrew (my coach) and I were thinking would be sufficient for an honorable performance.
After finishing CIM in early December, I had 1-2 weeks of recovery and easing back to training, then followed by 2 unplanned easy weeks due to holiday season travels, ..etc. The real build was in the 3 weeks of January, each about 33 hours followed by a recovery week then taper.
It was a very busy stressful time at work/training, juggling life errands, prioritizing sleep, ..etc. It was by far the hardest part of the adventure.
I can’t thank enough the support I got from my wife and daughter during those times!
The Nutritions Discipline
One very important aspect of the build time is adding the volume to get ready for the race, but also practicing all your nutrition plans with race food during those long hours. For example being able to answer those questions:
- What works well for your stomach to not upset it and get digested well and feel powered?
- What’s your intake frequency and quantity?
- How much fluids would you need to be well hydrated?
- Would you need any pain killers
- Any issues with your form, any muscle problems that would need special care?
In January, the volume was very helpful to test a wide variety of options that allowed me to understand my body much better and finalize my race execution plan with my coach.
The Logistics Discipline
An unusual situation about this race is having a support team for you during the race, and you have to pick a support crew to work with, which was majorly baked in the “Logistics” discipline. In such a situation I had to fall back on my friends to help, so I asked Ashraf Aly and Mohamed Gaber and they were onboard to help without knowing much of what this would entail. I would rely on them in major logistics, aid stations during the bike, kayak, ..etc. But they were not runners to help pacing me. After a couple of weeks of searching, I got in touch with Oleg Aarvin who is coached by Andrew as well and willing to take this adventure together. Now we have a complete crew!
The support I got from my family and the crew was immense, it was very helpful to focus on my mental state during the time leading to the race, and during the race. They were doing everything to me even washing down my pee (will come back to this later!).
The Recovery Discipline
Recovery is very often missed in this scope, for me I consider recovery as:
How fast your body absorbs training and not get into a loop of consistent exhaustion and fatigue that won’t be able to perform well in the next training session or next segment of the race.
In Recovery I mostly focus on:
- Sleep Performance: normally I’m a good sleeper that would be able to easily sleep 8+ hours, but during this context I was more focusing on quality not only quantity.
- Protein intake and Carb refueling: quality of food and intake is very crucial for muscle recovery between sessions.
- Mobility routines: Having 20-40 mins of Yoga/Mobility sessions helps with several aspects of the sport like the shoulder mobility problems you might have from swim sessions, ..etc.
- NormaTec for leg muscles compression/flushing blood: right before going to bed, helps a lot with leg recovery.
Ultraman Finisher Recipe!
- You gotta know what is your body is capable of.
- You gotta be good with the six disciplines and comfortable with all of them, one discipline could easily screw up your whole experience.
- You don’t need to care about sleep deprivation like the majority of other Ultra events, this one is a perfect format for people who care about their sleep 🙂
- It is very fun, and you’ll enjoy every single moment of it.