AUDIO - AwA Podcast Ep. 13 - How I Am Training For My 100K+ Ultramarathon with Asthma
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[00:00:00] I am going to share with you how I am personally training for my 100K Ultra Marathon with asthma. Now, I have had asthma since birth, and at a young age, I was told that I should not even think about running.
Now as a kid, I played soccer, didn't really care about running for fun. I would do the fun run at school for charity. But besides that, the only running I wanted to do was on the soccer field. ~Well, fast forward to when I was about 30 years old, which Okay. ~Fast forward 25 years, and I became An ultramarathon runner.
In 2021, I ran my first marathon ever. It was a self made marathon. ~That means that there wasn't That means that it wasn't a fish That means that it wasn't~ That means it wasn't an organized marathon. I had the support of my significant other. My parents were rooting me on as well, but there was no race course, no aid stations, none of these things.
And August [00:01:00] 1st, 2021, I ran 26. 2 miles. It took me more than 6 hours ~because about 16 miles in, I not only hit a wall, my left hip was no longer Because 16 miles in, I no ~Because 16 miles in, I ~didn't just ~hit a wall, my left hip was in so much pain, I had to walk for the majority of the rest of the run. But I told myself, as long as I do this once, I'll be able to do it again, and it'll be easier, ~okay?~
~So how I trained for that first marathon is very different from how I'm training for my~ So how I trained for my first marathon is very different from how I trained for my first 100k that I ran last year ~in 2024, and it's very different from the ~And it's very different from the training I'm doing currently ~this year ~for my 12 hour endurance race in July of 2025.
Welcome to the athlete with asthma show. I'm your host, Johnny Havey, an ultra runner, endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer, nor run a marathon, let alone 100 K ultra. I proved them [00:02:00] all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned from breathing techniques to mindset shifts to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals, despite limitations, let's get started.
~Okay? Now, my goal is to actually run more than 100 kilometers or 62. 2 miles this July. ~My goal is to run 66 or more miles in 12 hours starting at 7 p. m. And ending at 7:00 AM the next day, and I have a specific training plan for that, but how my first marathon looked was I at the time was very much into Peloton. But what happened was, in 2021, I had signed up for the Colfax Marathon, which was in October 2021. And earlier [00:03:00] on in the year, I found that there was a Peloton training program all about how to run your first marathon. So I downloaded the Peloton app on my phone and ~I ~started running with it, listening to it, and going through the training.
And really, the typical training for the marathon that I found in this program and I found online is, you really run two to three days a week, and then one long run on the weekend, with a total of three to four runs a week. And that's going to get you to your Marathon. And that long run starts at 4 miles and ends at 20 miles.
Okay? Typically, marathon training programs are going to look at about 16 to 18 weeks. The program I did was 18 weeks. Week 1 was 4 miles, week 16 was 20, and then you taper week 17 and week 18, and then you run the race. Okay? Now, the mileage I was doing during the week was much smaller, okay?
I was doing, you know, a three mile run on Tuesday, a three to five mile run [00:04:00] on Thursday, then I would do a short run on Fridays, usually like two miles, and then I would do my long run either Saturday or Sunday. So I wasn't really doing that much mileage. I think my peak week for my marathon was somewhere around 30 to 35 miles.
Well, today, when I'm not training, I'm running about 35 to 40 miles a week just to maintain fitness, ~okay? Now, I'll just run through this. ~In 2022, I ran my first self made 50K, which is 31. 1 miles, and then I ran the Honolulu Marathon. in December 2022. That's my second official marathon that I ran. And at the time I actually weighed close to 200 pounds.
And what I found is that five, nine, 200 pounds, my times were one to two minutes per mile slower than at my current weight at 155, 160 pounds. and the extra weight put a lot of [00:05:00] extra pressure on my joints. So I was finding that I was getting injured a lot more, doing a lot less mileage than I'm doing today.
So at that point, my training routine looked a lot different than it does today as well. I was kind of doing the thing where when you become a runner for the first time, or a biker, or anything, people will tell you, you can eat whatever you want. Just eat as many calories, carbs, whatever.
Well, I was doing that, and I put on a bunch of weight, and my second marathon, the Honolulu Marathon, I ran in five hours, and I was in Hawaii at sea level, versus when I ran the Colfax Marathon a year prior, I ran it in four and a half hours, and I was a mile above sea level.
So I got worse, and I was at sea level. It's easier to breathe at sea level, especially when you have asthma. Elevation affects asthma even more than if you don't have asthma, okay? So I live in Colorado, so I'm usually training at higher elevation too. So I was training, I was doing all my [00:06:00] training a mile above sea level and I went down to sea level and ~I ~performed worse.
So what did I do? I decided that I needed to lose the weight before I tackled my first 50 mile race in 2023. So instead of a 16 week, 18 week training program, I actually 9 months, 9 or 10 months ahead of the race I was like, you know what? I'm going to spend the first three months ~of this training program, ~Dropping Weight.
Hey friend, I wanted to take a moment to ask you a quick question. Are you struggling to lose weight due to your asthma? If so, I get it. I used to run marathons and still kept gaining weight. It wasn't until I learned about the three pillars of healthy living that everything changed.[00:07:00]
So I put together a healthy living guide that you can access absolutely free by clicking the link in the description. This guide shares these amazing three pillars of healthy living that you can easily integrate into your life to start losing weight and live healthier today. Click the link in the description or go to Athlete with asthma dot com forward slash healthy dash living dash guide to grab your free copy.
Now, let's get back to the rest of the show.
I'm going to drop weight, I'm going to do some running, but I want to drop weight. So that's what I did, is I embraced the three pillars of healthy living in my [00:08:00] Healthy Living Guide,
I lost the first 30 pounds in just 90 days and I've kept it off. And that's the most important thing, right? It's 2025 now. I did this back in 2023 I've kept it off. I feel healthier. My asthma is improved and I've ran numerous ultra marathons since then.
I also won my first 100k last year doing a training program that my amazing friends over at Run Infinite put together for me, Kaitlyn and Brandon. I have a link to their website, Run Infinite, in the show notes and in the description below this video as well.
Okay. So in 2023, I ran my first 50 mile race. Okay. It was September 23rd, 2023. I put together my own training program for it. I was pretty excited. I finished the race in ~13 hours. ~A little over 13 hours. About 13 hours, 10 minutes. And I got 29th out of, I think, 50 or 60 finishers. So, I started [00:09:00] setting my sights on 2024. This is last year. I told myself I'm going to run the Bear Chase 100k.
I did the Bear Chase 50 miler the year prior in 2023. So I'm like, you know what, I'm going to try the 100K. It's an extra 12 and a half miles or so. So I planned that, hired a coach, and I highly recommend that you hire a coach the first time you're doing a race or a run, or when you're going for a personal record, a personal best.
Highly recommend you hire a coach, and I highly recommend that you check out Run Infinite. amazing coaches over there. And to this day, I run with my friends over at run infinite and here's what 2024 looked like. During training, I actually ended up running what I call the Mount Carbon Marathon where I did, I think 24 or 25 loops up and down this one mountain by our house.
~You know, ~it's about a 400 [00:10:00] vertical feet every time you climb it. So I did that about 24 times. I ended up running 26. 2 miles that day. It was amazing. Okay, then I did my first 100 mile week ~in September, ~from September 2nd to September 8th. ~And then I, that included,~ and that included running 21 ~mile, and that included running 20 ~miles, a 50k, and 20 miles all back to back to back.
And then I ended up running my 100k September 28th, 2024. So, this year, July 11th, 2025, I'm running the Chase the Moon 12 hour endurance race. It's a 10 and a half mile loop. And the first thing that you really need to do when you're looking at getting your training program in place is you need to evaluate What your goals are.
Okay. So one is set your [00:11:00] goals. Okay. So for me, I looked at this Chase the Moon race and the course record, okay, is, I believe, 65. 3 miles in 12 hours. Okay. And I looked at this, and I compared this to last year, my 100k. And I'm like, okay, I ran 100k in 12 hours and 10 minutes. The previous year, I ran my 50 mile race in the same course in 13 hours and 10 minutes.
So I actually got three and a half hours faster to run. between the two years. Okay, because it actually took me nine and a half hours to run 50 miles on the same course on my way to 100K last year. Okay. So, when I look at this, and I'm like, okay, this is the course record, 65. 3 miles in [00:12:00] 12 hours. And, uh, it's, it is a different course, but it's similar in the fact that it's a ten and a half mile loop and about eight hundred vertical feet per lap.
So that's the thing, once you've set your goal, you want to look at, okay, what is the terrain, ~right? What are, what is this race all about? So ~what is this race all about? You gotta, really look into that. So, for me, this race is about a ten and a half mile loop with 800 feet of elevation gain.
Okay. So, then you want to start, once you set your goal, you want to look at what the race is all about, and compare this to races you've done in the past, or training you've done in the past. Okay? [00:13:00] Especially with asthma, you need to be aware of these things, so that when you start setting your training program up, you have an idea of what you're going to need to do.
Okay? So for me, I look at this, it's, I have 12 hours. To run as many laps as possible. And, uh, the course record is 65. 3 miles. So in my head, and I'm checking with the race organizers about this right now. I sent an email yesterday, okay? And they said they're checking on this for me, okay? Because my goal, when I'm looking at setting goals, I'm like, you know what?
I think I can shoot for the course record. But I need to know how to get there, okay, because 65. 3 miles, that looks to me like six and a half laps. So does that mean that I have to run six and a half laps? ~Like ~do I need to run [00:14:00] 65. 4 miles to set the course record? Do I have to run 66 miles to set the course record?
What do I have to do? To set the course record. Do I have to run 7 laps to set the course record? That would be 72 miles. ~Okay? So, ~I'm really figuring out what the goal is. Okay? I'm aware that I'm going to need to run somewhere between 65. 4 and 72. 5 miles. Somewhere in here to set the course record. So, I'm finding out from the race organizers, I'm hoping that this is all I have to race and run, but maybe I'm going to have to run a whole other lap, because I'm pretty sure that 65.
3 miles, this is the aid station, this is the midway aid station, because when I've looked at the course, it looks like there's an aid station about halfway through. ~So that adds up mathematically. ~Ten and a half mile [00:15:00] loop. This is about where the aid station is going to be. And I think that it wasn't right in the middle.
It was like 4. 8, 4. 5, somewhere in there. So I'm really trying to figure out what that is. So when you're setting your goal, same thing. You gotta look at what's actually possible. And, how are you going to get there?
So now I'm used to certain lengths of training programs. Okay. I've done, you know, somewhere between 16 and 24 weeks. Last year I actually did a six month training program, so 24 weeks, and I worked with Run Infinite on that. So what I've been doing is I've been looking at my previous training programs, and comparing it and the mileage I did to what I'm going to do now.
Okay, so last year I ran 100k, 65. 4 to 72. 5 miles is a little more than 100k. So I can match the training programs [00:16:00] pretty closely, okay. Now, a big thing that I've changed over the years between that first marathon I ran and my 100k that I ran last year, is I used to heavy load my weekends with miles. Okay, that means that I would do the majority of my miles on the weekends.
~So ~I would do two or three runs a week during ~the ~weekdays. Usually, a lot of times I would even just get two in. And then I would lean on the weekends to get my long runs, my multiple long runs. Because when you are doing a 50 mile or beyond, you're going to need back to back long run days. For something like 100k you may even have three back to back to back.
Long run days. Okay, last year I did, my peak week was, you know, 20, 31, 20. Okay, and that was part of a 100 mile week. Okay, [00:17:00] so really what I've learned, and this helps so much with training programs, is I've gone away from heavy loading my weekends. Okay, so what I do now ~is ~I run 6 days a week. So, for 16 and 24 weeks, specifically for the program I'm doing right now.
I'm actually doing, I started kind of a slight build up around 24 weeks, but I'm really hitting it hard at the 18 week mark. But regardless, I'm running 6 days a week. And I rest one day. Okay, and this is typically Mondays. Now, some weeks I have to adjust my schedule, but I always make sure to get that one day in.
Okay, so six days. Now, what I'm doing, and let me pull up my program right here. I'm [00:18:00] on week 5. Okay. Now,~ ~I started with a base of 40 miles a week. And I did this on purpose, okay? I was out of training, and I'm like, you know what? I want to build a base of 40 miles a week before I even start my training program. Same thing for you. If you want to do something beneficial for your asthma, keep running. When I complete a training cycle and then I stop running, I ~can ~feel my asthma getting worse. But as long as I keep running, and that doesn't mean you have to be running 10 miles a day, you could run a couple miles a day, you know, 4 to 5 to 6 days a week, to keep things up, keep walking, keep moving.
I talk about this in my 3 Pillars of Healthy Living Guide that I've linked in the show notes and in the description below this video. Movement is key. Movement is one of the three pillars. You have movement, tracking, and accountability. Movement [00:19:00] is key. To keeping our lungs strong and preparing ourselves for something like 100k Ultra, okay?
So you want to have some sort of a base before you even get into the program. If you don't, the program's just gonna be a lot harder, okay? And you're gonna need to Probably do an extended program. Somewhere in the 18 to 24 week range. Okay, now, I'm, my goals are pretty big. I am aiming for a course record.
So I'm still doing about a 24 week program. Okay. Base was 40 miles going into it. Then when I actually started, Yeah, I mean it started at 40 miles. Okay, so, week one, Was Forty. Then we go all the way up to week twenty two. And, ~uh, ~you know, week twenty two, [00:20:00] I am shooting for a hundred and twenty five miles.
Okay? When I did my hundred K, I did a hundred miles that week, in that two weeks before. Okay? And that's really what you want to make sure you do. You're going to build up, ~okay, ~towards that mileage. And then two weeks so two week taper. So how this looks is you have your 125 mile a week or 100 mile a week and then for the next two weeks it dips down
and it actually looks like last year I did a two to three week taper. So, I went from a hundred to sixty to thirty three to twenty three plus the race. Okay. Now, I've done it where I haven't gotten on my feet at all. during race week and I hate it. It's terrible for my mental [00:21:00] wellbeing. I feel just terrible all week. So I always run during race week. I just run significantly less mileage. ~The ~last year I ran 23 miles during race week plus the race.
So that whole week I did about, you know, 80 to 90 miles. Okay. So this is what it looks like now. I recommend the longer time frame when you have asthma because you need more time to ramp up the mileage, okay? And I highly recommend that you put some sort of base miles in, even if it's not 40. You could put base miles in You know, if you could do 20 to 25 base miles going into training per week, that will help you get into this.
Last year, that's where I was. I had my numbers pulled. I was, yeah, in the 20 to 30 mile range going into training. So, that's the third step. The [00:22:00] fourth point here is nutrition, okay? So, when we go through nutrition, we're talking about how are we refueling ourselves after runs.
And this is why, back in 2023, when I Weighed 200 pounds going into 2023, I decided that I was gonna lose the weight first and then train. Because, I, you can kind of do both together. The problem is when you're losing weight, you are intentionally operating at a calorie deficit. Okay? Well, if you're operating at a caloric deficit, yeah, you're gonna lose weight, but you're also Not necessarily going to give your body what it needs to repair your muscles, It's going to be a lot harder on your recovery if you're not giving your body what it needs. Calorically, micro, macro [00:23:00] nutrients during training. That's why I highly recommend that if you are aiming to lose weight for a race Look at it as two separate training plans. Lose the weight, then start training.
Because during training, you want to make sure that you, after every run, and during runs, that you have what you need, what your body needs.
And I have an entire podcast episode about the top long run nutrition tips that I use during every single one of my training cycles, long runs, etc. So I highly recommend that you check that out on my YouTube channel and on your favorite podcasting platform. And I go detailed into what long run and nutrition and running looks like in general, okay?
Now some major points to note though. Nutrition, the reason why we even focus on nutrition is for recovery, okay? You're putting your body through a lot and if [00:24:00] you have asthma, This can be even, even more of a toll on your body. So, when we're looking at nutrition, we're looking at what can we eat, what can we ingest into our system that's going to promote recovery.
~Okay. ~That means focusing on foods that are anti inflammatory. Lots of veggies, lots of fruits, you need lots of protein for recovering your muscles. You also need lots of carbs, so your body has something to burn when you're running. So you're not burning muscle, you're not burning these things, you're burning carbs.
Now, there's some Ultra athletes out there that do Keto and that have trained their bodies to burn fat as their primary fuel source when they're running. I highly recommend that you check with your healthcare professional with anything we're talking about in this video and this podcast episode, anything I talk about on my channel.
And before doing [00:25:00] anything like jumping into Keto for this type of a thing. Everyone's body is different. Everyone's body is going to react differently. That's why I'm saying the key with nutrition is to have nutrition that promotes recovery. For me, this means that I don't drink for at least 3 to 4 months before a race.
Because the second alcohol enters your system, your body's number one goal is to get it out of your system. So if you have alcohol in your system, let's say you take a 20 mile run and then you have some beers, it can feel really good to earn that back. beer, but now instead of your body recovering from that 20 mile run and repairing itself, it's delayed.
It has to get rid of that alcohol before it's able to go full speed ahead, repairing itself. Since I've cut alcohol out of my life, I went from getting 29th out of 50 as a 50 mile race to winning my first hundred K race. Okay. [00:26:00] So. Nutrition that promotes recovery. Okay. Next, you really want to look at cross training.
Okay. So, cross training. Now, why cross training is important. I learned this from my friends over at Run Infinite. I also learned this from my friend over at Human Power. Okay. My physical therapist. Okay. What I learned is the importance of cross training is to train your body to use the right muscles when you're running.
A lot of us don't use our glutes while we're running. So we want to cross train to promote building muscles that we use when we're running. And we not only want to build muscles, we want to make sure that we are training our muscles to engage when they are [00:27:00] supposed to. When we engage our glutes while we're running, we're protecting our knees.
We're protecting our ankles. We're protecting our legs. When we don't run with our glutes, a lot more pressure is put on our body. We also want to focus on building our arches, on our feet. Our feet go through hundreds, if not thousands of miles ran in a year. I put on about 2, miles in a year.
Our feet need to be cross trained. You need to be strengthened. Our arches need to be strengthened. Okay? Yoga is great for cross training. I teach a yoga class every Wednesday for runners. Okay? And almost everyone that comes to the class are runners of some capacity, athletes of some capacity, and they come because they know that they need to give their bodies some love, some cross training, some strength, but also stretching.
[00:28:00] We need to make sure we're stretching. Okay? And that really is the power of cross training. I also like to do HIIT. Okay, I like to do interval training. Can't just run for hours on end. You need to train your heart. You're not just training your body, training your feet, training your legs. You need to train your heart.
Okay. That's where cross training comes in. So you want to cross train so that you are prepared. Okay, so what does this look like? I try and do yoga once to twice a week. I lift one to two times a week, specifically focusing on lower body. I'll do some upper body too, but I want to hit my glutes, my hamstrings, my calves, my quads. Okay. And some sort of hit. Okay, high intensity interval training. I try and do that one to two times a week.
Now if you do all of these things once a week, [00:29:00] that's great. Doing a lot more than a lot of people. So I highly recommend you do this. And if you don't do yoga once a week, fine. You need to do something like the belt stretch that I teach on my channel. I have multiple yoga classes that you can take that are really, they range from being, you know, five minutes long all the way up to an hour long.
And they're all on my Athlete With Asthma YouTube channel. So if you're listening to this as a podcast, Highly recommend you check out my Athlete With Asthma YouTube channel, it's linked in the show notes. And if you're watching this on YouTube, well, go to the channel and I have a whole playlist on my homepage, on my channel homepage, with yoga that you can do, okay?
And if you find a yoga sculpt with weights, that actually can count as your HIIT workout as well, okay? So I highly recommend you do these things. Now the last thing, when it comes to training, And, uh, what I look at for training, specifically [00:30:00] for this race coming up, is we gotta look at this period of time, this taper period.
Okay, so yes, during this two to three week taper, we're decreasing our miles, but this is where we strategize. And I actually like to strategize, I like to visualize my races well before The two to three week mark. Okay? But in the two to three week mark, you should be spending all this extra time that you aren't training, visualizing, okay?
And for me, the race I have coming up, like I said, it starts at 7:00 PM and goes through 7:00 AM So what I am doing with all of this is I am integrating runs at between 12:00 AM. And 5 a. m. training runs. Okay? Training runs. Alright, this is why we really got to make sure we know our [00:31:00] goals, know the course. But, for one to two weeks leading up to this race, I'm also going to be flipping my sleep schedule. Okay? So this is really the bonus, is what you do with these two weeks. Okay? This is the bonus. Now Yeah, so Bonus. What do you do with these two to week What do you do with this two to three week taper?
Okay. You visualize. Youprep. You prep yourself to be awake and ready for the race, right? 7pm to 7am. 100k is going to take a ~long~ time, right? The course record for the race that I got first in is about 8 and a half hours. Okay, that's really fast. So 100k, you're going to be out there at [00:32:00] least for 8 hours. Probably closer to 12 to 16 hours. You're going to be out there a long time. So you need to start thinking through how it's going to feel out there. You need a prep if it's overnight. Is it part of it in the dark? Okay, even my race that starts during the day, technically starts at 5am last year, so I started in the dark.
I needed a headlamp. So you gotta keep in mind all of these things. And the 2 3 week taper, is really the best time to go through all that. Okay? Now, I have a bonus gift for you for hanging with me. It's my Three Pillars of Healthy Living Guide. I have it linked in the description below this video and in the show notes of the podcast episode.
Okay? It's gonna teach you my three pillars of healthy living that help me lose the weight, keep it off, and it's the backbone of really my whole nutrition plan, my whole [00:33:00] training plan during My training cycles. It's only going to take you two to three minutes to read and start implementing into your life.
Recommend you grab it. Go to www. athletewithasthma. com forward slash healthy dash living dash guide and I'll see ya in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to the Athlete with Asthma show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection. It's about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals. And if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining [00:34:00] what's possible.
