I've started to read Tim Noakes' Lore of running (4th ed.), considered by some as the runner's bible. In 950 pages it covers everything you can imaging about running, from the muscles structure to the food assimilation, from mental preparation to overtraining, from 10km to ultra... It is written in an scientific (yet accessible) style. The references, that can be downloaded separetely, cover 100 pages (probably about 1700 of them). I may write a couple of entries about intersting ideas I find in it.

Lore of running (cover)

I started by reading the ultramarathon section, which may not be optimal as it refers a lot to the previous chapters.
  • The training volume for my level should be around 50 to 100km per week ! I think I've never been much over 50km on a regular basis. To be assessed...
  • Noakes reckons running only one ultra a year or even every other year is preferable for performance.
  • Cross-training is of importance, particularly non weight-bearing sports such as cycling and swimming.
  • It's better to run faster the second half of an ultramarathon. That means setting a time objective for the second half alone. I'm wondering to what extend this applies to races such as the UTMB, where even the best runners show slowing down coefficients of about 0.8. How is it possible to stay over 1 ?
  • Women sometimes perform better in ultra mostly because ... they have more fat.
Ultra book.