So You’ve Done a Marathon. What’s Your Next Challenge?

Have you gotten over the “I’m never doing this again” phase? Are you starting to think about what’s next? You could, in theory, do ‘this’ again. Or you could take it a step further. You’ve done the marathon. Now, you may want to find your next challenge after the marathon—and there’s a world of possibilities waiting for you; transition to trails, run an ultramarathon, or do a triathlon. The world is your oyster.

Written & edited by Pavlína Marek

Of course, there are many more things you could do. When it comes to sports, there are endless possibilities. However, today, we’ll look at the top three options that runners who want to go beyond the marathon often go for.

Trail Running

If you’ve never heard about trail running, it’s the same thing you’ve been doing on the road or the track—you just do it on trails. It comes with its own challenges; however, the rewards are totally worth it.

What to Expect

Unless the trail is a smooth, hard-packed dirt road, you’ll be slower. Don’t let that dissuade you from going full trail-mode—because of the varied terrain that often includes rocks, roots, and more hills than road running, you’ll become a stronger, more balanced runner. Your legs—and especially feet—will use muscles they haven’t used before, and you’ll gain more stability the longer you do trails.

Because of the variety in terrain, you may be more prone to tripping and falling at the beginning. Again, don’t be afraid to slow down. Especially on technical terrain, trail running is more like a dance with the environment. Focus on footwork and short, quick steps rather than long and fast strides. That way, you’ll have more opportunities to react to the surface and adjust your strides.

Ultramarathons

When the marathon distance becomes too short, there’s always the ultra. An ultramarathon is anything longer than a marathon. A “beginner” ultra is a 50K; a more advanced one would be a 50-miler. (We do have one of these!) It goes up from there, all the way to 3,100 miles around a single block in NYC.

Why Ultramarathons

What to Expect

Most ultramarathons are run on trails, since their softer and varied surface tends to be more forgiving than tarmac. If you’re doing a road ultra, your body will likely take a beating, and you’ll need to pay more attention to how it responds to the tarmac. In my experience, running a 50K on trails is easier than running a marathon on the road, both physically and mentally.

Training for an ultra will most likely require a bit more of your time than training for a marathon did. You’ll likely focus more on “time on feet” rather than running a certain number of miles. Based on your approach, you might have only one distance-based run a week!

Here’s a fun warning: when it comes to your friends and family, most of them probably won’t know what an ultra is and will keep calling it a marathon. Better get used to it; even a 250-km ultra I’m about to do in a month is still a marathon in my family’s eyes! You simply have to accept the fact that ultras aren’t done for fame; your reasons need to go beyond that if you want to keep going and finish.

Triathlons

If you’ve trained for a marathon, and especially if you’ve experienced some kind of injury during your training, you’ve probably done biking and swimming during your recovery and cross-training sessions. Triathlons combine all of these in a single race.

What to Expect

If you choose a triathlon as your next challenge after the marathon, you’ll need to incorporate swimming and biking into your training as more than just cross-training or recovery sessions. Overall, you’ll have a much more balanced training schedule than when you train for a foot race.

Just like with ultras, you may choose to focus more on time-based training than on distance. As an extra challenge, you’ll need to do “brick workouts” when you stack two activities on top of each other to simulate race day; in that sense, training for a triathlon may be more challenging than trail running or ultras.

A little warning here: despite balancing your training out, triathlons tend to have a higher injury incidence than endurance running, both during training and on race day. According to Triathlete, “A recent study of ultra-endurance runners, cyclists, and triathletes found a self-reported overall injury prevalence of 50%, with the highest number of injuries per athlete reported by triathletes. A 2022 review study reported an overuse injury rate of 37-91% and an acute injury rate of 24-27% in triathletes.”