Topics / Ultrarunning
Why do ultramarathons fascinate so many people right now?
What is an ultramarathon, exactly?
An ultramarathon — or ultra — is any footrace longer than the classic marathon distance of 42.195 kilometres. The shortest common form is 50 kilometres; from there it runs to 100 kilometres, 100 miles and on to multi-day races of 200 kilometres and more. Some events don't measure distance but time: whoever covers the most ground in 24 hours wins.
Many ultras take place off-road — on trails through mountains, deserts or forests, with elevation gain that makes the pace slower than the raw distance suggests. This off-road variant is called ultra-trail. Others run on the road, or even in circles on a 400-metre track. Aid stations along the course offer water, food and a brief moment of footing.
The difference from the marathon matters: an ultra isn't simply a longer marathon. Past a certain duration the thing tips over. It becomes less about speed and more about lasting, pacing, eating, wanting to sleep and going on anyway. Exactly that point — where the run turns from sport into a confrontation with yourself — is what produces the fascination this page is about.
Why does it fascinate so many people right now?
The fascination with ultrarunning rarely has just one cause. See it as a network of several strands that become active at the same time: the search for meaning, the need for a real limit, and the wish for reduction. Each strand makes sense on its own. Together they explain why the sport is drawing so many people right now.
The first strand is the overstimulated world. Someone who spends the day jumping between news, emails and notifications lives in a network where many connections are active at once, all the time. An ultra makes that radically simple. For hours there is only one task: the next step. Almost all other connections go quiet — not because they disappear, but because no stimulus reaches them anymore. That quiet has become rare, and for exactly that reason it is sought out.
The second strand is the limit. In a daily life that cushions so much, many people lack the experience of actually running into something hard. An ultra delivers an honest, physical limit where nothing is glossed over. The third strand is the search for meaning: a self-chosen, hard task that no one demands gives your own persistence a significance. That these three strands become active at the same time is what makes the pull so strong.
Which inner connections become active on the course?
Someone who runs for hours learns something about their inner life that rarely becomes this clear in everyday life. On the course a voice speaks up that wants to stop — at pain, cold, darkness. The connection between discomfort and “stop” is often instantly decisive in daily life: it appears, and you give in. In an ultra you can watch it for hours without immediately following it.
That is exactly the learning effect. You notice that the feeling “I can't go on” and the fact “I really can't go on” are two different things. Usually the feeling shows up long before the real limit. Once you have lived through that from the inside, something shifts: the old, fast connection from first discomfort to giving up grows weaker, because you have learned that there is still a lot of distance behind it.
Then there is deliberate redirecting. You are stuck when you fight against the pain — more force only binds it tighter. Experienced runners steer the same energy elsewhere: they break the enormous distance into the stretch to the next aid station, point their attention at the breath or the landscape instead of the fatigue. They don't change the course, they change which perspective is active right now.
How do body and mind connect in ultrarunning?
It's tempting to treat an ultra as a purely physical matter. But almost every experienced runner says: over long distances it's the head that decides. That becomes clear when you see body and psyche as two network levels constantly exchanging signals. The body sends stimuli — fatigue, hunger, pain — and the psyche decides what they turn into: a reason to stop, or information you respond to.
So the same signal from the body can arrive very differently. A pull in the leg can mean “injury, stop immediately” or “normal moment at kilometre 70, keep going” — depending on which connection in the head is active right now. This is exactly where the sport becomes an exercise in self-regulation: not every signal is an order. Those who can tell them apart keep running where others stop.
Conversely, the head acts back on the body. Panic makes the breath shallow and the muscles tight; calm saves energy. There is nothing mystical about this — it's measurable, through hormones, nerve signals, breathing rate. Whoever learns, in an ultra, to stay calm inside this exchange between the levels takes away something that reaches far beyond running.
What are people looking for who keep running further?
Ask different ultrarunners and you get different answers. Some seek the quiet and the solitude of the mountains, others the community at the aid station, still others the plain clarity that a single task gives. That looks contradictory but isn't: each runs in a different network, and which connection someone is looking for is up to them.
A common answer is the experience that, after hours, a point comes where the constant thinking eases off. The many circling thoughts grow calmer, because the task is at once so simple and so demanding that no room is left for anything else. Some describe these as the rare moments when they are fully absorbed in the doing. This isn't an esoteric state but what happens when almost all connections except one go quiet.
And often the most honest answer is: self-confidence. Whoever has once run 100 kilometres carries a new connection inside them — “I got through that”. This connection becomes active again in everyday life, when something else gets hard. The ultra is then not the goal but the tool: a place where you have an experience with yourself that later holds elsewhere. This is no proof of the model — more a perspective that helps many runners understand their own fascination.
Why does reduction work so strongly in an overstimulated world?
Perhaps the strongest strand of the fascination is reduction. In an ordinary day, countless connections are lightly active at once: appointments, relationships, worries, screens. None of them demands you fully, but together they rarely leave any quiet. Many people only notice this background noise once it's gone.
An ultra takes almost all of these connections out of play. There is no network, no open tasks, no choice between a thousand options — only the course and your own body. The network shrinks down to the essential. What remains is a rare simplicity: at every moment you know exactly what to do. This clarity, which barely occurs in daily life anymore, many experience as freeing.
That also explains why the sport is growing now and not thirty years ago. The fuller and faster the everyday network becomes, the greater the pull to deliberately draw it together into a single connection. The ultra is an extreme but very honest form of that. You don't have to run 100 kilometres to use the mechanism — but it shows, on a large scale, what many are looking for on a small one: less at once, but one thing done properly.
Seen through the model
Picture kilometre 70 of a 100-kilometre race. It has gone dark, your legs are heavy, and in your head one connection grows very loud: “Stop, that's enough.” In everyday life you would often follow that voice at once — the connection from discomfort to giving up is fast and learned. Here, on the course, you have time to simply look at it without immediately giving in.
See the moment as a network. On one level the body: fatigue, a pull in the knee, hunger — all signals sending upward. On the other level the head, which decides what they turn into. As long as the connection “fatigue means stop” is active, the race is over. But that is only one perspective of several, and the others are merely quiet right now, not gone.
So you redirect instead of fighting. You no longer think about the 30 kilometres to the finish — that number makes everything enormous — but only about the next aid station, four kilometres away. You point your attention at the breath and the beam of your headlamp instead of the knee. The course doesn't change. But which connection is active, you have shifted — and suddenly you keep running. This is no proof and no miracle, just a tool becoming visible here.
Frequently asked
From what distance is a race an ultramarathon?
An ultramarathon is any race that goes beyond the official marathon distance of 42.195 kilometres. The shortest common form is the 50-kilometre race. Beyond that come 100 kilometres, 100 miles and multi-day events. Some ultras measure not distance but time — for example 6-, 12- or 24-hour races where whoever covers the most ground wins. What matters, then, is not a fixed number but the threshold above the marathon.
Why do people put themselves through something so strenuous voluntarily?
Because several needs are met at the same time. In an overstimulated world an ultramarathon provides a rare clarity: one single task, the next step. Add to that an honest physical limit and the self-confidence that comes from having pushed through something hard. These strands — reduction, limit, meaning — become active together. Many runners also describe moments where the constant mental chatter eases off, because almost everything else goes quiet. Which of these reasons matters most varies from person to person.
Is an ultramarathon more about the head or about the body?
Both are tightly linked, but over long distances it is usually the head that decides. The body constantly sends signals — fatigue, pain, hunger — and the psyche determines what they turn into: a reason to stop, or information you respond to. The same pull in the leg can mean "stop immediately" or "normal moment at kilometre 70, keep going." Those who learn to read these signals rather than blindly obey them keep running where others stop. At the same time, a calm mind acts back on the body and saves energy.
Why is ultrarunning growing so strongly right now?
The fuller and faster daily life gets, the greater the pull to deliberately compress it into a single task. On an ordinary day countless connections are lightly active at once — appointments, screens, worries. An ultra takes almost all of them out of play: what remains is the course and your own body. This reduction has become rare in an overstimulated world, and for exactly that reason it is sought out. The sport offers it in an extreme but very honest form — that explains why it draws more people today than it did in the past.
What is the difference between an ultramarathon and an ultra-trail?
Ultramarathon is the umbrella term for any race beyond the marathon distance, regardless of surface. An ultra-trail is the off-road variant: it runs on trails through mountains, forests or deserts, often with substantial elevation gain. That elevation gain makes the pace slower than the raw kilometre count suggests and places different demands on technique and pacing. Beyond that there are road ultras and even races run in circles on a 400-metre track. Trail is one form of ultramarathon, not its opposite.
Can I, as an ordinary runner, finish an ultra at all?
Many people underestimate how far apart "I can't go on" and "I genuinely cannot go on" actually are. The feeling almost always shows up well before the real limit. With steady training, patient pacing and a willingness to walk rather than quit, a surprising number of people complete their first 50-kilometre race. That is no substitute for proper preparation or medical advice for anyone with pre-existing conditions. But for most people the inner limit sits considerably further out than they believe at the start.
Keep thinking
Related terms: Relation, Signal (“Schwingung”), The three states: empty, active, passive, Network level, The six viewpoints