If you’re researching how to train for The Great World Race, a multi-day marathon challenge, or a long-distance ultramarathon, you’re probably wondering how to prepare your body for running on tired legs day after day.
While every athlete is different, my approach focused less on speed and more on durability, recovery, and accumulating time on my feet. Here’s what worked, what didn’t, and what I learned while preparing to run seven marathons in seven consecutive days on seven continents.
Training to run seven marathons in seven consecutive days would probably seem daunting to almost anyone. For me, it felt almost absurd. Not because of the race itself, but because of the training.
I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a genetic connective tissue disorder that makes my body particularly injury-prone. Even setting that aside, I’ve never been what most runners would consider a high-mileage athlete. I’ve completed dozens of marathons, but I’ve never had a coach, never followed elite-level training programs, and honestly spent years figuring things out through trial and error.
In fact, after running marathons for years, I once watched a YouTube video about running form and turned to my husband, a former college decathlete, and asked, “Did you know your feet are supposed to land under you when you run?” His reaction told me everything I needed to know.
Learning to Run My Own Way
When I trained for my first marathon in 2004, I followed Hal Higdon’s famous training plan as best I could while studying abroad in Europe. Without GPS watches or running apps, I estimated distances by time and hoped for the best.
Some of those training runs remain unforgettable:
- Running through the Swiss Alps before sunrise
- Logging hours on a tiny stretch of highway above Nice, France
- Navigating Naples at 4 a.m. while curious late-night revelers wondered what I was doing
Back home, I kept a surprisingly modest training schedule. For more than a decade of marathon running, I rarely exceeded four runs per week and almost never topped 40 miles in a training week.
Eventually, I adopted the “Run Less, Run Faster” philosophy. Most weeks consisted of one long run, one tempo run, and one speed workout. That approach worked well and helped me stay relatively healthy while continuing to race.
From Marathons to Ultramarathons
In 2022, I started experimenting with ultra-distance events. Long runs gradually stretched beyond 20 miles, and marathons became training runs rather than goal races. Even then, I avoided back-to-back long runs whenever possible, preferring cross-training to reduce injury risk.
One of the biggest lessons I learned from ultramarathon training is that endurance is not just about fitness. It’s about recovery. Most marathon training plans prepare you to perform well for a single race day. The Great World Race demands something entirely different. You have to recover quickly enough to run another marathon the next day, and then do it again the day after that for an entire week.
Then came the idea of running seven marathons on seven continents in one week.
Suddenly, everything changed.
The challenge wasn’t running a marathon itself. The challenge was recovering quickly enough to do it again the next day, and then the next day after that.
How Great World Race Training Differs from Marathon Training
I had originally been preparing for my first 100-mile race when plans shifted toward the Great World Race. The question became simple: Could I adapt my training to handle 183.4 miles spread across seven consecutive days?
As is often the case, the thing I least wanted to do was exactly what I needed most. To prepare for seven straight marathons, I had to get comfortable running on tired legs, over and over again.
Unlike traditional marathon training, preparing for a multi-day endurance event requires becoming comfortable with cumulative fatigue. My workouts weren’t designed to produce personal records. They were designed to simulate the fatigue that builds over several consecutive days of racing.
The goal wasn’t speed.
The goal was durability.
The Importance of Time on Feet
For athletes researching training plans for The Great World Race and other similar endurance events, one concept comes up repeatedly: time on feet.
Rather than focusing solely on weekly mileage, I concentrated on spending extended periods moving throughout the day. The goal was to teach my body how to handle cumulative fatigue, which is often a bigger challenge in multi-day events than any single long run.
I restructured my training around one principle: spending as much time on my feet as possible while still maintaining my job and family responsibilities.
That often meant getting creative.
I attached a piece of plywood to my treadmill to create a makeshift treadmill desk. I squeezed in runs between meetings, ran alongside my kids as they rode their bikes, and, after everyone went to bed, climbed back onto the treadmill to keep logging miles.
I have always scheduled my longest runs for Mondays, often beginning before dawn and finishing late into the night. During this training cycle, those marathon-length efforts were followed by another substantial run the next day. Midweek often included double-run days designed to mimic the physical demands of racing on consecutive days.
Some days were less about athletic performance and more about simply accumulating time on my feet. It wasn’t glamorous, efficient, or even particularly enjoyable. It was simply what the challenge demanded.
Learning to Run on Tired Legs
The biggest shift in my training wasn’t the mileage itself. It was learning to move when I was already exhausted.
For years, I had intentionally avoided back-to-back long runs because of injury concerns. Training for The Great World Race required me to rethink that strategy. While I still increased mileage gradually and remained cautious, I had to teach my body what it felt like to wake up sore, head back out the door, and do it all again.
By the peak of training, I logged several weeks around or slightly above 100 running miles, plus additional walking.
Because I’m a relatively slow runner, those miles required a tremendous amount of time. I have enormous respect for elite ultramarathon runners who routinely manage that kind of volume while balancing careers, families, and everything else life demands.
What I did was not normal behavior. It was only possible because my husband picked up a tremendous amount of slack at home, and because everyone in my family understood it was temporary.
There was no way I could sustain that schedule long term, nor would I want to.
Key Training Lessons for the Great World Race and Ultramarathons
If you’re considering The Great World Race, a multi-day marathon event, or a long-distance ultramarathon, these were the most important lessons from my training.
1. Train for Recovery, Not Just Performance
Running a marathon is one challenge. Recovering well enough to run another marathon the next day is an entirely different skill. Recovery should be part of your training, not something you think about only after workouts.
2. Prioritize Time on Feet
For multi-day endurance events, extended periods of movement can be as valuable as mileage. Walking, easy running, and simply staying on your feet helped prepare me for the cumulative fatigue of race week.
3. Practice Back-to-Back Efforts
Learning to move on tired legs became one of the most valuable components of my preparation. You don’t need to destroy yourself, but you do need to understand what fatigue feels like and how to keep moving through it.
4. Don’t Neglect Strength and Mobility
Physical therapy, mobility work, strength training, and recovery practices were essential throughout my build. Without them, I doubt I would have made it to the starting line.
5. Respect Your Limits
More mileage is not always better. The goal is finding the minimum effective training needed to prepare for your event while staying healthy enough to actually show up and race.
Getting to the Starting Line
There’s a saying that to achieve something you’ve never achieved, you have to do something you’ve never done. That became the theme of my training.
I ran more than I ever had before. I embraced discomfort. I learned how to function on tired legs and keep moving when I would normally stop. Most importantly, I discovered that preparing for an extraordinary goal sometimes requires temporarily stepping outside your normal definition of balance.
Was it sustainable? Absolutely not.
But it was enough to get me to the starting line in Antarctica, ready to begin seven marathons on seven continents in one week.
And sometimes, that’s the goal.
Learn more about Ellen’s journey with The Great World Race at sevenmarathonsbook.com.
ELLEN HUNTER GANS is a 41-time marathon finisher, IRONMAN triathlete, ultramarathon champion, and 100-mile race finisher—all things that would shock the coach from her one wildly unsuccessful year of JV track. She has also participated in The Great World Race which involved running seven marathons on seven continents in one week which she has chronicled in her book Seven Marathons. Seven Continents. One Week.
