⏵ Training plans

How to Plan Your Ultra Race Season

Here is the whole thing in one breath: pick ONE race you actually care about and call it your A race, rank everything else as a B race (a stepping stone) or a C race (just for fun), then build your calendar backward from that A-race day through taper, peak, build, and base. Drop a tune-up race or two into the build, keep your A races at least 12 to 16 weeks apart, and budget real recovery after each one. The mistake almost everybody makes is registering for a pile of races first and then trying to train around all of them. Flip it. Pick the target, then make every other race serve it. I will walk you through the priority system, the season skeleton, when to slot tune-ups, how far apart goal races can sit, and how much recovery to plan.

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Start with one race that matters

Before you plan anything, you pick a target. One race, the one that would make the year. Maybe it is your first 100, maybe it is a course you have unfinished business with, maybe it is a lottery entry you waited three years for. That race becomes your A race, and the entire calendar gets built to deliver you to its start line rested, fit, and ready to go all in.

One target, not five

The reason this matters so much is that you can only point your training at one bullseye at a time. A season aimed at a single A race has a shape: it knows what the long runs should look like, how much vert to chase, when to peak, and when to back off. A season with five equally important races has no shape at all. You end up half-tapered and half-trained for everything, peaking for nothing.

So be honest with yourself about which race that is. Pick it first, put it on the wall, and then we figure out what everything else around it is for. The races you add after this are not competing with your A race for attention. They are serving it.

Rank every race: A, B, and C

Once you have your A race, sort everything else into B and C. This is the oldest trick in coaching for a reason: it forces you to decide on purpose which races get the full taper-and-peak treatment and which ones you simply run through as training. Here is how the three tiers break down.

Tier	What it is	How many + taper
A race	The one you actually care about. Your whole season points at it. You want to show up rested and at your real peak.	One or two a year, never closer than 12 to 16 weeks apart. Full taper (2 to 3 weeks), real recovery after.
B race	Matters, but it is a stepping stone. A dress rehearsal for fueling, gear, and pacing, or a hard fitness check on the way to your A.	One or two in a build. Tiny taper at most (a couple easy days before), a few easy days after, then back to work.
C race	For fun, for training, for the vibe. A hard group long run with a bib. You run it tired and you keep training around it.	As many as fit without derailing the plan. No taper. Treat it like a workout, not a race.

The whole point is that you cannot peak for everything, so you choose. One or two A races a year, a couple of B races to rehearse and check your fitness, and as many C races as you want, run tired. If a race you love falls inside another race’s build, that is fine. Just call it what it is (a B or a C) and run it at that effort.

Build the calendar backward from race day

This is the move that makes everything click. You do not plan forward from today. You plan backward from your A-race day. Put that date on the calendar and count back: taper, then peak, then build, then base. Now you can see exactly how many real training weeks you have, and whether the race is far enough out to be ready for it.

Phase	Roughly when	What it is for
Race week + taper	0 to 3 weeks out	Cut volume hard (often around 40 to 60 percent off your peak) but keep a little intensity so you stay sharp. The work is done. Now you arrive fresh.
Peak / specific	3 to 9 weeks out	Your biggest, most race-like block. Longest long runs, back-to-backs, vert and terrain that mimic the course. This is where the race gets won or lost.
Build	9 to 18 weeks out	Climb volume steadily, add race-specific work, run a tune-up or two. The grind that turns base fitness into race shape.
Base	18+ weeks out	Easy aerobic volume, consistency, strength, durability. Boring on purpose. Everything later is built on this floor.

Those week ranges are typical for a 50K to 100 mile build and they overlap on purpose. A first 50K might need 12 to 16 honest weeks. A first 100 wants more like 20 to 24. The point is the order and the backward count, not hitting an exact number.

Down weeks are part of the plan, not a reward

Inside all of that, build in a down week roughly every 3 to 4 weeks: cut the volume, ease off, let your body actually absorb the work you just did. This is not slacking and it is not something you earn by feeling tired. It is scheduled on purpose, the same way the hard weeks are, because that is how fitness actually gets built (you adapt during the easy weeks, not during the grind). Plan the cutbacks as deliberately as you plan the peaks.

For ultras specifically, a lot of coaches like building volume late and keeping some real intensity early, which is roughly backward from the old short-distance model. The demands of a long mountain day are mostly about durability and time on feet, so the biggest, most race-like weeks belong right before the taper, not in the middle of the build.

For the nuts and bolts of each phase, dig into base building for ultrarunning, training for elevation gain and vert, and how to taper for an ultramarathon.

Where tune-up races fit

A tune-up race is a B race you run on the way to your A race, and it is honestly one of the most valuable training sessions you can do. Not because of the result, but because it is the only place you can rehearse the whole operation under real race stress: the early alarm, the start-line nerves, the fueling, the gear, the pacing, and whether your stomach holds up when your heart rate is actually elevated.

Far enough out to absorb it, close enough to matter

For an ultra, slot your tune-up roughly 4 to 8 weeks out from your A race. That gives you enough runway to recover from it and still hit your peak block and taper, while being close enough that everything you learn is fresh and relevant. A classic version of this is racing a shorter ultra (a 50K before a 100, say) as your last big hard effort, then backing off into your taper.

The one rule you do not break: leave enough room that you show up to your A race recovered, not still digging out of the tune-up. If the tune-up is itself a long, destructive race, it needs to sit further out. The closer it is to race day, the shorter and less draining it should be. A tune-up that leaves you wrecked two weeks before your A race did the opposite of its job.

How far apart can your goal races be?

If you want to truly race two ultras in a season, keep them at least 12 to 16 weeks apart, and lean toward the longer end the longer the races are. This trips people up, so here is the why.

You cannot peak twice in three weeks

A real physical peak is a narrow window, and most coaches will tell you that you only get two, maybe three of them in a year, with at least 12 weeks between each one. You cannot build fitness in the two or three weeks between two big races. All you can do in that gap is lose freshness. So if your races are close together, the second one is not getting a fresh peak, it is getting your leftovers.

That is not a disaster, it is just a decision. If two races you want to do sit only six weeks apart, then one of them is your real A race and the other is a B race you run inside its shadow, at a controlled effort. For two 100 milers I would want a clear 16-plus weeks between them, and I would genuinely ask whether your body wants to do two of those in one year at all. Spacing is not a technicality. It is the thing that decides whether you actually peak.

A recent result is the best reality check on whether a goal time is even in range. Run it through the race equivalent calculator and the vert-aware race time calculator before you commit a date to it.

Budget recovery after every race

The recovery is part of the plan, not an afterthought you figure out when you feel bad. If you skip it, the next block starts from a hole and the whole season unravels. A couple of rules of thumb help you block it out in advance: about one easy or off day per 10 miles raced (closer to one per 6 miles for a savage mountain day), or roughly one easy week for every hour you were out there. Here is how that shakes out by distance.

Race	Easy / off after	Before you race hard again
50K	1 to 2 weeks very easy / off	Hold off on another hard race for roughly a month.
50 mile	2 to 3 weeks very easy / off	Give it around two months before you race hard again.
100K	2 to 4 weeks very easy / off	Closer to two to three months before the next real effort.
100 mile	3 to 4+ weeks very easy / off	Plan on about three months, and do not rush back in.

Treat these as floors to plan around, not laws. Recovery swings a lot with effort, terrain, heat, and the person, and the deeper fatigue from a long ultra (tendons, hormones, immune system, plain old motivation) often lags well behind how your legs feel a week out. When you are not sure, take the extra week. For the full protocol, see how to recover from an ultramarathon.

The whole method, in five steps

If you remember nothing else, remember this order. Each step sets up the next one.

01Pick one A race. Choose the single race you care most about this year and make it your A race. That date anchors the whole calendar.
02Rank everything else B or C. Label every other race a B race (a stepping stone or dress rehearsal) or a C race (for fun, run tired), so you know which ones get a taper and which you train through.
03Build the calendar backward. Working back from your A-race day, lay in a 2 to 3 week taper, then a peak block, then a build, then base. Add a down week every 3 to 4 weeks.
04Slot tune-up races. Place any B-race tune-ups in the build phase, roughly 4 to 8 weeks out from your A race, so they sharpen you without compromising your taper.
05Space and recover goal races. Keep A races at least 12 to 16 weeks apart and budget real recovery after every race so each new block starts from a healthy, rested place.

⏵ Turn the calendar into an actual plan

A season skeleton on paper is a great start, but it does not know your fitness. Summit Line takes your A race and builds the backward calendar for real: base, build, peak, and taper sized to YOUR current load, long runs and vert dialed to the course, down weeks placed for you, and a load-aware Build Watch that flags when you are ramping faster than your body can take. Add your B and C races and it works the recovery and the tune-ups in around your A race.

Get started free →See a season plan in the demo

⏵ Free calculators, no signup

Before you lock a date or a goal time, run the numbers. These free tools help you set a realistic A-race target and the hours you will actually be out there, which is what your whole season points at.

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Keep going: related guides

Race-season planning FAQ

How do I plan my race season?

Start by picking ONE race you actually care about and call it your A race. Everything else on the calendar gets ranked under it as a B race (a useful stepping stone or dress rehearsal) or a C race (just for fun, run tired). Then build the whole thing backward from your A race day: drop in a 2 to 3 week taper, then a peak block, then a build, then base, working back from the start line. Slot any tune-up races into the build phase where they sharpen you instead of wreck you, usually 4 to 8 weeks out. And budget real recovery after every race so the next block starts from a healthy place. The big mistake is signing up for a pile of races first and trying to train around all of them. Pick the target, then everything else serves it.

How many ultras can I race in a year?

You can run a lot of ultras in a year, but you can only truly RACE a couple of them. Most coaches will tell you a real physical peak only happens two, maybe three times a year, and you need at least 12 to 16 weeks between those peaks to rebuild one. Tim Noakes famously argued most people have one genuine all-out ultra in them per year, and that is not crazy for 100 milers. So the honest answer is one or two A races you go all-in on, plus a handful of B and C races you run at a controlled effort as training. If you try to race everything flat out, you end up doing all of them at about 80 percent and never hit a real peak on any of them.

How far apart should two goal races be?

At least 12 to 16 weeks apart, and honestly more is safer the longer the races are. The reason is simple: you cannot build fitness in the two or three weeks between two big races, you can only lose freshness. After an A race you need real recovery, then time to get back to productive training, then time to build and peak again, and that whole cycle does not fit into a few weeks. For two 100 milers I would want a clear 16-plus weeks and I would think hard about whether the body can really do two in a year at all. If your races are closer together than 12 weeks, make peace with the fact that one of them is the real A race and the other is a B race you run inside its shadow.

What is an A, B, and C race?

It is a simple way to rank importance so your training has a clear target. An A race is the one you point your whole season at: you taper fully for it, you want to be at your peak, and you build everything else around it. A B race matters but it is a stepping stone, a chance to rehearse fueling, gear, and pacing or to get a hard fitness check, and you only take a couple of easy days before it instead of a real taper. A C race is for fun or for training, run tired, with no taper and no change to your plan, basically a hard long run with a bib and aid stations. The point of the system is that you can only peak for so many races, so you decide on purpose which ones get the full treatment and which ones you run through.

Should I run a tune-up race before my goal ultra?

Yes, a tune-up race is one of the most useful things you can do, because it lets you rehearse the whole operation when it counts. You get to test your fueling, your gear, your pacing, your start-line nerves, and your stomach under real race stress, not on a casual long run. For an ultra, slot it somewhere around 4 to 8 weeks out from your A race so you have time to absorb it and still taper. A common move is to race a shorter ultra (a 50K before a 100, say) as your last big effort, then back off. Just keep the last hard race far enough out that you show up to your A race recovered, not still digging out of the tune-up.

How long should I rest between races?

A useful rule of thumb is one day of easy or no running for every 10 miles you raced, and closer to one day per 6 miles if it was a brutal, mountainous day with a ton of climbing and descending. Another version coaches like: take roughly one easy week for every hour you were out there, so a seven-hour 50K earns about seven easy weeks before you race hard again. By distance, a lot of experienced runners hold off racing for about a month after a 50K, two months after a 50 miler, and three months after a 100. These are floors to plan around, not laws, and the deeper damage from a long mountain ultra (tendons, hormones, immune system, motivation) can lag well behind how your legs feel. When in doubt, take the extra week.

This guide is for training and planning purposes and reflects common endurance-coaching practice and sport-science guidance. The spacing, taper, and recovery numbers are rules of thumb that vary a lot with the individual, the distance, the terrain, and the effort, so treat them as starting points, not laws. This is not medical advice. If you are coming back from injury or have a medical condition, talk to a qualified coach or clinician before you build a season around a hard race.