What's the Difference Between a Marathon & an Ultra Marathon

My inbox is typically filled with questions about marathon training but I traded them off for 'WTF is an ultra marathon and who would want to do such a terrible thing' -- I do but maybe I'm nuts.

How many of you found yourself sucked into the world of marathon training because someone said something like "if you can do XX, you can be a marathoner?"  Yep -- that's definitely how I got sucked into this vortex called marathon training.  I have to admit that I cannot blame anyone for engulfing into ultra marathons.  While training for my first NYC Marathon in 2015 - second marathon to the Rock n Roll DC - I started going taper crazy and signed up for the New York Road Runners' 60K that took place two weeks later.  In hindsight, I realized I must've lost my fucking mind and purged all of my happy pill after mile 29 inside of a port-a-potty somewhere around loop 6.  You have no idea how much you hate life, happy spectators enabling your neurotic addiction to medals and how broth tastes like unicorn tears after experiencing sodium deficiency until you do one of these things.  Long story short, I made it across that finish line that day.  I came in at 9 hours, 47 minutes and 22 seconds and vowed to never touch one of these things again in life.  Like all endurance runners, we're full of shit when we're not letting it off into the wilderness or some random café.  Most people know about marathons but what the hell is an ultra marathon -- and why would I even want to do it?

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