Coach Holly Koksel: What It Really Takes to Go Long
The short answer
What it takes to train for long ultras? Angela Naeth Coaching coached Holly Koksel, a long-time endurance athlete, to an Anchor Down Ultra course record and a women's win by building toward where she thrives: going long.
Coach Holly Koksel: What It Really Takes to Go Long (Anchor Down Ultra course record holder and women's winner)
As an endurance coach, one of the things I love most is seeing an athlete discover where they truly thrive. For Holly Koksel, that has increasingly meant going long.
Holly is an IRONMAN athlete, ultrarunner, gravel cyclist, and endurance coach with AngelaNaethCoaching. Her endurance background spans long-course triathlon, cycling, and ultrarunning, and she has developed a particular strength for the kind of racing that requires patience, discipline, smart pacing, and the ability to keep moving long after the initial excitement of race day wears off.
She has trained for more than ten years. With that much depth, my job as her coach isn’t to add more. It’s to give every session a reason, choose each block for her races, and keep building toward where she thrives.
Holly also knows what it means to race at a high level. Racing previously as Holly Goodman, she established the women’s course record in the longest race at the Anchor Down Ultra.
More recently, she returned to Anchor Down and won the women’s race in a shorter timed event and finished second overall across the men’s and women’s field.
But what I find most interesting about Holly isn't simply the results. It’s how she gets there.
Ultrarunning is not about piling on endless miles. Her training incorporates cycling, strength work, smart pacing, and a focus on building durability without unnecessarily beating up the body. And as an athlete with a strong triathlon background, she brings a different perspective to ultrarunning, one that understands the value of aerobic development across multiple disciplines.
As her coach, I’ve also seen firsthand the thoughtfulness she brings to her training and racing. Holly is quite analytical, but she also understands that endurance racing ultimately comes down to something much harder to quantify: your ability to stay mentally engaged when you're tired, uncomfortable, and still have a long way to go.
So I wanted to dig into what really goes into going long.
How much running do you actually need? How important are those huge long runs? What does pacing look like during a long timed race? And what can triathletes learn from ultrarunning?
Holly shares her approach, what she has learned from racing ultras, and why she believes the mind may be just as important as the body when it comes to endurance.
Getting Into Ultras
Let’s start at the beginning. What first attracted you to ultrarunning? Was there a particular race, person, or moment when you thought, “I want to try that”?
My husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, was doing ultras, and I was crewing for him at a race. While I enjoyed supporting him, I did get a little bored and thought, I want to try the running part, too!
For someone reading this who has never done an ultra, what actually qualifies as an ultra? And where would you tell someone to start?
I’m a bit of a numbers person, so for me, anything over a marathon qualifies as an ultra.
If you’ve run a marathon before, I don’t necessarily think you have to start with a 50K. Depending on your background, you could jump up to 50 miles.
Timed races are also a fun option because there is no set distance. It’s simply about how far you can go in a given amount of time.
If you’ve never run a marathon, I think you should at least have a half marathon under your belt. From there, depending on your running background, you could potentially jump into a 50K.
Do you need to run a marathon before attempting an ultra? Or could someone with a strong running background jump into a 50K?
I don’t think a marathon is an absolute requirement. It really depends on your running background and overall endurance experience.
Someone with a strong running background could absolutely be ready for a 50K without having formally raced a marathon.
What distance would you recommend as a first ultra: a 50K, 50 miles or a timed race?
It depends on your running background.
A 50K is a natural progression from the marathon, while a timed event can be a really fun introduction because you can focus on effort and experience rather than a specific distance.
What do you think people misunderstand most about ultrarunning before they try it?
This might be a personal opinion, but in some ways, I don’t think ultrarunning is necessarily harder than a marathon.
You get to go a little bit slower, and it’s really about maintaining an easier effort for a longer period of time. To me, it becomes more about mental resilience than physical ability.
Is ultrarunning really about being a great runner, or is it more about managing effort, nutrition, pacing, and your mind?
Definitely nutrition, pacing, and, perhaps most importantly, your mind.
While some ultras are shorter or longer than an IRONMAN, the experience is different because running is harder on the body than biking. And there is no “next sport” to look forward to, it’s just running.
That makes the mental aspect different from a long-distance triathlon. In an IRONMAN, you know there is another discipline coming. In an ultra, you have to stay mentally engaged with the same sport for hours and hours.
You’ve now raced everything from shorter ultras to long timed events. What did your first ultra teach you that training alone never could?
Probably mostly that I could do it.
Interestingly, this didn’t happen when I was training for my first ultra. It happened when I was training for my first IRONMAN. I had serious doubts that I would be able to finish the run portion. I felt absolutely awful on my bricks after long rides and didn’t think I would physically be able to run the marathon.
Of course, come race day, I finished.
That experience really taught me that the body is capable of much more than what your mind thinks it is.
I also learned that training on the road or even mild trails is definitely not the same as training on super technical trails. Your hips need to be so much stronger on technical terrain, especially if there are leaves on the ground or it’s dark. It can be difficult to get that type of training on the road.
Lesson learned: get at least some training on the type of terrain you’ll be racing on.
Was there a point where you realized, “Okay, I’m actually good at this”? And what is it about going long that keeps bringing you back?
I did well at my first ultra, but I think when I did my second one, a longer race with a bigger and more competitive field, I realized I was doing pretty well.
I love racing when you don’t feel like you have to be killing yourself or going super hard. For me, I find it much easier to maintain an easier effort for a long time than pushing myself to a really uncomfortable place for a shorter amount of time.
I also LOVE trails. They keep running fun and keep you on your toes, literally and figuratively. They really keep your mind engaged because you’re constantly thinking about where you’re going to step rather than thinking, Ugh, how many more miles?
Running on the road, biking, and especially swimming make it much easier for thoughts about everyday life to enter your mind, work, family, etc. When you’re trail running, there isn’t too much time for that. At least for me, because I have a big fear of falling, I’m so focused on the trail.
Training for an Ultra
How does training for an ultra differ from training for a marathon?
For me personally, it involves a lot more cross-training.
I don’t do a crazy amount of run volume, but I do add a substantial amount of biking, and I think that helps a lot with my endurance and durability. I’m not sure how my body would hold up to extremely high run volumes.
What does a typical week look like for you when you're preparing for a major ultra?
During the build and peak phase, I keep my running moderate, but I don’t necessarily do one huge long run on the weekend. I focus more on consistent running throughout the week.
That’s paired with a lot of biking, including a long ride on the weekend.
I usually do my long run the day after a long ride. I guess once a triathlete, always a triathlete, it’s a hard habit to break! I’m also usually training for a long-distance triathlon, so I need to incorporate the bike miles.
Sometimes, wink, wink, I’ll swim, too.
How much running volume do you actually need to prepare for a 50K or 50-mile race?
For a 50K, you probably don’t need much more volume compared with training for a marathon.
I’m a big believer in adding cross-training to help boost endurance rather than adding a ton of miles. For people whose bodies can sustain high mileage, it certainly has its place. But for overall longevity in the sport, I would lean more toward supplementing marathon-plus training, with a little more volume than a marathon, with things like biking, the stair machine, or the rower.
Those all have enormous benefits without placing the same toll on your body that running does.
Do you need huge long runs? How long do your longest training runs typically get, and how important are back-to-back long days?
For 50 miles, I don’t think you need huge long runs. One hundred miles is probably a different story, but I haven’t attempted that distance yet.
I do think stacking runs, either back-to-back days or one morning run and one evening run, has a lot of benefits.
My longest run is typically much shorter than race day.
How much of your training is actually running versus strength, recovery, mobility, walking, or other forms of aerobic work?
Like everyone, I definitely need to do more mobility work.
I strength train a few times a week, bike a lot as mentioned above, and sometimes swim. I think all of those things play a huge role in my overall fitness.
Running on tired legs after a long bike ride helps simulate some of the fatigue you feel later in a race without having to put the same amount of strain on your body through running alone.
Do you train specifically to run the entire race, or do you intentionally practice walking, hiking, and changing pace?
I HATE walking.
I’m a slow walker and try to avoid it at all costs in a race, not an ideal strategy for a lot of people!
Angela has tried to get me to do some walk-run workouts, but I find it hard to get going again once I start walking.
I do alter my pace throughout my workouts and always try to descend my aerobic workouts so I finish faster than I started. It really creates muscle memory for continuing to push even when you’re tired at the end of the race.
If I were to do a 100-miler, I would probably incorporate some hiking, but I have yet to do that in training for my races.
How do you train your body to keep moving when your legs are tired?
See above, descending pace.
I also rely on mental strength and telling myself that walking is just as painful as a slow jog.
For non-timed races, there’s another argument: the slower you go, the longer it takes to finish.
For timed races, that argument doesn’t work. It’s more about tapping into what your goals are for the day and deciding how deep you want to go to achieve them.
What role does pacing play? How easy should the first hour of a long timed race actually feel?
If you feel like you are “working” in the first hour, I would say you probably went out too hard.
With all of the adrenaline of a race, it can be easy to overdo it, so I like to make that first hour feel extremely easy.
You have a long way to go.
What are some of the biggest training mistakes you see athletes make when they decide they want to run an ultra?
Probably not fueling correctly during and after workouts.
I also think athletes often aren’t honest with themselves when they start to feel those “little niggles.” It’s best to nip them in the bud early before they become bigger issues.
As a coach yourself, what would you tell someone who says, “I don't have enough mileage to run an ultra”?
Well, I would want to know how much mileage they actually have!
But ultimately, I would say don’t compare yourself to anyone else.
Everyone has different goals, and everyone has different bodies that need different stimuli and can handle different amounts of load. What someone else might consider “enough mileage” might actually be way too much for you.
The goal isn’t to train like someone else. It’s to figure out what your body needs to become the strongest and most durable version of itself.
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