Born to run 'A drug that's very safe and healthy': what ultrarunners teach us about life

Imagine being able to run a marathon in three hours and 17 minutes. That is certainly no mean feat.

- Sean Ingle

But now think about trying to sustain that same pace for another nine hours. To most of us, the idea veers somewhere between the fantastical and the insane. Yet that is what Caitriona Jennings, a 45-year-old ultrarunner from Donegal, did this month when breaking the women's world record for 100 miles.

Her time for the Tunnel Hill 100 Mile in Illinois was 12hr 37min 4sec - an average pace of 7min 34sec a mile. Incredibly, until then Jennings had never run more than 60 miles in one go. Having smashed the record, she then jumped on a red-eye economy flight from Chicago that landed in Dublin at 5am. Then she cycled straight to the office, where she works for a company that trades and leases planes to global airlines.

Some say ultrarunners are a little kooky, a little out of the box. In truth, they probably are, but perhaps they can also teach us a thing or two about life, and how to live it.

Jennings dismisses the idea she is any kind of superwoman. Sure, the thought of running 100 miles felt a bit crazy at first, she says. But, as an experienced runner, why not probe the boundaries of the possible? So she trained before work and during her lunch breaks, as well as running 48-64 miles every weekend, to ready herself for what lay ahead.

"The hardest part in the race came after 60 miles because I hadn't even got to the point where I could say: 'Right, just one marathon to go now,'" she says. "But my body held up pretty well. It was just the mental side."