The Toolbox
The same tools I plan my own races with.
Four planners I built for myself and tidied up so you can use them too. They run right here in the page, they are free, and every one prints clean enough to go straight into a crew binder.
Race Planning
Backyard Ultra Race Planner
A backyard ultra runs one 6.7 km loop every hour until a single runner is left. I built this after working through the top performances in the format alongside 24, 48 and 72 hour racing. It brings fatigue, weather, your planned fade, and your sodium and water into one plan, adjusted hour by hour for temperature and time of day.
Use it a few weeks out, then print it for your crew.
Open the tool →
Race Logistics
Crew Plan Builder
Your crew needs one page that says where to be, roughly when you will get there, and what to put in your hands. Enter the aid stations and one honest pace and it works out the timing, the drop bags, the cutoffs, and what to do on a bad day.
Fill it in with your crew chief, not for them.
Open the tool →
Nutrition
Ultra Fueling Planner
More ultras end in the stomach than in the legs. Set your hourly calories, fluids, and sodium and it turns them into a schedule you can follow, down to how many flasks to carry and when to stop living on gels.
Build it early and train on it until it is boring.
Open the tool →
Trip Planning
Trail Adventure Planning Checklist
For any day in the mountains that is bigger than a normal run. Enter the route and the date and it gives you an honest time estimate, your daylight budget, the water for the longest dry stretch, and a packing list that matches.
Print the trip plan and leave it with someone before you drive.
Open the tool →
How to get the most out of them
Fill it in early
Do it weeks out, at the kitchen table, when you can still change your mind about things. Build it the night before and you are mostly working off guesses, with no time left to go and check any of them.
Change my numbers
Every default is a starting point from my own racing. Yours will be different, and the tool is only worth something once it matches what you actually do in training.
Print it
Phones die, get wet, and end up in a drop bag two aid stations back. Paper in a binder does not. Everything here is built to print.
Tools I use (built by other people)
Other people have already built great tools for this sport, and I lean on them all the time. Here is what earns a spot on my phone.
ultraPacer ↗
Full-course pacing models with grade, altitude, and fatigue. The real deal for split planning; bring its numbers into my crew builder as ETA overrides.
CalTopo ↗
The mapping table I plan every project on: route drawing, terrain layers, travel-time estimates, and printable maps.
SpotWX ↗
Point forecasts from multiple weather models for any pin you drop on the map. The trailhead forecast, not the nearest town's.
Suunto App ↗
My favourite tool for creating new routes on the go: draw the line on my phone, sync it to the watch, and get moving.
Is there a tool or template from my kit you want to see here? Tell me and I will build the Toolbox around what people actually use.
Go Deeper
Want the thinking behind the tools?
These tools will do the arithmetic for you, but they cannot tell you whether the objective is the right one, or what to do when the day stops going to plan. That is the work: route strategy, logistics, crewing, fueling, and the calls that turn a big scary idea into a project you can actually run.
For Teams
The same thinking, on a stage
The Mountain Method keynote takes the same thinking these tools train and hands it to your team as a framework they can use the next time a plan falls apart on them.
Keep Going
A tool cannot tell you if your plan is any good.
It will do the math and print you a tidy page. Whether the objective suits you, whether the timeline is honest, and what you do when it falls apart at 2:00 AM is the part I coach.