Strength Training & Ultrarunning

I’m totally unqualified to answer your question, but since it’s been a few days, I think maybe this thread might be related to your question:

Cardio: Is it better to split the long runs, or do them in a few big sessions

It’s in the powerlifting vs endurance training context and doesn’t answer your question about whether to run first or lift first, but it does talk about the compromises involved. For what it’s worth, I’ve always read that you want to lift while recovered as much as possible, so I guess if someone told me I’d have to do both in a day, I’d lift first.

Nick;

You’ll need to better explain what you mean by strength training. There is a very broad spectrum of “strength” training from Max 4-5 sets of 4-5 reps at 90% 1RM efforts to Hypertrophy 6-8 sets or 8-10 reps going to failure in each set (which is sounds like you have been doing to add that much weight), to Muscular Endurance training (which can have significant positive effect on your running) to Hill Sprint workouts which are a very sport specific to develop running power. All of these fall under the area defined as strength training. We discuss all of this at length here and give some suggestions.

There is no one easy answer to this question without knowing a lot more. The only thing I can say with certainty is that adding as much muscle mass as you seem to have is going to have a strongly negative effect on your running performance.

Scott