Ultra Tales #1 - Developing Mental Toughness as an Ultramarathon Runner

A couple of years after getting a couple of ultramarathons under my belt I attempted the big one, the ultimate goal, a 100 miler. Due to injuries and sickness prior to the event I had a bit of a terrible time and unfortunately failed my mission, quitting at just over the halfway point. Fast forward a couple of years and I had forgotten the hardship of the race but not dream of the accomplishment. November 2021 came around and I signed up for the 100 miler again giving myself 12 months to prepare and promising myself that this time I will give the task the focus and disciplined approach it deserves. My old and favoured routines and hobbies had to take a backseat and running fairly far, fairly often claimed all my spare time and energy reserves. Building up to the main event, I signed for 2 other big races, each slightly farther than the previous, to help give me a bit of all year-round determination for a goal that I was determined not fail at a second time. The first of which was a 77km ultramarathon.

The morning started just like many of my other long-distance attempts – waking up super early on the day of the event and then a long drive to completely the wrong place! (I’ve done this so many times, it’s almost a hobby in itself) The race organisers had repeatedly explained that it was a quiet start so to not upset the locals around the hotel near the start line. On arrival, the place was a little more than quiet – it was silent, but I asked my wife to drop me and leave as quickly and as quietly as possible. We were in the middle of nowhere and it was very dark and very quiet. My wife had no phone reception and was reluctant to leave me. While I gathered my race kit in the rain she searched through her emails. Thankfully she didn't follow my instructions and just drive off. I managed to get phone reception and then realised we were at the wrong hotel! We drove 7kms back the way we came and managed to get to the race line with 5 minutes to spare.

The sun was just beginning to rise as the race began. There were two race distances starting at the same time, the 100km and 75km. Still being 6 months away from my ultimate goal I decided on running the slightly shorter race. There were aid stations every 15km or so and I had left drop backs (bags filled with treats and nutrition) at 3 of them - 22km, 38km and 62km. The drop bags had the same race fuel as what I had started with packed into my race vest. Having fine tuned my nutrition over the last few ultras I had found a few things that worked for me and discovered a few that did not. Race gels, while light and easy, were bad for my belly. During the race my body would need carbs, and my stomach would need solid food, so my food of choice was high in fast burning energy – cakes, it was pretty much cakes. Each pack contained a mini-Belgium waffle, a banana muffin bar, an oat and raisin cookie, some salty rice crackers, a Bix hydrolyte tablet and some liquid race fuel (which is basically flavoured hydrolyte and sugar water). Each bag consisted of about 700 calories all up, if I could keep it down. Running and eating takes a bit of practice, and I had tested eating each of the different foods on my training runs. I didn't want to belly issues that messed up my previous event.

The race was underway, and all was good up until about the 25km mark. I figured this would happen as time constraints rarely let me get beyond a half marathon in training (21.1km). Past the 25km marker I was stretching every 2 or 3kms – everything was tight, but I was determined to not let this snowball into a bigger issue. I stopped, reassessed, ate, popped some paracetamol and soldiered on. I had to change my running style around the 32km mark. Running normally was proving too difficult. My hips were too tight and, while the constant stretching was helping, the frequency of needing to stretch was getting a bit ludicrous. I adopted something that was very effective, though probably looked a little silly, my zombie shuffle. This entailed barely extending my legs into a full run. This fixed the hips, kind of, and helped me move at a very efficient pace that was easily twice as fast as walking with much more forward momentum. Endurance events tend to become a battle of wills between the need to walk and the need to finish. Often this result in telling yourself "I'll run to that tree and walk to the next one". With my new zombie shuffle though, and with the help of an good audiobook, I "ran" the whole way to the finish.

Prior to the start of the event, I had set myself 3 goals for this race, ranging from optimistic to probable to bare minimum. Going by my previous attempts at similar distances (82km in 12h9m and 80km in 13h30m) I knew what I was capable of. Having looked at the previous year’s results, I could see that this was a potentially flat and fast course. So, my mini goals were; minimum acceptable effort - finish before the 15 hour cut off time, to a probable finish time of 12 hours ish and then an optimistic, but main aim, of 10 hours.

At one point I thought my finishing time was going to be around 9h 30m. Crazy. My zombie shuffle was proving to be the best technique for the terrain, and my sugary treats gave me the perfect boost when required. Unfortunately, the last 10km, which turned out to be 12km, had other ideas and I needed to dig deep to get it done. Finishing in 10h30, I’m still very happy with the result. The event was great. The volunteers were supportive and amazing. (Apparently it took 57 volunteers, with some doing multiple roles, to get the race working - a mammoth effort especially in the sometimes-rainy conditions. Amazing). And that was it. I had smashed my previous best by 1.5 hours, and I feel like I earned my ridiculously oversized participation medal. Not a bad effort for an ex-smoker of 25 years. I was proving to myself, and hopefully to anyone looking in, that past life choices needn’t define our futures. We can still reach our goals no matter how far away they seem. We just have to take the first step – or shuffle.