Ultra mantras and learning from mistakes
It's completely normal, talking intently to yourself
In my previous article I talked about how busy it can feel running an ultra-marathon, ahead of a 100km race I’ll be running this coming weekend.
I also have a series of mantras that serve me well during a race. These begin as occasional prompts of self-support and as the day progresses, the legs start to fail and the will disintegrates they become more like crutches, alongside my poles. I shuffle along, repeating the same slogans again and again. Here’s some of my favourites:
“Nothing worse than a DNF”
Not for everyone, but I really, really don’t like not finishing a race. It’s not shame particularly, it just feels like a massive waste of time – if I’ve trained for weeks and months for an event that I end up not finishing then what was it all for? If I DNF a race, did the training even happen? So, occasionally, reminding myself how much I don’t like not finishing helps to keep my sorry legs ticking along for a while longer.
“Just keep moving forwards”
That’s the key one, right? The chant that every ultra runner, walker and shuffler tells themself on repeat when the going gets tough. And it’s good sense – whatever speed you’re going, however tough it seems, moving forwards is going to get you there quicker than not sitting, standing or lying down. This is especially important if you’re not worried about the time you finish, just about getting to the finish. The finish line is not going to come to you, so go and get it.
“You signed up for this”
My version of the classic ‘I don’t have to do this, I get to do this‘. I try and remind myself that I will look back on this day when am I old and my legs have failed. I will tell my marvelling grandchildren that this is something I used to do. One day I won’t be able to do this any more, and I’ll miss it, but I’ll be so glad that I did. And I’ll be glad that I properly tested myself to see what I could do.
“Fat Ian’s not doing this”
As I’d said last time, I find it helpful to compare myself to the other versions of me that couldn’t be bothered with any of this. I was the fat kid at the back of school cross-country. I was average at most things sporty, and I still remember the frustration of the feeling of lack of mobility. And reminding myself that this version of Ian gets to run all day long, even in his middle age, can help a couple more miles tick by.
“Eat it anyway.”
This is my new favourite mantra. But I feel sick! Eat it anyway. But I don’t want that bar/gel/sandwich. Eat it anyway. But I was going to have some proper food at the next aid station. Eat it anyway.
One of things that held me back in my early trail races was getting hungry – I was taking on the right amount of carbs/calories, but after about four hours my stomach was empty and I started feeling hungry and sick. Which then puts you into the spiral of not wanting to eat, under-fuelling, slowing down, feeling worse and before you know it you’re in that dream where time is spinning past and you’re not getting anywhere.
I’ve previously found that the magic ingredient is the humble cheese sandwich. It’s simple, it’s excellent ballast for even a fragile stomach and it’s nicely portable.
You’ll see there’s not much love and affection in those mantras, because I don’t want sympathy and cuddles when I’m in a state, I want a kick up the arse and some tough love. I need shouting at and unceremonially shoving back onto the trail.
Training for this race has been an evolution from previous training routines. I’m adding in a bit more tempo than usual. I’m trying to do more hikes with poles, and do more arm work to try and make the pole thing sustainable (rather than just adding to the list of body parts that hurt after 40 miles).
Walking up hills with poles is a bit of a revelation, it’s so much faster than without and carrying them is much less hassle than I thought (even the clunky, 15 quid ones that I use). They are also great for flat running on tired legs – it’s just like running with crutches, every couple of steps you can give yourself a little boost. It does feel slightly like cheating but it’s definitely not so I’m hoping this can be a real bonus later in the race this weekend.
I keep saying race, there will be no racing. This is entirely a just-get-round challenge. If I can’t get the race mentality out of my head then this will be the death of me. The trouble is, the nature of this kind of thing (and that at least half the people walk an event like this) means that even if I just finish, having aimed to run it all, I’ll probably be in the first ten – and as soon as I remember that, my worst instincts kick in and before you know it I’m trying to run stupid hills, overtaking people I don’t need to and basically getting to 50km a sun-charred, gasping husk, instead of the fresh, lightly-aching trail runner I need to be.
It’s funny that a marathon is a completely arbitrary distance, because it seems to be the exact distance above which you need to completely change your approach, at least that’s what I’ve found. I’ve done five marathons and am approaching my fifth ultra, and even a 50km trail race is a very different beast to a road 26.2.
Once I start training for longer distances, and once runs of over 20 miles become the norm, the usual list of niggles start to arise. I always get the same problem in my right foot, which I understand to be Morton’s neuroma, a swelling on the nerve between the third and fourth toes. My right ITB starts to get a bit sore.
And although it’s not that much more in hours of training, it does seem to take its toll in terms of energy. The long run takes out more and more of Sunday. I need more sleep than usual.
I’m of the view that physical training only gets you to about 35 miles in any case. After that it’s entirely about how much you can control yourself mentally, and how much you can eat, and keep eating.
My previous ultras have been a bit of a journey.
In my first ultra, I think it’s fair to say that although I had trained well, I underestimated almost everything. I went straight in for a hot, hilly 100km, went too fast too early, ate too much before the race and too little during and basically found that none of my body worked by mid-afternoon and I dropped out at 57km, having worked out that at the pace I was going it would take me another 13 hours to finish.
On a technicality it wasn’t a DNF (it clearly was) because there was also a 50km variant so I had finished that and got a medal accordingly. But it was, not to put too fine a point on it, a shit show. Lots of lessons learned and hence, to my wife’s disappointment, it was not to be my last rodeo.
One of the key discoveries I made after that first race was that that’s what it’s supposed to be like. That feeling of being at death’s door? Normal. Everything hurting? Standard practice. Feeling sick, dizzy and wanting to curl up in a ball by the side of the trail? All part of the fun. I definitely hadn’t realised back then the sheer suffering that every ultramarathoner goes through, pretty much every time they go long.
It was after that first attempt that I started reading, watching and listening to much more content about ultrarunning (which continues to be most of what I listen to, several years later). What were Kilian and Courtney going through on their races? How do the pros train, prepare and race?
Of course, one of the consequences of ‘consuming’ a lot of that kind of content is that you start to normalise it – which was great to help understand that I need to be able to dig way deeper if I was going to finish one of these. You can easily convince yourself that everyone’s knocking out a hundred-miler every other weekend, and that it’s not that big a deal. But, as your legs will surely tell you, it is.
My second attempt was a 52 miler with about 1500m of vert – modest by global standards, a reasonably big deal by mine. This went well – I finished, broadly when I thought I would, in spite of a prolonged period of darkness and despair between miles 38 and 47, mostly brought about by not eating and drinking enough.
As so often flat Coke and mini cheddars revived me and I found a second wind to get to the finish, delighted to have completed a double marathon.
And I thought that would be it – demons vanquished, ambition quelled, but the following winter, back came those thoughts again – could I do another one? I decided to sign up for a 50k with the aim of visiting strongly. In relative terms, that is – could I cross a finish line without the gasping, sobbing and cramping that seemed to have become a regular feature?
No, I couldn’t. Another finish, certainly, and a tenth place overall, but once again it was too hot and I’d gone a bit faster than my little legs should have done and I experienced the curious phenomenon of both my calves and both my quads all cramping at the same time. Try stretching that one out.
So, still some unfinished business. I tried a different race last year – this time a 42-miler – and it went as well as could have been expected. I wasn’t in a terrible state, but I did end up going really really slowly for the last few miles.
And now with less than a week to go we’re back round to trying to get 100km finished – but hopefully this time as a stronger and wiser runner. Six years older, but that doesn’t seem to be any kind of impediment these days.
My plan this time is to basically eat, the whole time, so I never get hungry and therefore never feel sick (or at least, not until much later). This particular event is well-catered, largely because many people taking part plan to walk the whole thing and so will probably be taking 24 hours to get round. So there’s proper, cooked food available at various points, rather than the endless supply of sweets and biscuits you often get.
I’d like to get to halfway in reasonable comfort and then from that point on it’s all teeth-gritting, force-feeding, and remembering how lucky you are to be doing this, or something. To be honest I’m quite apprehensive now, because I know what the second half of an ultra feels like and in particular, that bit around halfway through when you’ve run more than a marathon and yet you know you’ve still got more than half a marathon to go. I will try and remember to laugh ruefully at that point, rather than just wailing and sobbing. And it’s going to be so hot.
The race is on Saturday and I’ve booked Monday off work so I can spend it all sitting and eating. I’ll report back next week on how it all went.