I was never meant to be a runner. Growing up, I played football as an offensive lineman. Running was a form of punishment. Mess up, take a lap. Running was unnatural to me, so naturally, when I began my running journey in 2019, it was not some aha moment. It required a growth mindset.
To me, that meant understanding through effort, seeking knowledge, and learning from setbacks, I could continue to grow in my abilities as a runner. Running has probably tested me more than anything else I have done. There is always something to learn, something to improve. And typically something will come along and remind you just how little control you actually have.
In late 2023, I signed up for the Mississippi Ultra 50K. I trained diligently. Looking back, it may have been one of the best training blocks I have had. I could taste a new PR as the date inched closer. My nutrition was dialed in. The long training runs felt effortless, and everything was clicking. Then, the Tuesday before the race, I came down with a stomach bug.
The plan was to fight through it and hope that I would feel better come race day. Four days felt like enough time. Rehydrate, start eating normally, get some rest, and hope Saturday morning felt some type of normal. Hope was lost on the trails that morning pretty quickly.
I could hold down no fuel and my body was still not fully hydrated after days of illness. After 12.5 miles my day was done. My first DNF. Seeing how easily something beyond my control could derail months of training had me questioning if all the work was worth it.
Moments like that are beyond disappointing. All the weeks of work, early morning long runs, time away from family, all derailed by a random illness the week of the race. There was no pacing mistake on the trails. No prep I skipped that I could blame. I got sick at the worse possible time. I struggled with accepting that.
It would have been easy to decide longer races were not worth it. If one random thing could go wrong the week of a race and wipe out months of hard work, then why even bother? Why build weekends around long runs, plan nutrition, spends weeks months preparing for something that could be ruined so easily. That is where the growth mindset came in.
There was no convincing myself the DNF did not matter. It did. I was beyond disappointed. But I had to learn how to respond to it without letting one bad day in the woods decide what I did next. Come that September, I would take on another 50K, but this time I would look at training differently.
Thinking back on that race day disappointment, I tried to focus more on my love of running and less on viewing months of training as something graded on just one day.
I had become a better runner during the MS50 training block whether I finished or not. My endurance had improved. I had learned more about fueling, pacing, and spending long hours on the trails. I had stacked weeks of work that did not suddenly disappear because I stopped after just one 12.5 mile loop. All those miles were not wasted.
That September, I took on the Wildcat Ultra 50K. It came with its own set of challenges: heat and humidity. But this time I finished. Of course, that mattered. After the disappointment in Mississippi this meant a ton. But the bigger change happened before I walked up to the starting line. I was no longer looking at races as the only thing that gave training value. The progress happened in the weeks and months leading up to it.
A growth mindset is typically not the easy way. In this case, it would have been easier to move on from ultramarathons. I could have focused on distances that require less training, less time invested in one race. Had I done that, I do not think I would be the runner I am today.
The mental side of distance running can be sometimes overlooked. You can train physically for months, but eventually something is going to go sideways. Maybe that is in training, maybe on race day. Or maybe you get a stomach bug the week of a race you have been training on for months. You cannot prepare for every outcome. What you can do is work on how you respond when the outcome is not what you wanted.
I still train toward goals. I still care about race results and check the pace on my watch a little too much. I am not going to pretend my next DNF will not hurt just because I learned something from MS50. But I also do not look at one race as the final grade on months of training.
Control what I can control. Be prepared for the things I can be prepared for. Learn from what happens next.
2 Responses
Thank you for that.
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