I love reading biographies and autobiographies of great runners, and I read 3 marvellous books in quick succession during the summer which helped me understand why I had never really been cut out for ultra distance running. “North” by Scott Jurek, “Running and stuff” by James Adams, and “There is no map in hell” by Steve Birkinshaw – Three great books – each very different from the other and yet dealing with exactly the same story: how incredibly tough it is to run long distance ultras. I strongly recommend them all. They describe spells during their epic runs that involve injury, illness, sleep deprivation, pain and exhaustion that are beyond misery, and which no “sane” person would subject themself to by choice. When I dropped out of the GUCR at 85 miles in May 2003, I felt I was in so much agony from my knees and hips, that continuing was impossible. I still believed that 17 years later until I read those books.
I remember very well that the pain was awful, but my problem was that I hadn’t prepared myself for that level of pain. Of course I knew it would get really tough, but I hadn’t planned a way through that pain. I had simply decided that it would become unbearable at some point, and when I reached that point, I’d have to stop. And that’s what I did. I had also accepted from the outset that reaching 100 miles would be OK, even though the race distance was 145 miles.
If your plan includes failing, there a fair chance that you’ll fail.
If you’re doing a long ultra, there’s never much doubt that at some point it will become awful and there will be pain, but if you’ve already got a plan that recognises that fact, a plan that understands that it’s possible to get through the toughest of moments and essentially says “I will have to stop occasionally, I will have to move very slowly for a while, but I will keep moving forward, no matter what” you stand a much better chance of success.
Next up (a change of pace) running on a treadmill.
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