In 2016 after 21.5 hours, 95km and 4500m of uphill running, I stepped off the course of The North Face Lavaredo Ultra Trail, dumped my broken body into a car and headed to my hotel for pizza and a beer. I’d taken on 120km of Italy’s epic Dolomites and lost.
Despite putting in six months of hard training, I’d picked up my first ever DNF (Did Not Finish). Looking back, I believe I didn’t get to the finish line because although I’d trained my body, I hadn’t adequately prepared my mind.
A year later I went back with a new approach. I ran with brain and not brawn. However, despite running a much smarter race and feeling much better at every stage, injury sadly forced me out again after 93km. But I have a saying that you have to find a win in every every race, no matter the outcome and even though I’m still yet to pick up my Lavaredo finisher’s gilet, I learnt just as much from my second failed attempt as I did the first.
I will go back for another crack at those Dolomites but in the meantime, for anyone considering a mountain or trail ultra, I thought I’d share some of the mind games this sea-level loving city dweller has picked up to help make molehills out of those mountains.
Mountain ultra tips for the mental battle
Prepare for the battle ahead
When you’re attempting to run ultra distances that include the elevation-gain equivalent of scaling Ben Nevis three times, it’s vital to go into the race expecting a fight and acknowledge before you start, just how hard things are going to get. This may sound negative but accepting the inevitability of pain and suffering is the only way you can begin to equip your mind with the tools it needs to get you through the most challenging moments.
Know your enemy
Properly preparing for the battle ahead means doing your homework to find out as much as you can about what awaits you on the course. I failed to do this properly for my first attempt at the Lavaredo and I paid the price.
I’m a big believer in running sections of the race if you can, particularly the last 10 miles, but that’s not always possible. Failing that, it’s smart to talk to as many people as you can who’ve run the race before. Ask questions about the details. Are there any hidden climbs the route map doesn’t show? Any stretches where you’re exposed to the sun for long periods? Any sections where the difficulty of the terrain means the distance between water stations could take twice as long as usual? The aim here is to avoid as many nasty surprises as possible because it’s the unexpected horrors that do the most mental damage.
All runners develop their own methods, for example, I like to swear at the part of my body that hurts the most
Don’t expect to run it all
I turned up to my first mountain marathon expecting to run most of it, afterall it was the inspirational sweeping shots of runners floating effortlessly along mountain trails that made me sign up in the first place. In my head I’d absolutely definitely enjoy the same exilerating free-running but boy was I wrong. Unless you’re a mountain goat like Kilian Jornet, races like the Lavaredo Ultra Trail, the Marathon du Mont Blanc and the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) are as much about fast hiking and scrambling as they are about running. This means a couple of things. Firstly, at times you’ll feel like you’re making painfully slow progress and that can play on your mind. Secondly, there will be parts of the race where you feel the organisers are deliberately toying with you, by sending you over unnecessarily torturous terrain you won’t believe they’d ever consider ‘runable’.
Develop coping strategies
At some point your body will tell you stop, and when I say tell you, what I really mean is, it’ll scream at you with every strained fibre to ‘sit your ass down’ and end the torment. The good news is that your brain can override this. It won’t stop the hurting but with the right coping techniques you can keep moving through the pain. All runners develop their own methods, for example, I like to swear at the part of my body that hurts the most, on repeat, my very own potty-mouthed mantra. Some runners try to engage all their senses and use the surroundings as a distraction. Others focus on the rhythm of their breath to induce a meditative state that silences the screaming muscles.
Be ready to give more
Once you get beyond what I call the Screaming Stage, you’re likely to reach the point at which you feel like you’ve given everything. You’ve used all of your coping strategies and now you’re running on fumes, physically and mentally.
I hit this wall shortly before I walked into the carpark to quit my first Lavaredo attempt. What I didn’t realise was that it’s possible to break through even this seemingly insurmountable barrier, you just have to be willing to accept the suffering. In order to finish my first 100-mile race, Centurion Running Thames Path Ultra, I went to a far darker place than I’d been when I dropped out of the Lavaredo. You have to tell yourself, I know it hurts, it’s ok it hurts and find solace in simplest of things, such as the fact you are still putting one foot in front of the other and moving forwards.
Forget normal
What you are asking your body to do is not normal so you can’t expect the ‘normal’ physical response you get from ’normal’ running. Parts of your body will take it in turn to creak and groan and that’s ok. The first time I experienced this I spent an entire race fearing an imminent injury that thankfully never came. I have no science to back this up but it feels like your body’s way of trying to convince you to stop the madness you’re attempting. It’s important to listen carefully and separate the passing niggles from the real potential injuries.
Be kind to yourself
In my view, this is the most important of all the psychological stunts you can pull. It’s all too easy to beat yourself up if your race takes a temporary turn for the worse, for example your pace drops or you start to suffer a bit. You zero in on ‘mistakes’ you may have made, like you didn’t train hard enough, you didn’t eat right before the race, or you made a bad choice of running bag. Chastising yourself like this never helps, instead it’s better to let yourself off the hook and focus on the positives. As long as you are moving forward you are winning.
Now read this: What you need to know before you run the Lavaredo Ultra Trail
