What I learnt from running an Ultra Marathon.
July 15, 2024 |
In June ’24 I ran my first ultra-marathon. An ultra-marathon is generally considered any distance from 50km and beyond. I chose the 50km partly because I wanted to do it in June and I wanted to do it on the road rather than trails. The race I chose was in Perth.
I have run marathons before and as some people have said “It’s only an additional 8k to a normal marathon’ which is true but the two races are very different. In a marathon, you are running as quickly as you can and hanging on when your body starts to shut down (hitting the wall – where your energy levels are depleted) whereas an ultra is about pacing yourself ensuring that you don’t hit the wall. If you hit the wall in an ultra it is close to impossible to finish unless of course, you start to walk.
Lessons
I try and practice what I preach – With some of my clients, I focus on helping them with learning and mindset. Whether that is helping them prepare for a difficult conversation, presenting to a senior stakeholder group or managing their personal boundaries. This was a test of both my learning and mindset. The lead time to prepare for an event like this is about 18 weeks. You could do it quicker or use more time but 18 weeks felt right for me. One of the best things I did was get a coach to support me. I was doing something I hadn’t done before – I knew I needed my crew to support me. My coach Karen has run many ultras and big ones including 100-mile races. The most important thing was to get to the start line and having a coach to plan the schedule and get the miles in the legs was invaluable. We would check in on progress and she would change the program depending on how I was feeling and the level of fatigue. I also ran with others whether it it was my weekly Saturday group or joining others on my Sunday long runs. Surrounding myself with the support of others during the process was invaluable in getting to the starting line.
The second learning was the importance of polarity thinking or as I talk about in my book (Survive and Thrive) – embracing dualities. I was very disciplined about my running but less so about recovery which is so important in getting to the start line. I did some stretching but not enough. My nutrition was poor resulting in me hitting the wall on long runs and needing a nap post the long runs. Running and recovery go hand hand in hand but they also compete with each other. I didn’t get the balance right and that became apparent when I injured myself at the 10-week mark and couldn’t run for nearly 3 weeks. It was a big learning for me and one I would never repeat.
The other piece of learning (which came late in the process) was the importance of nutrition during runs and in recovery. This was a game changer – I met with a qualified nutritionist who helped me enormously and her advice was the reason I didn’t hit the wall during the run. It was the first time I felt I nailed my nutrition in a race.
Mindset
The other lesson during the process was the importance of mindset. I am generally pretty disciplined about my running – I enjoy it and love running to a schedule. Other than my injury time I didn’t miss a session and there were some tough sessions in the heat. Running an ultra is more about mindset than it is physical. Sure, you have to put in the work but on the day it’s all about your mindset – How will I pace myself, how do I manage my ego of skipping water stations because it will be quicker, how do I run through this pain and how do I run through the boredom (I was running around the river of Perth so that made it easier!). Mindset, in this case, is no different to how I help my clients – Have a process that you are disciplined about but some flexibility in case things don’t go to plan and break it into small doable steps. I knew what my process was – to run at a particular pace for the first 30k’s and a pace for the last 20 and to take in nutrition every 35 mins. I was going to stop at every drink station to take in 2 cups of water and I was going to express gratitude to the volunteers at the drink stations. I also broke down each stage mentally into 10/10/10/5/5/2/2/2/2/2k distances. Mentally that helped me to hang in there.
Finally, I wanted to notice my anxiety as I got closer to race day and in the lead up I was nervous about whether I would finish due to my injuries. To move through that anxiousness I chose to treat the run as a typical slow long run that I would do on a weekly basis and that the run was a celebration of my hard work rather than be attached to the performance. In the end, I was delighted with my time and my process, mindset, gratitude and the coaching I received helped me achieve this.
Gratitude
I never underestimate the gratitude I have for doing something like this. I am grateful for being able to run, to run in a beautiful city and the impact it has on my physical and mental health. Gratitude shifts me from worrying about the outcome to focusing on the process. It also shifts me into the growth mindset needed to tackle hard things.
In my new book Getting Stuck – How Learning Bravely is a Superpower for Personal Growth and Change I talk about some of these concepts and how you can get traction on your learning aspirations. If you are interested in learning more or help in getting the right mindset please contact me at andrew@agilityconsulting.com.au.
