Thrive wherever life takes you
A blog series chronicling the adventures of a psychologist, ultra endurance athlete, and outdoor enthusiast committed to creating a life rich in experiences, growth, and purpose.
One adventure in the books:
One big adventure I cannot stop thinking about was my six weeks of living and working out of our Ford Transit camper van in Phoenix Arizona. One of the things I appreciate most about my work right now is the ability to do it from anywhere. What better way to take advantage of this than actually pack up and work from the place that was going to bring me the most joy in the winter months: a trailhead in the desert! Swapping snow for saguaros was a great choice. I was so grateful to be able to explore new trails and run on some old favorites in near perfect 60 degree weather.
In addition to it being a fun experience, living in the van was a growth experience. It’s in moments and experiences like this, during which I am trying something new, something with a little bit of a challenge, that I feel most content and most alive. One refrain that’s been echoing in my head over the past year or so has been “Are you living or are you waiting.” This most definitely felt like living.
There is no better time than today to take a step forward toward doing something you have always wanted to do. Happiness and purpose is found in the living, not in the waiting. If you look for an excuse, it will always be there. But if you look for the opportunity, it will always be there as well.
When was the last time you did something that you’ve long dreamed of doing?
One goal on the horizon:
Practice finishing a race with nothing left in the tank.
This is a skill I had been refining 4-5 years ago when I was running a lot of marathons. As I moved into the ultra endurance space, my mentality about running and events shifted more to adventure, experience, and completion versus expectations and competition. While this was a helpful developmental shift at the time, I am working on rekindling some of that competition mentality. At this point I know I am more than capable of running the distance, and now I want to work on running the distance while giving everything I have, leaving nothing on the course that day. This calculus is a little harder to refine in events that last 12, 16, 20, 24+ hours. The map of race day effort needs to feel a lot different than a marathon. In an event that short you are tapping into a moderately hard to hard effort the entire day. For an all-day run, it’s detrimental to push too hard to early. Pushing a little too hard over many hours could mean blowing up and not being able to finish strong, or finish at all.
As I work on translating this ability to ultra endurance running, I have been implementing the rule of thirds. What’s the rule of thirds? It’s a way to divide up a very long day based on effort and feel. The first third of the day should feel “too easy”. This is a necessity. It means you are running within yourself early on and your fitness is sound. The second third should feel “just right”. This means you are keeping up a steady, solid effort, you are not slowing down or backing off too much. The miles and time on feet are starting to accumulate. It doesn’t feel easy anymore, but it’s too early in the day still to describe the effort as continually hard. The last third should feel “hard”. This is the point at which, no matter how good your fitness is, if you are really going to finish with nothing left in the tank, it should start to hurt. If you are in the final third of your event and you aren’t starting to feel like it is too hard, you’re going to cross the finish line with more inside you.
When you reach the final 10% of your event (e.g. 10 miles to go in a 100, 5 miles remaining in a 50) it’s time to throw caution to the wind, open up, and hammer. It might be helpful to come up with a short message to remind yourself to push hard at this point in the race. Some examples could be “hammer it home”, “empty the tank”, “no more what ifs”. Many people have metaphors they use to describe their training. Some people like to conceptualize all of the workouts and training days as making deposits in a bank, from which you withdraw on race day. I’ve also heard people describe training as collecting matches to put in a match book, which you burn on race day. There are many others. Your short message to yourself in the final 10% of your event can use the same imagery and language you’ve been using in your training. You can even practice using the message on a particularly challenging or long day of training to see how it feels and if you think it will be emotionally compelling on race day.
One quote I’m loving right now:
“The comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.”