Overcoming Roadblocks - The Ultrarunning Perspective
For those of you unaware, ultra-running is running for distances longer than a 42km marathon. Which is already a lot of running, if you ask me. It’s not uncommon for an ultra to stretch over 100 or even 200 kilometers.
I’ve been fortunate enough to cover these distances a few times. And, contrarily to popular opinion, ultra-running is not boring at all. As a matter of fact, it’s the most entertaining activity I ever engaged in. There’s always something happening.
My favorite part is the one where “you can’t run anymore”. If you keep running for dozens and dozens of kilometers, at some point you will hit this roadblock. No matter how well trained you are, no matter how much experience you have, no matter how good your nutrition and hydration plan is, there will always be a point in the race (usually more than one) in which you will want to just stop. To go home. To have a nice shower, maybe eat something and then lie down in bed and sleep for 80 hours.
In the beginning, when I just started to run and when 5 kilometers of continuous running was an extreme achievement, I was hitting this point a lot. And I was stopping a lot. It all seemed so hard and my body was hurting and my mind was extremely resourceful in finding excuses: “why do you even run?”, “what’s thin pain in your left shoulder, it could be very bad”,”why would you run faster than this old lady jogging, better stop”. And so on and so forth.
But as I kept running, all these excuses vanished. And the “stopping threshold” advanced from 5km, to 10km, to 20km and then even more, to 30km and beyond. Eventually, I finished my first marathon. After 2 years, my first ultra-marathon, 60km. And one year after this ultra I finished the longest race I have under my belt now, a 222km race around lake Balaton in Hungary.
Many Types Of Pain: One Solution
In an ultra, there are many roadblocks, not only the “I can’t run anymore”, which is so popular in the beginning. There are pain roadblocks. There are hallucination roadblocks (never hit one of those but I met enough runners telling me stories about this to know it’s real). There are extreme fatigue roadblocks. There are unexpected troubles like getting lost or missing the cutoff time because of poor logistics from organizers (been in both situations and it’s very frustrating).
But no matter how diverse, how different and how unexpected those roadblocks are, they are all neutralized with only painkiller.
Just. Keep. Going.
I have yet to find a better strategy to cope with roadblocks than the “just keep going” approach. Just put one step in front of the other. Repeat. Yes, you’re tired, yes you're in pain, yes, you’re maybe lost. Just put one leg in front of the other. Repeat. Stop thinking.
I truly think that thinking, in these situations, can be the source of a much bigger problem. Thinking is a tool for making sense of reality. We use it to generate meaning and make our daily lives more bearable, amidst of a whirlwind of entropy. The world has no meaning whatsoever. It’s unpredictable and impermanent. And yet, by mashing together concepts, memories and assumptions, we create a thin bubble of meaning which we carry around us everywhere and which we call “reality”.
But when you voluntarily cut through this bubble, by setting up such a precise and overwhelming goal, like finishing a 200km+ race, thinking doesn’t help. You’re out of the bubble now and that reality model doesn’t work anymore. There is only one thing now that can take you from start to finish: putting one step in front of the other. Period.
That’s why I choose to call my running a form of meditation: in order to finish such a huge race, you have to silence the mind. Because you’re outside of its “competence realm”. There’s nothing that the mind knows that could help you here. The old rules don’t apply here. The moment you try to apply them, you’re forced to stop because that distance is above the known scale. So you have to leave the mind behind and rely just on sheer will. Uncurbed persistence. Breathe in, breathe out, left, right.
This experience shaped my life in many other areas.
Life roadblocks are infinitely more diverse than running roadblocks but, believe it or not, they’re all smashed with the same approach. Just keep going. You lost something, maybe your job, or your business. Just keep going. The world around is changing and suddenly there’s a bunch of fascists running your country? Just keep going, you have more stamina than them. Your health is declining and you’re aging? Welcome to Samsara.
And just. Keep. Going.
image source - Pixabay
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Yup Dragos, just keep going. And we'll just keep reading your blogs and gaining inspiration to just keep going.
Thanks to you I've gone from dying over 5kms to completing 15kms on consecutive days and feeling good about it. Sore, but good. (beer helps)
I got that far by just putting one foot in front of the other, just as you say.
Having read your book - Running for my life, I knew what to look out for, and how my mind will try to get me to stop, and each time it does I laugh and tell it 'I have outsmarted you, so you can't make me stop'.
Keep safe and remember, if the fascists get too much, there is always a lovely little place at the bottom of the world that would welcome you back, any time. :-)
I'll keep that "bottom of the world" option very, very close, Trevor. :)
We have a decent sized very comfy couch if you need it :-)
He he, thanks, but given the weather there (much nicer than here) I may camp on the porch. :)
Just keep going. Indeed, running was always a sort of meditation for me, but I never got any more ambitious than a marathon-- and ran exactly one of those. Did a few half-marathons and lots of 10K's but that's about it. Sadly, my running days are over, mostly thanks to bad knees... but I do enjoy walking and hiking, often 15-20km at a time.
Walking is just as good as running, as long as you just. keep. going. :)