Relentless Forward Progress_ A Guide to Running Ultramarathons - Bryon Powell [68]
During a race, be vigilant in observing your body’s own signs. It’s easy to focus wholly on your race plan and making relentless forward progress. In fact, it’s often much easier to zone out than to be in the moment. While you can zone out from time to time, you need to regularly check back in with yourself. When you sense something is not right, contemplate its significance. Take action to make it better sooner than later. Be proactive, not reactive. That’s to say, recognize and remediate your problems before they derail your race.
Discomfort is almost a given in an ultramarathon. Learning to determine the difference between discomfort and injury is important. While I’m no doctor and this is not medical advice, dull aches and stiffness tend to be harmless discomfort. Continuing through discomfort is less likely to have long-lasting consequences. The decision to persevere is based on your own willingness to deal with the discomfort and the desire to continue. Stabbing or other acute pains, on the other hand, more likely indicate a serious injury that could have a lasting effect. If medical personnel are available on the course, seek their opinion as to whether continuing will likely lead to long-term or permanent injury.
While no one likes to drop out from a race, it’s sometimes the prudent thing to do. To reduce the chances of serious regret, consider the issue of dropping out well ahead of race day. Decide under what conditions you are willing to drop out and what conditions are unacceptable reasons for dropping. This is especially important if you have a chronic injury. Determine the extent to which you are willing to push yourself through this injury should it act up on race day.
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Across the Highland Sky: A Story of In-Race Management
Eric Grossman
I’m running on the Road Across the Sky. I’ve got five Pringles in my left hand, and one in my right. I try to keep my lungs full, exhaling about half the volume with each breath. The painful tugging runs from my ribs to my belly just right of mid line. I know my ileo psaos is cramping. I push the single Pringle in my mouth and chew. It soaks up the little saliva in my mouth and turns into a dry chewy clump. I grab my bottle from my waist pack and fill my mouth with water so I can swallow. I’m able to get through three more chips this way. I pitch the last two.
Brian Schmidt runs alongside. We don’t talk much. Not because it’s a race, and we’re battling at the front. We have emerged after more than 20 miles of steep, rocky, mountain single track. After miles of ankle-twisting, body-jarring scrambling up, down, and back up the lush mountain, I eagerly anticipated the chance to run out in the open. Now I feel overexposed as we run across the highlands. The road stretches out interminably in front of us. I welcome a companion through this inviting, yet inhospitable, place. Within our quiet is a shared focus—to maintain ourselves.
Very long runs will inevitably require attention to maintenance: to hydration, electrolytes, and fueling—and usually in that order. Running well for many hours requires successful management of these elements. Failure is felt as exhaustion, cramping, nausea, bloating, light-headedness, and other unpleasant sensations. Ultimately, failure to manage is felt as a complete loss of motivation to continue. It usually takes an ultramarathon to get to this point, though, because under normal conditions we have a couple hours buffer built in—the reserves stored in our bodies. Experienced ultrarunners carry water bottles, salt tablets, and high-energy snacks to supplement those stores. Of course, conditions aren’t always normal.
Courses can be set that are challenging by design. Highland Sky is like that: a couple of fast road miles to lure you in, a