Part One offered ideas on how you can race an Ultra SwimRun event.
Part Two is lessons from participating in the event, itself. Each time you race long, write out lessons learned. Across our athletic lives, we don’t get many data points. Make the most of each opportunity to learn.
Ultra distance events take (most of) us well beyond what we perform in training.
That’s the point. We’re looking for a test outside of our normal experience. In that regard, ÖtillÖ delivered.
My day was similar to what an experienced, but undertrained, mid-pack Ironman triathlete might experience:
9 Hours, Mostly Easy
1 Hour, Rapidly Increasing Fatigue
2 Hours, Full Zombie Mode
Run it in with a smile on our faces
Races Reveal Reality
This season, I had three questions to answer:
Do I still enjoy the training?
Do I enjoy racing all day?
What did race day show?
If you follow me on Strava then you will know I answered Question #1 months before race day. I still love my training.
There are three components of my enjoyment:
Improvement
Metabolic Fitness
Dynamic Loading
I think these three are fundamental to keeping yourself in the game. Let’s dig a little deeper.
Find A Way To Win
Make progress visible and define the “game” so you see you are moving forward.
The easiest way to make this happen is with a training log and a habit of something every day. Your log can be as simple as a calendar and a pencil.
Next, cultivate your winner’s mindset1:
Submax benchmarking improvements.
Increases in workout frequency.
Completing a new route.
Improving skills.2
Finishing a new event, or distance.
Teaching novices.
There are no wrong answers. Our wins need only make sense to ourselves. What we are seeking is keeping ourselves in the game and boosting our internal satisfaction.
INVERT => if you are feeling like you are not making progress then you’re likely focused on external sources of validation and trying “too hard.” Back off, and refocus towards what attracted you to sport in the first place.
Metabolics Matter
A feeling of progress is necessary because metabolic gains come slowly. Each of us needs to do a lot of work, for a long time, to see material improvements. Some will see this as “bad news.”
I don’t.
Armed with a Winner’s Mindset, stacking up daily wins… the gains will come.
If you don’t feel that the gains are coming fast enough… return to the start and… Find Another Way To Win.
Dynamic Loading Changes Everything
20 years ago these questions were always with me:
Am I Doing Enough?
Have I Done Enough?
Should I Do More?
Go Harder?
Go Longer?
The only time the questions left was when I was absolutely shattered. Turns out there was a better way. John and I have been explaining it to you.
Our job is to persist and make fewer errors.
Winner’s Mindset helps us persist.
Dynamic Loading helps us make better decisions.
Combing the two will bring us to race week knowing…
I did everything I could.
…and that was my original promise to myself.
For 1000 days, I will do everything I can to see how much I can improve.
That part of the story is half over. I’m ~500 days along.
Race Day Feedback
These tips are specific to me but common across the many athletes I’ve coached:
A 4-6 hour “long day” isn’t enough for a 9-11 hour event. This lesson goes back to the 1980s when Mark Allen was figuring out how to win Ironman Hawaii. To race long, we need to go long regularly. Extending my long day will be a 2024 focus.
Given how little I ran, I ran great. I started running in July 2022, after a ten-year break. This was surprising. I used TWO long duration mountain hike/runs in the final weeks of my prep. Increasing my mountain run frequency will be a 2024 focus.
A great result can come from slow, but consistent, forward progress. My current “Easy Pace”3 is sufficient to get me to the top of my race division… if I can sustain it all day.
Success is inevitable. Time will improve my durability. Radical change isn’t required. Consistent compounding will do the job.
Strength Before Speed. While volume is the most effective way to improve endurance, strength has an important role to play. Particularly the type of strength I explained in my articles on Durability and In-Sport Strength.
Back to Table of Contents
My Winner’s Mindset article applies across our lives. Start in the area of your life with the lowest emotional stakes and bring these habits across all domains. They are transformative.
Flip turns, transitions, backstroke, technical trails, olympic lifts, yoga, single-leg balances, single-track, skimo… you will be told that secondary activities don’t benefit your main sport. This is both true, and false. Being highly skilled and motivated will benefit all aspects of your life. Life happens in a much wider arena than short-term athletic performance.
Easy Pace is up to the first lactate turnpoint (LT1, LTP1) inside the Moderate Domain.
Re: how well your running went, I am amazed, bec. if I remember right, a lot of your load this summer was from biking.
So fascinating, unconventional & gutsy since your A race had no biking.
From what you wrote here, is this because you wanted a memorable experience for 2023, were working on your 1000 day plan, and knew that it would be dicey to load up on running, given your spring running injury? Mitochondria are mitochondria, that the best way to get metabolic load in 2023 was through biking, regardless of A race specificity? Thanks for your thoughts.