Found this in my notes last night. It’s the list of things that I wanted to remember when I ran Mountain Lakes 100.

Tips I picked up from reading a lot of articles and from reading Jason Koop’s book, Training Essentials for Ultrarunning. I highly recommend that book and if there’s one thing that I took away from it — it’s that you want to show up at the start line as FIT as possible. That means having your engine / Vo2max as high as possible — which means, do a lot of threshold training — which means — run a lot of hill intervals.

The other book that I recommend is by Matt Fitzgerald, How Bad to you Want It?  There was some pseudoscience-y bullshit in there, but for the most part it was inspiring to read anecdotes about the mental side of endurance racing. And running an ultra is 99% mental.

Here’s my list.

• Finish the race (there’s nuance to this one – it’s not, “JUST finish the race” or “TRY to finish the race”, it’s explicit and direct:  “finish the m’fing race”)

• Pacing
  • Easy the first 25 miles. Walk.
  • Refresh at 50 miles at Clackamas
  • Run as far as I can
  • Walk/run, shuffle to get back into running form, then run
  • Slow down when eating, then run when I have energy
  • Maintain a consistent pace (slow and steady)
• Nutrition
  • Eat when my alarm goes off, every 20 minutes after 1.5 hours
  • Eat 200+ calories per hour
  • Try to eat as much real food as I can stomach
• Attitude
  • Take care of problems in a deliberate way, don’t let them go
  • Say please and thank you.
  • Have fun and enjoy the long run! Force the smile.
  • Recognize the pain, sit with it and then let it go
  • Your heart must be large
  • Steer clear of negative energy people

• Accept
• Diagnose
• Analyze
• Plan
• Take Action

• Keep focusing on the positive. No matter how bad things are, it could be worse.
• Keep shuffling, even if it seems just as slow as walking. It’s not.
• You want this BAD.
• This is a meditation exercise
• This is your treat!
• Run the plan, run your race.
• Keep it together. You got this.
• You are an unstoppable force.
• slow is smooth and smooth is fast
• Steady and strong, steady and smart.
• Be patient, no stress. Aid station to aid station.
• If I stop now, I’ll soon be back to where I started. And when I started I was desperately wishing to be where I am now.
• You didn’t come this far only to come this far.
• I’m a tough MF’er.
• Om mani padme hum.
• Just flow
• I don’t stop when I’m tired, I stop when I’m done.
• Absolutely nothing hurts more than quitting would. Barring an injury that physically prevents me from making forward progress, I’m not going to stop until I finish this race.
• I will do all that I can do, and a little more.
• During the first 50 miles don’t be stupid, during the last 50 miles don’t be a wimp.
• Have faith that the low point will not last. Everyone gets out of it eventually.
• Expect a very dark point about every 20 miles, or every 5 – 6 hours. Count the dark points, and make a pact to push through at least 5 of them.
• I CAN do this, I WILL finish
• Clear Your Mind of Can’t