The Wild Dog Blog

Category: Running

  • Renewal

    Over a decade ago in Bastrop, Texas, high winds, downed power lines, and drought conditions caused the most destructive fire in state history. It burned 34,000 acres of land in 55 days. The pine forests in and around Bastrop State Park are still recovering. 

    This past January, I ran my first 100K ultramarathon in Bastrop State Park and got to see first hand the charred landscape that was reminiscent of the elephant graveyard in “The Lion King.” But I also got to see the start of new growth – young pine trees scattered throughout the park, their evergreen pine needles standing out in sharp contrast to blackened stumps and the golden brown trail. It was a beautiful and inspiring place to explore for 62 miles.

    Forest or human, nothing and no one is immune to the cycle of degeneration and regeneration. I’m thankful to the forests that show us how it’s done and remind us of our own capacity for renewal.

  • A Test of Mindfulness

    When I first started ultrarunning, I relied almost entirely on grit to get to the other side of long training runs and tough races. I found myself drawing from a deep well of stubbornness and determination to not be a quitter. 

    This is a strength in its own right and I certainly still play to this side of my mental toughness. But to tap into the next level of performance I’ve found myself focusing less on what I want to avoid – quitting – and focusing more on what I want to cultivate – presence. 

    At the start line, I used to ask myself how gritty I would choose to be and now I ask myself how present I will choose to be. Can I allow the ebb and flow of discomfort and accept and move with whatever comes my way? Can I be so focused on each step that the finish line becomes almost obsolete, a forgotten byproduct of the day?

    The gritty side of mental toughness is useful and has its place no doubt, but to make an ultramarathon a test of mindfulness has brought a new layer of meaning and fulfillment to the adventure.

  • Raise Your Floor

    At the start of last summer, my goal for running was to “raise my floor.” Living in south Florida means accepting a performance drop over the summer due to the extreme heat. But how much better could I make my hardest days in the hardest conditions? They may not come close to my best performances in cooler weather, but I believed there was still improvement to be had. 

    I was right. I surprised myself with the paces I could sustain in 90+ degree temps while keeping my effort and heart rate under control. I had improved from the previous summer and continued to improve all summer long. I successfully raised my floor. By the time the weather started cooling down in October, I felt physically and mentally fit and prepared to spend the better weather of the winter season raising my ceiling with faster efforts and bigger miles. 

    Surrendering to a challenging season doesn’t mean we lay down in defeat. It means we make the most of what we’ve been handed so when the better weather eventually rolls in, as it always does, it finds us ready and willing. 

    If you’re not in a season of raising your ceiling, how could you be raising your floor so that you’re ready to level up when the time comes?

    Wild Dog Athletics offers individualized remote strength and endurance coaching to help you stay on track toward your goals, in all seasons of life. Go to: https://www.wilddogathletics.com/ to learn more about who we are, what we do, and how we do it.

  • The Best Part of an Ultramarathon

    The finish line of an ultramarathon is not the best part, it’s not the thing to anticipate, to look forward to, or to wish for – the best part is the being out there, the being in it, the journey and what’s discovered along the way. Eyes wide open and let time move slowly, for when it’s done it’s done and I can never seem to soak it in enough.

    Even when it’s hard, even when it hurts – I take heart – because that means I’m still in the best of it, the day is not finished, there is more to the story that has yet to unfold and more to the trail that has yet to be traveled.

  • Life is Like an Ultramarathon

    When I show up at the start line of an ultramarathon, I expect to be challenged and tested. I expect obstacles. I expect to get tossed around a bit and I don’t expect everything to go my way.

    Life is like an ultramarathon – some days we get handed triumph, and some days we get handed tribulation – and which one we’re handed on any given day is completely out of our control. Most people know this, but still don’t expect it, so when things get tough they’re surprised and unprepared.

    To approach life like an ultramarathon means expecting and preparing to face challenges so that when they arrive we’re able to endure them and make use of them. I’ve run enough ultras to now know that struggle is either a price I have to pay or something that can pay me. I can fear it and resist it, or I can accept it and be curious about who it’s asking me to become.

  • Suffering is Optional

    “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”

    Is it the ultramarathon that creates suffering or the mind?

    In the ultramarathon community, it’s a common preaching that athletes need to learn how to “love” or “embrace” the suffering. And while this isn’t completely off-base, the more ultramarathons I run the more I realize that what’s most important is choosing whether or not I’m going to label what I’m experiencing as “suffering” in the first place. 

    I can teach my mind to not suffer needlessly by being aware of the stories I’m creating around my experience. When I’m throwing up on the side of the trail I can choose to perceive that experience as neutral, something that just is, rather than labeling it as good or bad or writing a story about what it means for the rest of the day. When labels and stories are removed or carefully chosen, you’d be surprised at how quickly the “suffering” dissipates.  

    Ultramarathons themselves don’t create suffering. How I perceive what I experience during an ultramarathon is what creates suffering. 

    The question then changes from “What can I endure?” to “How will I choose to endure it?”

  • Are You Being Derailed or Redirected?

    It’s 2018 and I’m in the middle of the build-up to my first marathon. I’m putting in more miles than ever before and hoping to run a Boston Marathon qualifying time. But being new to marathon running, I don’t know how to ease into big miles properly and end up getting injured. A few weeks before the race I’m forced to pull my entry, feeling devastated that the injury completely derailed me from my goal. I spend the 3 weeks of healing time thinking (or stewing) about what would come next. 

    I eventually manage to get back to short runs pain free, but at that point I no longer have the fitness or time left in the season to chase a Boston qualifier. Feeling unmotivated and discouraged, I start scouring the Internet for something different that could get me excited to train again. I stumble across a 7 mile trail race in my area and think it sounds interesting and that it will give me a mental break from the monotony of road running. I sign up, not knowing what to expect, but excited to train for a race purely for fun and for an adventure. 

    The trail race is a blast and not only do I get hooked on trail running, but at the race I see other runners completing distances I hadn’t known were possible – ultra distances – 50K, 50 miles, and 100 miles. I think about what an amazing accomplishment it would be to finish an ultramarathon. One year later, I’m back at the same race to run the 50 mile distance – crossing the finish line in 15 hours and change. I’ve been running ultramarathons around the country ever since. 

    What I initially thought was derailing me back in 2018 when I came up injured a few weeks before my road marathon was actually redirecting me. Because of the injury, I discovered that fateful 7 mile trail race where I was introduced to ultrarunning and as a result led to a life full of travel and adventure. 

    What we think is derailing us is often redirecting us. When we remember how often a perceived “derailer” became a “redirector” in hindsight, we can face obstacles and challenges with faith in all that we do not know and maybe even with excitement about what we can discover if we have the courage to keep moving forward.

  • Cowboy Yeti 100K – Make the Effort the Objective

    It’s the middle of the night and I’m trying to get my eyes to focus as the light of my headlamp bounces off of the fog in front of me. I’m two miles from the finish line of a 62 mile trail race in Texas, and I’m feeling strong as I start to close in on the end of the day. I hadn’t been feeling that way for most of the day – I spent miles 25-40 dry heaving and throwing up, but caught a second wind in the last 21 miles of the race and managed to rally back to a decent pace. For the majority of that time I had been alone, so as I squint through the glare of my headlamp, I’m surprised when another light starts to come into view ahead of me. 

    “Is that another runner?” I think to myself. Long distance trail running sometimes has a funny way of making you feel like you’re the only one out there – there usually aren’t many runners on course and over such big miles it’s easy to get separated from each other. Due to how much I had to slow down in the middle of the race and not seeing anyone for most of the day, I had assumed that anyone who was ahead of me at that point was far ahead of me and was out of reach competitively. 

    Despite that, I had been pushing myself hard physically and mentally in the last third of the race. Not because I thought I could catch anyone, but because I knew holding myself accountable to giving my absolute best under the tough circumstances I’d faced throughout the day would leave me feeling really proud at the finish. 

    As I approach the light ahead of me I realize that it’s coming from two other runners. I slow my pace to say hello and give a few words of encouragement before passing them and picking it back up to head to the finish. I feel a fresh bolt of excitement realizing I had unexpectedly caught two competitors who had been ahead of me for the entirety of the day. I think about how that opportunity presented itself because I didn’t allow myself to make excuses or let my foot off the gas pedal, even though it would have been easy to do so. 

    In other sports, athletes can motivate themselves to push through adversity and discomfort by seeing how close they are to catching their competitors or how close their competitors are to catching them. This dynamic rarely exists in trail running because your competitors are often out of sight. When the going gets tough, it comes down to how accountable you are to giving your honest best and how willing you are to not let up no matter the circumstance or outcome. 

    Trail running teaches me this over and over again – to make the effort the objective and to keep hammering even when the possibilities have not yet come into view. They’re beautiful lessons I’m happy to be reminded of that have both changed the way I race and changed the way I live.