“Winning is more fun than fun is fun”
– Ed Mylett
With a big smile, the race director welcomed me in the finish area after 24:01:37 (24 hours, 01 minutes, 37 seconds). I was relieved and happy. I had done it. I had successfully completed my 2nd 24-hour race.
But I didn’t just finish. I have exceeded all my expectations.
When I saw parts of the course before race day, I doubted my sanity. I knew we would run on a motocross track, but I didn’t expect such steep climbs uphill and downhill.
Somehow, the 60 m of elevation gain we had to cover during each 2km loop didn’t register in my brain when I signed up for the race 🙈.
I wasn’t prepared at all, neither physically nor mentally.
Or so I thought.
Against all odds, I won. I placed 1st women and 6th overall (out of 50 runners).
I had won against women who used poles (I, as a flatlander, don’t even own a pair of poles), I had won against women who knew the course and had won the race in previous years. And I had beaten most of the men.
However, the true victory was not the win.
The true success was me beating myself.
Triumphing over my insecurities, self-doubts, and fears. The lessons I have learned throughout this journey will stay with me. Hopefully, for a lifetime.
I am sharing them with you here because these lessons apply just as much to life as they apply to ultraruning. So, even if you are not a runner and intend to never be one, I hope you will find these lessons valuable and apply some of my learnings to your unique challenges.
Warning: This is a very long article. You might want to split up your reading or select to read only the paragraphs that interest you.
I have written the piece in a way that you can understand each point separately without needing to read the sections prior.
And now, have fun and enjoy the journey 😁.
1. Manage your expectations.
The 24-hour Mad Chicken run was my 2nd 24-hour ultramarathon and 3rd ultramarathon that exceeded the 100 km mark. I knew there would be challenging parts where I had to will myself to keep going.
I also knew I would likely experience gastric distress, soreness, and extreme fatigue. I expected this, so I wasn’t surprised or distressed when my gut felt funny or my legs cramped.
When you sign up for an ultra, you’d better prepare mentally for the difficult parts of the race that you will inevitably encounter.
If you are not prepared to handle an upset stomach, blisters, or unfavorable weather conditions, you will be among the many runners who drop out of the race even though they weren’t injured or otherwise in any health danger.
You will be one of those who weren’t mentally prepared and who later regret that they gave up before reaching the finish line.
And so it is with every big challenge you take on in life.
Every big adventure worthwhile pursuing has challenging aspects that you must be aware of and acknowledge beforehand.
Don’t be delusional and think you will be spared the hard times.
The lack of sleep after your child is born.
The difficult conversations you must have to keep your relationship with your significant other healthy and fulfilling long-term.
The all-nighter you have to pull in the final stretches of a project because you miscalculated the time you’d need to complete it.
You won’t be taken off guard when faced with these scenarios because you have mentally prepared for them. And when those hard times don’t hit you? Well, even better. Now, you will be pleasantly surprised by how easy it seems.
2. There will always be another hill to climb.
The Mad Chicken run offers two race options. One option is the flat course. The other option, the one I chose, is the trail option. The trail route is a 2km loop on a motocross track with 60 m of elevation gain during each loop.
Because you are running around in circles, you are never done climbing. Until the end of the race, there was always another hill to climb.
This is different from point-to-point trail races, where you can clearly decipher on the map at which point during the race you have the most difficult climb behind you.
The looped trail course is an excellent analogy for life.
In life, you never know if you have already climbed the most challenging mountain or how many steep hills you will still have to climb.
The only thing you know with certainty is that there will always be new mountains to be conquered.
It doesn’t matter how much material success you achieve, how fit you become, how many friends you have, or how long you have been with your partner.
Life will always present new challenges, problems to solve, and mountains to climb.
Some will be steep, and you will struggle to reach the top. But because they are also short, you will get to the top quickly with intense focus and determination.
Some will be gradual and many miles long. You can feel how they wear you down and test your resolve to keep going.
And some will be so small you will barely notice getting over them. They will feel like tiny speedbumps on the road to your goal.
3. You can't live a full life with an empty stomach.
I struggle a lot with eating while running. I have always been running first thing in the morning and usually don’t eat during my runs.
And even though I have told myself countless times I would practice fueling during training to be better prepared for races, I hardly did so until the Mad Chicken 24-hour run.
Eating was a struggle during my two longer races the year prior, the 24-hour German Championships and the Berlin Wall Race 100-miler. I was severely underfueled in both races and suffered the consequences with sapped energy, remarkably stiff and painful legs, dizziness, and a general feeling of malaise.
And while I still hadn’t practiced eating during training, I made it a point to consistently eat and drink during the 24-hour Mad Chicken Run. The strategy paid off big time. My legs kept moving, and my mind stayed sharp for most of the race. My recovery was also much quicker than in the other two races.
But keeping yourself nourished is not only critical if you want to run long distances.
Keeping yourself fed is a prerequisite for living a life worth living.
I struggled with eating disorders in the past. Whenever I felt hopeless or didn’t have control over my life, I would use restrictions to control my body. I was so frail at times that I couldn’t pursue my favorite activities anymore.
My constant tiredness and inability to concentrate negatively impacted my social life and academic success.
I was alive, but I was not living.
And nourishment not only applies to our bodies and what we feed them.
We must also nourish our emotional selves with genuine connections and relationships built on trust and love.
And we need to nourish our spiritual self through meditation, prayer, or time alone in nature.
4. You might feel lonely, but you are never alone.
After I had collected my race bib and returned to the hotel room I had booked for the weekend, loneliness hit me.
And it hit me hard.
It was the first race after my girlfriend broke up with me. It was the first race without updating her throughout my travel, the first race where I would not tell her good night before race morning. While I made peace with what happened and hardly missed her anymore, I longed for her to be by my side now.
I reminded myself that I wasn’t alone, though.
I thought about my friends at home, how I would update them when the race was over, and how I looked forward to spending time with them again.
And when I went to the pre-race briefing that evening, I stayed a while and spent the rest of the evening chatting to my teammates. We had fun, and I thought about how grateful I was to be able to spend time with them.
I went to bed nervous but with the comforting thought that I wasn’t alone.
And so it is in life. Often, when we feel lonely, we are not alone.
Feeling lonely is a sign of being disconnected from the people around you or from yourself.
You need to evaluate your relationships if you feel lonely despite being surrounded by others. Are you surrounding yourself with people who share your values and ideals? Or are you surrounding yourself with the same people year after year out of habit?
If you feel lonely whenever you are alone, you must evaluate your relationship with yourself. Do you love yourself? Are you proud of the person you are or you are becoming? Do you have a purpose in life that drives you? Do you have clearly defined values and strive daily to live up to them?
5.It's never as bad as it seems.
Somewhen around 2 am during the race, I entertained thoughts of stopping. I was sick to my stomach, started to get cold, and felt dizzy. I told myself I wasn’t sure if I could go another round or if I would get stuck on the course because I couldn’t climb up the hills anymore.
However, I persevered.
The second time I was close to quitting was around 2 hours before the race ended. It was already daylight, my legs were sapped of energy, I was tired, and the temptation to sit down at one of the fire bowls the race organizers had set up was huge. “I don’t think I can climb another hill,” I told myself.
However, I persevered again and completed lap after lap until the end. I even did one lap extra that I didn’t need to do.
Why could I go on despite my mind telling me I couldn’t? Because I knew our minds tell us to quit long before we are done. I knew from experience through other races and long training runs that I could always go on. And that my body was never as worn out as my mind tried to convince me it was.
Likewise, when we encounter difficult situations in life, our minds often exaggerate the severity of the problem.
The pain of unrequited love or after losing a loved one can feel unbearable, and people tell themselves that they “can’t live” without the other person or that they “will never love again.”
Usually, the pain reduces, and after some time, the people who were once convinced their life was meaningless without the other person finding someone new to love.
To avoid overexaggerating how bad a situation is, you must look at the situation objectively. If a friend was in your position, what advice would you give them? How would you help them move forward?
6. It doesn't always get worse.
This point is closely related to point number 5. When I struggled with nausea and dizziness during the night, I repeated this phrase repeatedly.
The number one mistake that stops people from pushing their boundaries and going further as runners is that they extrapolate the pain they are going through now.
They are familiar with how much finishing a marathon (26.2 miles) hurts and think going twice as far during an ultramarathon will hurt twice as much. Or they have completed a 100-mile race and think they will feel twice as bad after a 200-mile finish.
However, the pain and fatigue we experience on our journey to accomplishing big goals do not increase continuously with each step we take.
Our minds will try to convince us otherwise. It will tell us that misery and destruction lie ahead if we continue moving forward despite the lousy shape we find ourselves in.
The mind often can not see during these challenging moments that this challenge might lead somewhere great.
And that is why we can’t quit when we think we are too tired or in too much pain to go on.
We must stay committed to the race, project, and relationship if those things truly matter to us as much as we say they do.
7. The support of a friend can unlock new levels of strength.
It was around 8 am on Sunday. The race would be over at 10 am, in about 2 hours. I came into the aid station at the finish/start area, 97% sure I couldn’t go on. I wondered how many placings I would lose if I stopped now.
I was the first woman, but I was too tired to care.
Overhearing a conversation where another runner told her friend she would get 60 rounds and seeing how fresh she appeared didn’t help with my motivation. I had clocked exactly 60 rounds by now, and considering how tired I was, I doubted I could maintain the 2-lap lead I had over her.
I grabbed a few dates when I saw my teammate approaching the aid station from the other side. “I think I will stop now,” I told her. “I can hardly climb up the hills anymore.”
She looked at me sternly and replied, “Doesn’t matter. Every movement counts.”
A smile crossed my face as I gathered all my courage, grabbed a few more dates to eat on the way, and said, “Okay, on your responsibility.”
To my astonishment, I managed to complete the next lap. And the next, and the next. I even ran more of the flat sections and the downhills again. And I kept moving forward until the very end.
The value of having support during an ultra can be directly compared to the importance of having the proper support in life.
When you are struggling to complete a big task and feel like you can’t go on, the words of a friend or mentor can push you to continue and show you that you are indeed capable of more.
It is critical to surround yourself with the right people.
The ones that tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.
My teammate could have easily said, “Yes, you should stop and not risk getting stuck on the course.” That’s what I wanted to hear.
However, she told me what I needed to hear.
That it didn’t matter how I felt. Because every movement counts.
8. Run your own race.
Before the gun went off on race day, I told myself to take it easy. I wanted to get familiar with the course during the first couple of laps and save my energy reserves.
After all, I had no experience running a race with this much elevation gain. In fact, I didn’t have any experience running a race with any significant elevation gain.
Besides, I was convinced my training status was sub-optimal due to my slow recovery from COVID-19, which I had contracted in March, and the personal struggles that had been wearing me down for the better part of August.
As I was happily cruising along, a runner sped past me. I felt the urge to speed up but reminded myself that I needed to stick to the plan if I wanted to have a chance of achieving my goal of staying on the course for 24 hours.
Shortly after that, another runner with poles overtook me, climbing up a hill.
“Stay calm,” I reminded myself. And when, not shortly after, another runner ran past me, I told myself, “Well, that’s probably a relay runner,” even though I wasn’t even sure there were relay runners on the course.
But it didn’t matter.
I told myself repeatedly it wouldn’t matter what the others were doing and tried to focus as much as possible on my own race.
Was I running calmly?
Was I eating and drinking?
Do I need to put on something warm for the night?
And in the end, this strategy paid off. By not concerning myself with what others were doing, I could focus entirely on myself and what I needed to do to achieve my goals.
That day, I really understood the power of “running my own race.” Often, we look to others on how to live our lives, and many of us are trying to live up to society’s standards.
We see couples staying happily married for 25 years and wonder why we still haven’t found our life partner at 38.
We see others proudly writing one blog post after another about how they’ve built their one-person business in a mere 9 months and get discouraged because we still struggle to earn enough to quit our jobs after we’ve been writing online for 2 years already.
We see others completely transform their physique in 6 months and are on the brink of giving up because our rate of weight loss is excruciatingly slow.
In these moments, we must step back and remind ourselves that we are each on our own timeline.
We need to focus on our goals and go at our own speed. Take other people as inspiration, but avoid using their timelines as your benchmark for success.
9. You can achieve the seemingly impossible.
I panicked after seeing parts of the course and talking to the other runners the day before the race. I had severely underestimated the difficulty of the course.
I feared I would make a complete fool of myself and considered asking the race officials the following day if I could still change my entry and race on the flat course instead 🙈.
The first surprise came in the middle of the night when a woman approached me, asking if I knew how well I raced. “No,” I told her. “I just race.”
Despite having an automatic lap counter at the finish/start area, there was no display of how many rounds you had just completed. I didn’t bother fiddling with my smartphone to update myself via the live tracker online.
When the woman, the wife of another runner, told me I was in 5th place overall, I was pleasantly surprised but didn’t think much of it. “I will surely lose placings during the night,” I thought, remembering my first 24-hour race the year prior, where I raced well during the first half of the race but crashed during the second half.
And when I eventually won the women’s race and placed 6th overall in the Mad Chicken Run, I didn’t realize what I had just accomplished.
The realization that I had done something seemingly impossible only hit me after I returned home and reflected on who I was just ten years prior and who I had become.
Ultrarunning is a beautiful sport because it has the power to transform. Countless people have gone beyond their perceived limits of what they thought was possible for them and, through this experience, have gone to transform other areas of their lives, too.
I believe wholeheartedly in setting unrealistic goals. We might never discover what we can do if we don’t dream big enough.
10. Focus on the process.
24 hours can be a long time. Especially when you spend them awake, trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other. When it is dark and cold, you feel tired, and your muscles are aching; the worst thing you can do is focus on the finish line.
Every time I checked the clock during the race, I got anxious.
“Only 2 hours have passed, still so long to go,”
“It’s only midnight, still so long…”
“Oh my gosh, still 4 hours to go; I don’t want to move any longer…”
Even when I had been moving for 22 hours already, the thought of enduring another 2 hours discouraged me more than the thought that I was still leading so close to the finish encouraged me.
However, I used mindfulness practices to pull me back into the present moment whenever I struggled to move forward during the Mad Chicken 24-hour run.
I reminded myself that the finish line would come no matter what and that I couldn’t control how quickly or slowly time would move.
However, I could control my actions in the present.
I could control how fast I ran and how much I ate and drank. And I could control what to focus on and redirect my thoughts. All the while keeping my main goal of staying on the course for 24 hours in the back of my mind.
We can apply the same strategy of focusing on the process more than the outcome in every area of our lives.
I do not peddle the “don’t set goals but focus only on habits” nonsense.
You need clear and measurable goals.
You need to know where you’re going to know which road to take.
However, once you clearly define your goal, you need to focus on the actions that will lead you to achieving said goal. When you start to get anxious because you haven’t yet achieved what you want, look at your day and ask yourself if you have taken the actions you said you would need to accomplish that goal.
If you did, you have done all that you could.
If you didn’t do well, you’ve got another chance tomorrow.
11. Detach from the outcome to find joy.
I set myself only one goal for the 24-hour Mad Chicken run: to stay on the course for 24 hours. It was my second 24-hour race, my first 24-hour trail race (on a motocross track), in my third year of running again (after a 9-year-long hiatus).
I didn’t set any goals for kilometers achieved because I had no idea what was possible on such a course, especially for me – a flatlander who has never used poles, never trained for hilly terrain, and has never run a race with significant elevation gain.
Not too long after the race started, I settled into a calm and comfortable rhythm of power hiking the steep uphills, bombing down the downhills as fast as possible, and running the flat sections comfortably.
I enjoyed myself immensely, utterly unaware of how well I was racing, until well into the night.
Once I knew, however, a fellow runner started to talk about how sad it was that we didn’t get regular updates on who was in the leading position and how she was in the first place, my enthusiasm started to fade.
I didn’t want to race against anyone. And I didn’t care if I would finish first or last.
All I cared about was running to the best of my abilities.
Yes, when I did win the race, I felt pride.
But less so because I completed more laps than any other woman on that day, but more so because I challenged myself and was proud of my effort.
We must approach any goal in life with a mindset od detachment.
It is valuable and necessary to have goals to strive for. However, we must detach ourselves from the outcome because they are not really in our control.
You can not control how many customers decide to buy from you versus your competitor. But you can control how much effort you put into developing a great product and how much you refine it based on the feedback you receive.
You can not control your partner’s feelings toward you. Still, you can control how much affection you show toward them, how present you are when you are together, and how much care you take of your physical and mental health to remain the attractive character they have fallen in love with in the first place.
12. You achieve big wins by stacking up small wins.
Running in a loop for 24 hours is no small feat. The mere thought of trying to attempt it can leave you questioning your sanity.
A good strategy to complete any long-distance race is to break up the distance into sections. During my first 100-mile race in 2022, I kept telling myself that I would only need to get to the next aid station, and then I could rest a little.
And whenever I struggled to continue during the 24-hour Mad Chicken run, I told myself I would need to do just one more lap.
I kept reminding myself to eat and drink something after each lap because I knew I needed to fuel well if I wanted to keep going.
Every round I completed was a small win.
And every handful of food I grabbed was a small win.
Stacking small wins and being aware of them is critical to achieving big goals in life.
Too often, we focus on the big win but forget to stack up as many small wins as possible throughout the day to move us closer to our desired outcome.
Defining what counts as a small win helps us stay engaged throughout the process because we can celebrate achieving those micro-goals regularly.
For example, if you want to make a living writing, you could view each writing session where you wrote a certain number of words as a small win or view each chapter of your book that you have finished as a small win.
It all depends on where you are in your journey and how you want to define what counts as a win.
I defined each lap I took in some calories as a win because fueling during an ultra is one of my most significant weaknesses. However, other people are okay with eating and drinking during an ultra-endurance event, and they might not see grabbing a handful of dates as a small win.
13. Stay in the present moment.
It was around 4 am when I entertained the idea of quitting. The sun would rise in an hour, and I felt safe returning to my hotel at dawn. I would simply put on a jacket, grab my bag, and let Alex, one of the race officials, know I would drop out of the race.
The thought of moving for another 6 hours seemed unbearable.
“Stop it,” I snapped at myself. “You will not quit again. Just focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Stay present. Stay present.”
I took a few deep inhales and breathed out slowly.
I tried to direct my attention to my arms and if they were moving to ensure my hips didn’t rotate too much with each step.
I tried to discern how quickly my feet moved.
And I tried to soak up my surroundings. The chirping of crickets, the stars in this clear night sky, and the fresh air that was a welcome change from the day’s heat.
Soon, I calmed down.
I surrendered to the fatigue, the ache I felt in my legs, and the slight nausea.
I surrendered to the moment and plodded on.
Running and other endurance sports are a great way to train ourselves to stay present.
To accept whatever situation we find ourselves in and whatever emotions we are feeling.
Wishing away the circumstances or how you feel won’t help ease the pain. By not accepting what is, you take away your power to change what is, making it much harder for yourself to achieve your goals.
Instead, accept that you will feel tired, discouraged, unmotivated, and anxious from time to time when trying to realize a big dream. You don’t have to feel good to do good work.
14. Take calculated risks.
The 24-hour Mad Chicken run has two racing options. A flat course and a course on a motocross track.
I participated in the latter. Luckily, I didn’t know beforehand how many hills the route included and how steep some hills were 😂.
I started cautiously and familiarized myself with the course for the first 2 or 3 rounds.
Then, I began to take a few calculated risks. While other runners continued cautiously descending the steep hills, I enjoyed the adrenaline rush of bombing down the descends.
I twisted my knee once or twice and reminded myself to relax into the movement. Still, other than a bit of knee pain from twisting, I didn’t experience anything negative from my speedy downhill tactic.
In hindsight, signing up for that race was a calculated risk in itself.
My sub-par training this year and my complete underestimation of the difficulty of the course could have been considerable obstacles to even completing the race.
If we want to live a life not confined by society’s limits, we need to start taking calculated risks. Too often, we procrastinate on taking the first or the next step toward the life we want to live.
Everything in life is risky.
And if we don’t want our lives defined by someone else, we must choose which risks to take.
15. Have a strategy, but stay flexible.
Like in every prior race, I had a rough plan for approaching the 24-hour Mad Chicken run.
It was simple: eat and drink right from the start and at the minimum after every second lap. And keep moving for a total of 24 hours. This was a very rudimentary plan.
Some ultrarunners know precisely when to eat what and have a clear race strategy with goal paces and where they want to be at what point in the race.
And while many ultrarunning coaches and ultrarunners stress the importance of having a plan, for me, it is more important to remain flexible.
It’s funny that I hardly plan out how I will approach the race because, during my everyday life, I am a planner through and through 😅.
I need to know exactly what I will do each day and a plan for every trip I go on and every new project I start. It’s the complete opposite of how I approach my ultrarunning races.
However, I believe my lack of planning for an ultramarathon is due to my tendency to panic when something doesn’t go according to plan.
And in an ultramarathon, things rarely go according to plan.
In life, we need to have goals if we want to avoid just drifting along.
And we also need to have a strategy to achieve our goals.
However, we must continuously learn and adapt when circumstances change or we encounter problems. We must learn how to make decisions quickly and take action quickly. And we must remain flexible in our approach to life and our thinking.
16. Use mantras as pattern interrupts to combat negative thoughts.
The sun was scorching. I could feel my head getting hot and my mood turning sour. Again! I had again forgotten to bring a hat to protect me from the heat.
I panicked.
The sun got to me in the prior race, and it didn’t end well.
I don’t want to have to stop already. It was only 3 p.m., and we were only 5 hours into the race.
My mind started to spiral into negativity.
“Why didn’t you think about bringing some sun protection?”
“You didn’t even bring a towel that you could get wet to cool you down.”
I was getting increasingly frustrated with myself.
I tried to calm myself down. “Just run slowly, slow down, and cool your arms and neck each lap at the aid station. You can also wet your shirt.”
However, despite devising these tactics to cool my body down, running felt increasingly hard. The sun was burning, and the air on the sandy motocross track was dry.
I tried to lie to myself as I had done in my first 50 K just 2 years prior.
“This is easy, this is fun. This is easy, this is fun.” It didn’t work as my voice screamed, “f* it’s fun. It’s not f* easy.”
Okay. Another trick. Courtney Dauwalter recently mentioned using it while winning the Western States Endurance run. “Robot, robot, robot.” It worked. I calmed down. And for the next half hour or so, I kept repeating the mantra. “Robot, robot, robot.”
Soon, my anger faded into the background, and as the sun slowly retreated, my mood started to lift again.
Using mantras can be a huge help when you struggle to advance in any chosen endeavor.
I love quotes and frequently turn to their wisdom when my mind tries to convince me that a particular task is too challenging, that I am not good enough to achieve my goal, or that I am too tired to continue.
When you’re getting discouraged, anxious, or otherwise stressed because you’re encountering an obstacle toward achieving your goal, use a mantra to help you get out of negative thought spirals.
17. Overthinking will hold you back.
“Just grab something.” A familiar voice shouted from behind. “I see you’re debating again.” She came closer. “Just grab something,” she said, standing right next to me, grabbing a couple of pretzels herself.
I didn’t feel like eating at all. I knew I needed something but didn’t know what I wanted. “Don’t think, just eat.” I grabbed a few salt pretzels and washed them down with water.
“Overthinking slows you down,” I thought as I grabbed a few dried dates and left the aid station. From then on, “just grab something” became my new mantra when I approached the finish/start area after each lap.
I needed to trust my body’s instincts and grab what seemed the most appealing. And to my surprise, it worked beautifully.
When I started to get nauseous, I instinctively switched to eating salted peanuts for a couple of rounds. I also asked for some hot broth without knowing if they had some (they did).
And while the peanuts and broth weren’t giving me enough quick energy to keep my legs strong and I was slowing down, they settled my stomach enough to go back to eating sugar and keep moving.
This differed from my approach to aid station food during my prior races.
In previous races, I debated what to eat and left several aid stations without having anything because I was unsure how my body would react to anything other than what I thought would be the best fuel for me.
Many of us overthink too much.
We get stuck in the planning and preparing phases instead of taking concrete actions that would move us closer to our chosen goals.
You are disconnected from your inner voice when you overthink and get stuck in a self-sabotaging pattern.
And so you stay stuck in the job you hate because you overthink why you can’t start that business you have been dreaming about for so long.
Having a hard time making decisions, replaying situations from the past over and over in your head, or letting anxiety and worries about “what if’s” hold you back are all signs you are overthinking.
18. Every movement counts.
It was getting warm again. The September sun comforted me, and I knew if I’d stop now, I wouldn’t have to worry about being cold.
Besides, the race organizer had set up fire bowls along the flat course. I could always go over and spend the remaining 2 hours of the race just sitting there, chatting with other runners.
I had debated quitting a few times before already. But this time, I was more certain.
I felt like I couldn’t get up all the hills if I’d start another round. And the last thing I wanted now was to get stuck on the race course.
However, my teammate approached the aid station just at the right moment and pushed me to continue. “It doesn’t matter. Every movement counts,” she said as I informed her about my zapped energy.
Those were just the right words I needed to get me starting another lap.
And then another, and another, and another.
I moved slowly, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I moved. I kept moving until the end and even ran a final lap I didn’t need to go.
I had won the race already.
But I decided to put in one last round.
Because every movement counts.
When striving to achieve a big goal, it can sometimes feel like we’re making minimal to no progress.
This is especially true when we are in the “messy middle.” That period where the initial excitement of starting something new has worn off, but we do not see the results we hoped for.
We need to keep pushing when we feel tired and afraid of facing yet another obstacle that will stand in the way of achieving our goals.
We must remind ourselves that every movement counts no matter how slowly we progress.
The only way we can ensure not achieving our goals is by standing still.
19. Self-confidence is not a prerequisite for success.
I thought I would make a complete fool of myself. I did not prepare for this at all.
When I signed up for the 24-hour Mad Chicken Run, I wasn’t aware of what 60 m of elevation gain during a 2km loop meant. And I wasn’t aware of how steep the hills on a motocross track were.
I should have paid more attention to the hint on the race’s website that poles would be helpful on the cross-track 😂.
And here I was, a flatlander who never used poles, never did any specific hill training, and never ran a course with nearly as much elevation gain.
On top of that, my training status was unclear since I had been running way less than in the previous year.
On a scale of 1-10, my self-confidence before the race scored a negative 5.
And still, I pulled off a great race without hyping myself up beforehand, without repeating mantras about how well-prepared I was, and without visualizing my success.
But the confidence came during the race.
When I noticed how well my body moved.
When I repeatedly stuck to my resolution to eat consistently.
When I completed another lap, despite wanting to stop.
And the longer the race went on, and I kept doing what I said I would do – to eat and keep moving – the more confident I became.
A limiting belief about self-confidence holds many of us back.
We procrastinate on starting our dream business because we aren’t confident enough.
We avoid asking that interesting person for a date because we lack confidence.
And too often, we believe that acquiring more knowledge will make us confident enough to finally pursue our dreams.
However, self-confidence is not a prerequisite for success; it is a byproduct.
You become more confident not by acquiring more knowledge or trying to change your personality but by taking action toward your dream life and doing what you said you would.
You develop confidence by pushing through the hard times, focusing on your vision, and staying true to your values.
Most people don’t lack confidence. They lack movement.
20. Fear of failure will only hold you back if you let it control you.
This is closely related to the previous point. When I realized that I had vastly underestimated the difficulty of the course and feared that I would spend most of the 24-hour walking instead of running, I thought about asking the race officials if it would still be possible to switch to the flat course.
Luckily, I did stay committed to the motocross course.
And I completed lap after lap despite my fear.
I tried out new foods and used the electrolyte drink provided by the race organizers despite the fear that my sensitive digestive system would be unable to handle it.
I tackled the course as fast as possible during the daylight hours to get in as many rounds as possible before it got dark, knowing I might tire myself out prematurely and crash again as I did during my first 24-hour race the previous year.
And finally, I continued to move, despite being afraid I couldn’t complete another lap and get stuck on the course.
Fear of failure is one of the main reasons many of us don’t pursue the life we truly want.
We’re afraid we will lose everything when we quit our jobs to start our own businesses.
We’re worried we’re getting rejected when we ask that person for a date.
And most of all, we’re afraid of what others think of us if we fail.
But we need to move anyway if we want to achieve our goals.
When we do nothing, we will accomplish nothing.
And that is the greatest failure you will have to face if you let your fear of failure hold you back.
21. The sun will always rise again.
I grabbed my long pants, long-sleeved shirt, and jacket and went to the toilet. It was cooling down.
During the day, I longed for the sun’s strength to weaken. Now, I was afraid that I didn’t bring enough clothes to keep me warm during the night.
I hate being cold; it was dark, and I ran for over 14 hours already. I dreamed about a warm hotel bed, letting the race officials know I would drop out of the race, walking over to the fire bowls, and warming myself up.
As I exited the toilets, I met my teammate. She told me she had completed her target kilometers and would go to sleep now.
For her, the race was over.
And I wanted my race to be over as well.
But I kept pushing on.
I knew the nighttime hours would be the hardest, and I didn’t want to quit in the middle of my dark moments.
I knew that the sun would rise again in a few hours, and I trusted that if I pushed through the difficulties now, I would enjoy the sunrise much more than if I’d quit now.
In life, we are often faced with darkness.
No one is exempt from facing the difficult periods of life.
When the project you’re working on doesn’t progress, and the discomfort of continuing seems too much.
When you are arguing with your partner and your pride has been hurt.
But we mustn’t quit when we’re worn down and our minds try to convince us that we can’t go on.
We must remain present, assess the situation calmly, and trust that the sun will rise again.
The darkness will pass, and it is up to us how we will emerge on the other side.
22. Embrace the beautiful misery.
I felt sick to my stomach. “Maybe I shouldn’t have had the boiled potatoes with salt, the pretzels, or the few bites of vegan cake,” I thought.
Then I noticed my calves cramping. Where did that come from? I never experienced cramping in races or training before.
I sighed. I was already so tired, so ready to throw in the towel. But I had to keep going.
And then I remembered that this is what I love about running very long distances.
To feel the physical and mental exhaustion.
To push through it and grow stronger as a result.
This is what I have chosen to do. Why wish it away now?
If I want the feeling of euphoria at the end of the race, the feelings of relief, and the memories of a great adventure completed, I also need to embrace the difficult moments. The pain, the exhaustion, the self-doubt, the anxiety.
Every emotion is valuable.
So often, people want to eliminate anxiety, fear, or sadness. But to feel happiness, love, and joy, we must also be prepared to handle the seemingly “unpleasurable” emotions.
And we must always remember that we are the ones who choose what to invite into our lives.
The next time you get annoyed about your partner leaving the milk on the counter, remember you have chosen this person.
And the next time you complain about how tedious your job is, remember you chose that too.
23. Be unrealistic.
When I toed the start line at the 24-hour Mad Chicken Run, my goal of staying on the course for 24 hours seemed utterly unrealistic.
This year’s training load was significantly less than the previous year. I was still mourning the breakup with my girlfriend, and this was my first trail race with a significant elevation gain. Besides, I had still not trained how to fuel during running.
But I hoped for the best.
After I received the news during the evening that I was in 5th place overall, I entertained the idea that I could win the race.
I didn’t take the thought too seriously because it was still a long way to go, and the night could change everything.
However, I kept it at the back of my mind and used the question “What if I could win,” during times I struggled.
On Sunday at 10:00 am, I achieved my unrealistic goal. I continued to move for a total of 24 hours, and on top of that, I won the women’s race and placed 6th overall 💪.
Many people in the personal development and self-help space tell us to set “realistic” goals.
They say setting unrealistic goals sets you up for failure and disappointment.
But that is backward thinking.
Setting realistic goals limits your potential.
You will never truly push yourself and discover what you’re capable of if you always stay in the safe confinements of your current thinking.
You must expand your ideas of what’s possible to discover what you’re made of truly.
24. Strong willpower is a superpower.
After the award ceremony, the woman who finished 2nd place came up to me and said, “You are crazy, really crazy.”
I just replied with, “Thank you.”
Earlier on the course, another runner said, “You simply do your rounds persistently. Lap after lap.” And when she passed me on the final lap, she shouted, “The last lap.”
I smiled. I had completed the last few rounds on sheer willpower.
The strength in my legs had long been gone, and my mind was too exhausted to think about anything else but to keep going one more lap. Unlike many other runners, I took no extended breaks during the race. I also tried to keep my stops at the aid station short, especially when I felt good.
I was so focused on staying on the course and completing as many rounds as possible that I hardly noticed who else was running on the course.
When I chatted with a fellow runner during a round later in the race, I told her I hadn’t seen her once. She told me she saw me quite often. I apologized for being so in the zone that I didn’t notice her.
Many people fall short of their goals not because they need more skills or knowledge but because they lack willpower.
I have seen this throughout my life. As a student, I would get irritated when others needed a break when we were working on a joint project. I always wanted to push through.
I also see it with many acquaintances, family members, and work colleagues.
People give up easily.
But if you want to achieve the goals you say you want to achieve, you must develop grit.
You must stay on the path even if it gets hard. When you are tired, or no one believes in you. When you must learn another skill to keep progressing.
And the more you persevere, the more you strengthen your resolve to stay on the path to achieving your goal.