On June 29, 2008, I completed the single most difficult physical event of my life: the Cascade Cream Puff in Oakridge, Oregon, a 100-mile mountain bike race with over 18,000 feet of climbing. It took me longer and I found it more difficult than either of my two finishes at the Hawaii
Ironman.
In the days before the race, I was chatting with my training buddies about what breaks people in these events. We discussed how important it is in extreme events to “keep the fitness faith.” That faith is the bulletproof belief in your fitness that you have to hold on to when a race gets grueling and the suffering begins; those moments of intimidating despair that are unwelcome realities for many of us.
On the day of the Cream Puff, my personal despair washed over me after about 8 hours of racing. I knew the suffering wasn’t going away until I crossed the finish line — about 30 miles away. I simply wanted to quit pedaling and make the pain stop. But instead, I firmly and repeatedly reminded myself that I DO have the fitness for this, I’ve DONE the training for this, and I WILL finish. Logic alone wasn’t getting the job done, so I simply had to have faith in my fitness, despite the feeling I was losing control.
Also, nutrition played a significant role in my mental resolve during this race. A glucose-starved brain and body will throw self-doubt in your face at a speed no endurance athlete can outrun. Prior races taught me how to not torpedo my brain with a glucose deficit. For all of us, smart racing includes not only a strong faith in your fitness, but also the ability to keep nutrition-related mental low-points in check.
Taming the mind
At vulnerable points in a long race, it is easy to descend into the abyss of self-doubt, particularly over how much of the race is left and how hard it is. Hard spots are just part of racing. Diligently doing the work in training is the best way to prepare: Your doubts will become reality if you didn’t do the training! To keep your fitness faith stronger than your doubts, these are your commandments:
- Do your training. Do the training that you KNOW you need to do. Cutting corners on your training plan will mentally and physically haunt you
- During your months of training, remind yourself daily what you are doing out there: You are doing the necessary work to have the race you want
- On race day, during those crucial moments, remind yourself that you belong there: You qualified; you earned that spot
The battle of fitness faith versus doubt often has a profound outcome on an athlete’s overall race. When you override your mind’s loud call to STOP racing, you instead TRUST that you have the fitness in the bank. You are then poised to own your race and to have the performance that you want — the race that you have earned.
Feeding the mind
In addition to dodging doubt by having faith in our fitness, we can also minimize how hard doubt hits with proper fueling. Avoiding low carbohydrate levels is the most nutritionally profound way to combat this problem. When you don’t execute your fueling plan properly, you’ll have those moments of doubt much sooner.
Most of us have experienced "bonking," that endurance rite of passage that essentially means you’ve run out of carbohydrate fuel. In addition to the powerless arms and numb legs, you also may remember a scrambling of your brain’s wiring that resulted in 100% negative feelings.
Or as stated by the scientific literature:
"Carbohydrate feedings can enhance brain function and improve one’s sense of well-being during exercise. Most people stop exercising or begin to perform poorly, because the effort required to keep going is perceived as too great. This large increase in perception of effort during prolonged exercise almost always precedes an inability of the muscle to produce adequate force or power. The benefits of carbohydrate feedings on delaying fatigue may include a reduced sensation of effort, improved motivation, better mood, and reduced inhibition of central motor drive in the uppermost regions of the brain.” (Davis, 2000; Gandevia, 1999)
There are thousands of great reasons to ingest adequate carbohydrates when racing, but this one is really a whopper. Our mind needs carbohydrate to keep our mood positive and our self-belief strong! This brings us to one more commandment:
- Keep enough carbohydrates in your brain to keep doubt out of it. Race with a fueling plan, and adhere to it as closely as your race allows
Merging of minds
Trust in my training and proper fueling was what I needed to finish my first Cascade Cream Puff. While swapping stories after the race with my friends, this theme of faith in fitness came up again. All of us arrived at our crux at various points during the race and we ALL relied on faith in our training to keep us going. During the endless 6-mph grinds up some of Oregon’s finest single-track trails, we remembered our previous 8-hour weekend rides that revealed our limits. We recalled the ever-inconvenient nighttime indoor trainer rides when it was always more appealing to do anything else. We remembered training in the cold rain. We all agreed that these quiet and unglamorous sessions were not in vain; rather, they were the expensive tickets to our finish lines. We knew that we earned our ability to race in such an event, and this knowledge carried us to completion.
I find this faith aspect of long-distance racing under-appreciated. Focusing on it represented a performance breakthrough in my racing career, and I believe it can do so for others who choose to employ it, as well.
References
Davis, J.M. (2000). Nutrition, neurotransmitters and central nervous system fatigue. In: R.J. Maughan (ed.) Nutrition in Sport. Oxford: Blackwell Science Ltd, pp. 171–183.
Gandevia, S.C. (1999). Mind, muscles and motoneurons. J. Sci. Med. Sport. 2: 167–18
References
Davis, J.M. (2000). Nutrition, neurotransmitters and central nervous system fatigue. In: R.J. Maughan (ed.) Nutrition in Sport. Oxford: Blackwell Science Ltd, pp. 171–183.
Gandevia, S.C. (1999). Mind, muscles and motoneurons. J. Sci. Med. Sport. 2: 167–18