6. Train Your Brain Like You Train Your Body
At mile 75 of an ultra, when everything hurts and cutoffs are slipping away, that destructive inner voice often shows up: "Maybe you should just quit now." It's in these crucial moments that mental training makes all the difference between finishing strong or sitting in a chair waiting for a ride back, filled with regret.
You’ve probably heard that ultra running is 90% mental, yet most of us were never taught how to properly train our brains. We try random mental tricks or repeat mantras that crumble when the race gets difficult. The truth is, mental training isn't about motivational quotes or occasional pep talks—it's a systematic approach that requires consistent practice, just like building physical endurance and strength.
In this episode, I share five essential truths that completely reframe how you should approach mental training. I'll walk you through common misconceptions, share stories from my own racing experience (including multiple DNFs), and introduce practical tools you can start using immediately.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
How to recognize that nobody starts mentally tough… it's a skill built through deliberate practice, not an innate trait.
Why mental strength is accessible to everyone, not just naturally tough individuals.
The importance of treating mental training like physical training, requiring time, repetition, and patience.
How to persist through the awkward learning phase when mental techniques feel clunky and ineffective.
The foundations of my Mindshift process you can practice during training runs to build mental strength.
Why mental strength isn't about ignoring pain or forcing positivity, but about developing self-belief.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
You're 75 miles into a race. Everything hurts. You're exhausted, barely eating, barely thinking. You're chasing cutoff, but it's slipping out of reach. And then that voice chimes in, not helpfully, and says, "Maybe you should just quit now. The next aid station is miles away."
This is the moment we all fear, the one that tests everything we trained for. And somehow, it's where the strongest runners pull off what looks like a miracle. But you, you're done, sitting in a chair, waiting for a ride, watching everyone else still in it. And the reality sinks in. You're out of the race. And all you can think in that moment is, "I wish I'd trained my mind better." But how?
We've all heard the saying, "Ultra running is 90% mental," and you know you should train your brain, but most of us were never taught how, at least not in a way that holds up when the race gets hard. But if the mental side matters that much, shouldn't you know how to train it? That's what this episode is here for. Not to throw more tips at you, but to help you finally understand what mental training really is, why it might not have worked for you before, why it's not just for naturally tough runners, and how it can actually be simple, doable, and powerful if you know what you're looking for.
I'll share some of my own stories from racing and coaching and give you a new way to think about mental training, one that you can build on episode by episode. So stick with me. I want you to leave today knowing this is possible for you and fired up to keep learning because mental strength isn't magic. It's earned, and you can start now. This is just the beginning.
Welcome to Unstoppable Ultra Runner, the podcast for ultrarunners who refuse to let anything hold them back. I’m your host, Susan Donnelly, veteran of over 150 100-mile races, and a coach who helps runners like you break through mental roadblocks, push past doubt, and run with confidence. Let’s go.
All right, let's start by clearing away the biggest misconceptions that hold runners back. Here are five truths that can reset how you think about mental training. And the first is that nobody starts mentally tough. One of the races that really kicked off my own mindset journey was Umstead 100. While I was DNFing Leadville twice, I also DNFed Umstead twice.
Umstead should have been easy. It's a flat, runnable, crushed gravel loop course in North Carolina. I couldn't understand it. I would finish the second to last lap and just decide I was done. I wasn't injured, I wasn't dehydrated. I just wanted it to be over. And even though I knew I'd regret it, was already regretting it, I still quit.
It was surreal, like watching a movie of somebody else walk to a car and crawl into the back to sleep and yelling at them from the audience not to, and they still did it anyway. I felt confused and defeated and honestly, ashamed. I didn't come into this sport mentally tough. I came into it like you probably did, needing mental toughness to do what I wanted to do.
What I lacked were the mental tools I hadn't yet built and the mental training I hadn't yet done, because nobody toes the line at their first ultra with perfect mental strength. We all start raw and emotional and panicked, wondering what we've gotten ourselves into. That's part of the deal. But that can also change.
Mental strength isn't something you either have or don't. It's something you train, just like mileage and speed. And the training ground is those exact moments where you doubt yourself or spiral or compare or overthink or want to quit. If you stay in those moments and learn from them, you get stronger. Which leads me to the next point: it's a skill anyone can build.
Mental strength isn't magic, it's a skill, and skills can be learned by anyone, including you. This is what I coach every day, and I've seen it over and over. Runners who learn to calm themselves mid-race when everything seems to be going wrong, they're slowing down, their stomach revolts, and they can't stop thinking about how far they have left to go, and they calm down and start solving problems.
Runners who stop making panicked decisions when time is short, like skipping food to get out of the aid station faster or pushing too hard to build cushion on cutoff, or even dropping at the aid station. Instead of making those panicked decisions, they start thinking clearly under pressure. Runners who stop letting a rough patch convince them the race is over and instead learn to adjust, ride it out, and keep moving forward until it clears.
For example, one of my clients was deep into the second morning at Rocky Raccoon 100. She was close to the final cutoff, and the math didn't look good. But she told her friend, "I don't think I can do this, but I've got to try." She left the aid station on the last lap, fired up, thinking, "All right, let's go. I've got this." But 30 seconds later, her body seized up, and everything hurt like it had before in the race, except this time, she could barely move.
Half a mile in, she reached a road that crosses the course that she knew was an easy shortcut back to the finish line, and her brain pounced and said, "You're not going to make that pace. You can't finish this lap. You can't make up that much time. Just take the road back."
Normally, she would have taken the shortcut and dropped. But we'd worked on mental strength, so this time was different because she had the skill she needed. And in the seconds it took to cross the road, that training kicked in. She asked herself, "Wait a minute. Do I know I can't make up the time?" No. "Do I know it won't get better?" No. And then a powerful thought came into her mind: "I want to finish." And that thought sparked the energy she needed to pick up the pace. She finished that loop, she crossed the finish line, amazed and delighted.
The difference? She didn't hope she'd be mentally strong. She learned the skill she needed to be mentally strong. Which brings me to my third point: it takes time and practice, just like physical training. This one might seem obvious, but a lot of runners miss it or resist it. Mental strength builds the same way as physical strength, the same way really as any skill: over time, with reps, through failure and repetition.
You don't build it from one DNF or even one strong finish, and not from one use of a tool either. You build it over time in the quiet moments when no one's watching by practicing that tool day after day. It's not flashy, it's not heroic, it's not dramatic. It's simple, it's consistent, and it works.
You learn to tell the difference between facts: "My quads are tight," and stories: "I'm falling apart." You get better at it every time you try, and your results do too. Which brings me to my fourth point: you have to be willing to be in the learning phase.
Here's the part most runners want to skip. You'll be bad at this before you get better. You'll try and calm yourself and still panic. You'll try and reframe a thought and still spiral. You'll try and shift your mindset and still feel like a fraud. And you'll try and stay in the race and still drop. That's not failure. That is the work, and you will get better at it. I promise.
Think about your first ultra, your first race day nutrition plan, or your first pacing strategy for a race. Were you flawless out of the gate? Of course not. You practiced, you adjusted, you learned, and mindset is no different. You've got to be willing to try, to not get it, and still stay with it. You've got to be willing to feel that frustration and try again anyway. That's one reason this is so much easier with a mindset coach alongside you to show you what to adjust and where to go next. The runners that succeed stick with it and do it anyway.
Here's an example. One of my clients had her heart set on finishing a 100-mile race. She DNFed it three years in a row. Same race, same dream. Talk about crushed. She truly believed she didn't have what it takes. So we spent a lot of time in that hard space, sifting through the despair, learning from the failures, and most importantly, holding on to belief and building it up brick by brick. And eventually, she finished. And then, she kept going. She finished her first 200, and she signed up for her first 300. That learning phase was long, but it worked. And because she stuck with it for so long, she leaped forward, all because she stuck with it.
Which brings me to my fifth point: there's no finish line, just the next level. This is the part no one talks about. There's no endpoint. Even after you've trained your mind, the work keeps evolving. New goals bring new challenges. New distances bring new fears and new doubts. It doesn't mean you've lost ground, and it doesn't mean you've lost mental strength or you've forgotten how. It just means you've leveled up. You're not failing, you're growing. And I think that's a beautiful thing because it never gets stale. There's always an opportunity to sharpen the sword even more.
So here's a personal example. I've run over 150 100-mile races at this point and I've spent decades mastering the mindset of going long distances no matter what. But lately, age has entered the picture. Some things are harder, some days are slower, and my body is changing and not always in ways that I expect. But I've decided this is just the next phase of mindset learning. I think of it as graduating from the master's level of ultra mindset and strategy, which I had down, and now entering the PhD level program. This isn't a loss, it's the opposite. It's a fresh challenge. To me, that's exciting, uncharted territory, and I'm here for it. There's so much opportunity when there's no limit.
All right. Before I describe how to start training your brain, it's probably also helpful to take a moment and describe what mental strength, the thing we're building in mental training, isn't. Mental strength doesn't mean ignoring pain. It's not about faking positivity or gritting your teeth and muscling through every moment. And it's definitely not about being hard on yourself. It's about backing yourself up. It's about believing in yourself enough to take a big risk. It's about loving yourself enough not to let yourself off the hook. It's about being the one voice in your head that says, "I've got this, and I know it."
So, you're not supposed to be good at this right away. You're building a new kind of mental muscle, and that's going to feel awkward, and you'll wonder if it's even working. That's not failure, that's training. And most people bail right there. But you're not most people. You're here to get stronger. So let's get into it.
Mindset training isn't a journal prompt you do once, and it's not a quote on your fridge or a mantra that you only remember when things are falling apart. It's reps. Just like your quads don't get strong from one hill repeat, your mind doesn't get strong from one mental trick. Mental strength builds during real-life, imperfect, messy training, on easy runs, on long runs, on no sleep runs, on "I don't want to" days. You show up, you practice a new thought, you fail at it, it feels clunky, but you try again. And here's how to start building that strength today.
One of the first mindset tools I teach my coaching clients is the Mindshift process. I can't teach you the whole thing here. It goes way deeper, but I'll give you a simple way to start practicing it right now out on the trail. Think of these like mental strength reps. Just like the physical ones, they add up.
So first, notice your thoughts. When you're out on a run and the run gets hard, pause and listen. What's going on in your brain? What's it saying? Just notice it. There's no need to fix it or judge it. And I've mentioned this in a previous podcast because this awareness alone is a powerful step. Then, pick one of those thoughts and play around with it. Let's just say your brain says, "It's too hard. This is too hard." Think of other options to think about that same situation, such as, "It just feels hard because I'm climbing, and I've climbed similar climbs before." It doesn't have to be a perfect reframe, just something that feels a little more useful, a little more uplifting, a little more true.
And then keep at this. Not every reframe will land, and that's totally normal. It's like a puzzle. You might try 10 pieces before one fits in the jigsaw. But every try counts. Every try builds strength, and every try gets you better at it. That's how it works. Not flawlessly, just consistently. Just show up for the reps. The reps are where you improve your technique and build your mental muscle strength. And if you do the reps, you'll get stronger, no question.
Here's what I want you to remember about mental training. Nobody starts strong. Mental strength is a skill. It's exactly like training your body. It takes time and reps to build. You have to be willing to stick with it during the learning phase, and you're never done. You're evolving. The training happens in having tools that work and doing the reps with them. This work, it'll change your races. But more than that, it'll change your relationship with yourself. So start your reps. You're stronger than you think. And if you're ready to learn these tools and have a coach in your corner every step of the way with those reps, I'm here to help.
I offer free consult calls where we take a real look at what's going on, what's working, what's in your way, and how we can train your mind to work for you and not against you. There's no pressure, no fluff, just a clear conversation about what's possible and how you can get there faster with fewer dead ends. If that sounds like what you need, there's a link in the show notes.
Thanks for being here today, and keep showing up for this mindset work because it matters, and so do you.
See you next week. Bye.
Thanks for listening to Unstoppable Ultra Runner. If you want more ultra talk, mindset tools, and strategies for running with confidence, visit www.susanidonnelly.com. This podcast receives production support from the team at Digital Freedom Productions. That’s it for today’s episode. See you next week.
This is the moment we all fear, the one that tests everything we trained for. And somehow, it's where the strongest runners pull off what looks like a miracle. But you, you're done, sitting in a chair, waiting for a ride, watching everyone else still in it. And the reality sinks in. You're out of the race. And all you can think in that moment is, "I wish I'd trained my mind better." But how?
We've all heard the saying, "Ultra running is 90% mental," and you know you should train your brain, but most of us were never taught how, at least not in a way that holds up when the race gets hard. But if the mental side matters that much, shouldn't you know how to train it? That's what this episode is here for. Not to throw more tips at you, but to help you finally understand what mental training really is, why it might not have worked for you before, why it's not just for naturally tough runners, and how it can actually be simple, doable, and powerful if you know what you're looking for.
I'll share some of my own stories from racing and coaching and give you a new way to think about mental training, one that you can build on episode by episode. So stick with me. I want you to leave today knowing this is possible for you and fired up to keep learning because mental strength isn't magic. It's earned, and you can start now. This is just the beginning.
Welcome to Unstoppable Ultra Runner, the podcast for ultrarunners who refuse to let anything hold them back. I’m your host, Susan Donnelly, veteran of over 150 100-mile races, and a coach who helps runners like you break through mental roadblocks, push past doubt, and run with confidence. Let’s go.
All right, let's start by clearing away the biggest misconceptions that hold runners back. Here are five truths that can reset how you think about mental training. And the first is that nobody starts mentally tough. One of the races that really kicked off my own mindset journey was Umstead 100. While I was DNFing Leadville twice, I also DNFed Umstead twice.
Umstead should have been easy. It's a flat, runnable, crushed gravel loop course in North Carolina. I couldn't understand it. I would finish the second to last lap and just decide I was done. I wasn't injured, I wasn't dehydrated. I just wanted it to be over. And even though I knew I'd regret it, was already regretting it, I still quit.
It was surreal, like watching a movie of somebody else walk to a car and crawl into the back to sleep and yelling at them from the audience not to, and they still did it anyway. I felt confused and defeated and honestly, ashamed. I didn't come into this sport mentally tough. I came into it like you probably did, needing mental toughness to do what I wanted to do.
What I lacked were the mental tools I hadn't yet built and the mental training I hadn't yet done, because nobody toes the line at their first ultra with perfect mental strength. We all start raw and emotional and panicked, wondering what we've gotten ourselves into. That's part of the deal. But that can also change.
Mental strength isn't something you either have or don't. It's something you train, just like mileage and speed. And the training ground is those exact moments where you doubt yourself or spiral or compare or overthink or want to quit. If you stay in those moments and learn from them, you get stronger. Which leads me to the next point: it's a skill anyone can build.
Mental strength isn't magic, it's a skill, and skills can be learned by anyone, including you. This is what I coach every day, and I've seen it over and over. Runners who learn to calm themselves mid-race when everything seems to be going wrong, they're slowing down, their stomach revolts, and they can't stop thinking about how far they have left to go, and they calm down and start solving problems.
Runners who stop making panicked decisions when time is short, like skipping food to get out of the aid station faster or pushing too hard to build cushion on cutoff, or even dropping at the aid station. Instead of making those panicked decisions, they start thinking clearly under pressure. Runners who stop letting a rough patch convince them the race is over and instead learn to adjust, ride it out, and keep moving forward until it clears.
For example, one of my clients was deep into the second morning at Rocky Raccoon 100. She was close to the final cutoff, and the math didn't look good. But she told her friend, "I don't think I can do this, but I've got to try." She left the aid station on the last lap, fired up, thinking, "All right, let's go. I've got this." But 30 seconds later, her body seized up, and everything hurt like it had before in the race, except this time, she could barely move.
Half a mile in, she reached a road that crosses the course that she knew was an easy shortcut back to the finish line, and her brain pounced and said, "You're not going to make that pace. You can't finish this lap. You can't make up that much time. Just take the road back."
Normally, she would have taken the shortcut and dropped. But we'd worked on mental strength, so this time was different because she had the skill she needed. And in the seconds it took to cross the road, that training kicked in. She asked herself, "Wait a minute. Do I know I can't make up the time?" No. "Do I know it won't get better?" No. And then a powerful thought came into her mind: "I want to finish." And that thought sparked the energy she needed to pick up the pace. She finished that loop, she crossed the finish line, amazed and delighted.
The difference? She didn't hope she'd be mentally strong. She learned the skill she needed to be mentally strong. Which brings me to my third point: it takes time and practice, just like physical training. This one might seem obvious, but a lot of runners miss it or resist it. Mental strength builds the same way as physical strength, the same way really as any skill: over time, with reps, through failure and repetition.
You don't build it from one DNF or even one strong finish, and not from one use of a tool either. You build it over time in the quiet moments when no one's watching by practicing that tool day after day. It's not flashy, it's not heroic, it's not dramatic. It's simple, it's consistent, and it works.
You learn to tell the difference between facts: "My quads are tight," and stories: "I'm falling apart." You get better at it every time you try, and your results do too. Which brings me to my fourth point: you have to be willing to be in the learning phase.
Here's the part most runners want to skip. You'll be bad at this before you get better. You'll try and calm yourself and still panic. You'll try and reframe a thought and still spiral. You'll try and shift your mindset and still feel like a fraud. And you'll try and stay in the race and still drop. That's not failure. That is the work, and you will get better at it. I promise.
Think about your first ultra, your first race day nutrition plan, or your first pacing strategy for a race. Were you flawless out of the gate? Of course not. You practiced, you adjusted, you learned, and mindset is no different. You've got to be willing to try, to not get it, and still stay with it. You've got to be willing to feel that frustration and try again anyway. That's one reason this is so much easier with a mindset coach alongside you to show you what to adjust and where to go next. The runners that succeed stick with it and do it anyway.
Here's an example. One of my clients had her heart set on finishing a 100-mile race. She DNFed it three years in a row. Same race, same dream. Talk about crushed. She truly believed she didn't have what it takes. So we spent a lot of time in that hard space, sifting through the despair, learning from the failures, and most importantly, holding on to belief and building it up brick by brick. And eventually, she finished. And then, she kept going. She finished her first 200, and she signed up for her first 300. That learning phase was long, but it worked. And because she stuck with it for so long, she leaped forward, all because she stuck with it.
Which brings me to my fifth point: there's no finish line, just the next level. This is the part no one talks about. There's no endpoint. Even after you've trained your mind, the work keeps evolving. New goals bring new challenges. New distances bring new fears and new doubts. It doesn't mean you've lost ground, and it doesn't mean you've lost mental strength or you've forgotten how. It just means you've leveled up. You're not failing, you're growing. And I think that's a beautiful thing because it never gets stale. There's always an opportunity to sharpen the sword even more.
So here's a personal example. I've run over 150 100-mile races at this point and I've spent decades mastering the mindset of going long distances no matter what. But lately, age has entered the picture. Some things are harder, some days are slower, and my body is changing and not always in ways that I expect. But I've decided this is just the next phase of mindset learning. I think of it as graduating from the master's level of ultra mindset and strategy, which I had down, and now entering the PhD level program. This isn't a loss, it's the opposite. It's a fresh challenge. To me, that's exciting, uncharted territory, and I'm here for it. There's so much opportunity when there's no limit.
All right. Before I describe how to start training your brain, it's probably also helpful to take a moment and describe what mental strength, the thing we're building in mental training, isn't. Mental strength doesn't mean ignoring pain. It's not about faking positivity or gritting your teeth and muscling through every moment. And it's definitely not about being hard on yourself. It's about backing yourself up. It's about believing in yourself enough to take a big risk. It's about loving yourself enough not to let yourself off the hook. It's about being the one voice in your head that says, "I've got this, and I know it."
So, you're not supposed to be good at this right away. You're building a new kind of mental muscle, and that's going to feel awkward, and you'll wonder if it's even working. That's not failure, that's training. And most people bail right there. But you're not most people. You're here to get stronger. So let's get into it.
Mindset training isn't a journal prompt you do once, and it's not a quote on your fridge or a mantra that you only remember when things are falling apart. It's reps. Just like your quads don't get strong from one hill repeat, your mind doesn't get strong from one mental trick. Mental strength builds during real-life, imperfect, messy training, on easy runs, on long runs, on no sleep runs, on "I don't want to" days. You show up, you practice a new thought, you fail at it, it feels clunky, but you try again. And here's how to start building that strength today.
One of the first mindset tools I teach my coaching clients is the Mindshift process. I can't teach you the whole thing here. It goes way deeper, but I'll give you a simple way to start practicing it right now out on the trail. Think of these like mental strength reps. Just like the physical ones, they add up.
So first, notice your thoughts. When you're out on a run and the run gets hard, pause and listen. What's going on in your brain? What's it saying? Just notice it. There's no need to fix it or judge it. And I've mentioned this in a previous podcast because this awareness alone is a powerful step. Then, pick one of those thoughts and play around with it. Let's just say your brain says, "It's too hard. This is too hard." Think of other options to think about that same situation, such as, "It just feels hard because I'm climbing, and I've climbed similar climbs before." It doesn't have to be a perfect reframe, just something that feels a little more useful, a little more uplifting, a little more true.
And then keep at this. Not every reframe will land, and that's totally normal. It's like a puzzle. You might try 10 pieces before one fits in the jigsaw. But every try counts. Every try builds strength, and every try gets you better at it. That's how it works. Not flawlessly, just consistently. Just show up for the reps. The reps are where you improve your technique and build your mental muscle strength. And if you do the reps, you'll get stronger, no question.
Here's what I want you to remember about mental training. Nobody starts strong. Mental strength is a skill. It's exactly like training your body. It takes time and reps to build. You have to be willing to stick with it during the learning phase, and you're never done. You're evolving. The training happens in having tools that work and doing the reps with them. This work, it'll change your races. But more than that, it'll change your relationship with yourself. So start your reps. You're stronger than you think. And if you're ready to learn these tools and have a coach in your corner every step of the way with those reps, I'm here to help.
I offer free consult calls where we take a real look at what's going on, what's working, what's in your way, and how we can train your mind to work for you and not against you. There's no pressure, no fluff, just a clear conversation about what's possible and how you can get there faster with fewer dead ends. If that sounds like what you need, there's a link in the show notes.
Thanks for being here today, and keep showing up for this mindset work because it matters, and so do you.
See you next week. Bye.
Thanks for listening to Unstoppable Ultra Runner. If you want more ultra talk, mindset tools, and strategies for running with confidence, visit www.susanidonnelly.com. This podcast receives production support from the team at Digital Freedom Productions. That’s it for today’s episode. See you next week.
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