10. Build a Cushion on Cutoff: Race Strategy
You want to build a cushion on cutoff… what’s your strategy? Most runners sprint off the line, trying to build a buffer early so they can relax later in the race. But is that really the best way to create some leeway into your race?
Through an ultra, I'll see plenty of runners sitting in the aid stations… trashed. Runners who looked so strong early, who seemed to be untouchable, are now suffering, struggling, and dropping. What if you had the mindset tools to let the pack get ahead, then slowly start passing people, one after another?
Tune in this week for a new strategy for building a cushion on cutoff. This patient approach transforms the race from a survival battle into a controlled, strategic effort where you finish strong instead of just hanging on.
Ready to stop dropping and start finishing stronger? Join my free masterclass, How Not to Drop, on June 26, 2025 at 12 PM ET! I'll show you how to recognize the 5 stages that lead ultra-runners to quit—and how to catch yourself before you spiral. Sign up now at susanidonnelly.com/masterclass.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why starting faster than your sustainable pace creates a fear-driven cycle of sprint, crash, and panic.
Why runners who go out fast to build cushion often drop or struggle later, blaming training when strategy was the real issue.
How to practice patience during training runs by resisting the urge to go out too fast.
What happens mentally when you shift from hoarding time out of fear to creating it through steady effort.
How starting at your target pace and staying there leads to passing runners in the later miles.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
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.
If there's one thing I hear all the time from ultra runners at the start of a race, it's this: "I just want to get as far ahead on cutoff as I can."
Makes total sense, right? Nobody wants to feel like they're going to get pulled for time at the next aid station, and nobody wants to spend hours doing mental math and finding again and again that they're behind where they want to be.
So the instinct is, bank time now while you're fresh. Push early, build a cushion so you don't have to stress the rest of the way.
But that strategy? It's a trap. And it's a trap I see smart, strong runners fall into again and again.
They don't trust themselves to handle whatever's ahead. They don't believe they can stay consistent when things get hard, so they try to eliminate that fear by grabbing as much cushion as they can before anything goes wrong.
But the moment they do that, they're no longer running their race. They're running cutoff stress's race.
And here's the kicker: most runners who do this already expect to struggle later on. They expect to suffer, to slow down, and to lose time. So they panic early and try and outrun what they believe is the inevitable. They front-load their effort thinking, "If I can just build a big enough lead now, I won't have to worry about it later."
But what happens? They go out too fast. They push a pace they can't sustain. They burn through energy and nutrition and mental energy, decision-making, in the first chunk of a race.
They do all the work and build the cushion, and then in their minds, that hard work is over, and all they should have to do now for the rest of the race is maintain pace. They should be able to relax and focus on finishing without stress.
Except, they can't relax. Because now, it's a new fear. They start to fear any sign that cushion is slipping.
Now they're holding on to that cushion they built and scared to lose a minute of it because they don't believe they can rebuild it if they have to, and they definitely don't want to have to try.
So, one slow mile and the fear starts rushing in. "I'm losing time. My race is falling apart. I knew this would happen."
That cushion that they worked so hard to build? It feels fragile. Like if they lose any of it, the race is over. So, they surge ahead to try and regain time quickly, but then can't hold that pace for long and crash again.
So the cycle becomes sprint, crash, panic, repeat. And it becomes a self-fulfilling spiral. That's absolutely miserable. Not just physically, but mentally.
Because the whole race then becomes about surviving cutoff. Not running strong and not racing, just surviving. They're constantly on edge, second-guessing everything, hoping every aid station buys them just a little bit more time, and every time their cushion shrinks even a little bit, the stress explodes.
I want to be clear here. They're not crashing because they're weak or they didn't train enough or the wheels just kind of happened to fall off. They crash because they ran scared instead of running smart.
But here's the good news. There is a better way. Your races don't have to work like this.
But, the one caveat is that this requires patience. And it requires trust. And yes, that takes mental strength. But it also makes your entire race more enjoyable and way less chaotic.
So, here's the smartest strategy, and you might not expect this, but the best way to stay ahead of cutoff is to stop trying to outrun it by grabbing all the cushion you can all at once. The solution is to build your cushion gradually, mile by mile, a little at a time over the course of the entire race.
It's like putting pennies in the bank. One penny doesn't feel like much, but consistently, over the course of an ultra, over the course of 100 miles, all those pennies add up to something solid. And doing it gradually doesn't cost you everything upfront.
Here's a quick story. For years, I've routinely started at the pace I plan to run, and I don't necessarily have a whole lot of speeds in my gear list. So I start at that pace I want to run, not faster, just sticking to my plan and trusting it. And every single time, I watch people take off in a flood ahead of me.
I end up near the back of the pack and sometimes literally dead last, with runners sometimes even out of sight. And I've built a high tolerance for not letting that mess with my head or caring how it looks to other people. I don't take off sprinting with them just to avoid the discomfort of noticing that I'm behind.
I stay steady. I stick to my plan because I know it works. And eventually, in a 100-mile race, when I hit 60 or 70 miles, I'll slowly start passing people. One after another. And I'll see plenty of runners sitting in the aid stations trashed. Runners who looked so strong early, who seemed to be untouchable, are now suffering and struggling and dropping. And it's so hard to see.
And I hear the same comments again and again, "It's just not my day." "I felt good early until the wheels came off." "I ran well until I didn't." And a lot of runners even blame their training, but I saw what happened. They went out fast, super fast, because they were afraid to fall behind.
So they ended up racing to kill the fear instead of racing to finish.
Meanwhile, I'm still moving strong. I may not be fast, but I'm calm and focused and in control. And I finish race after race that way. Not because I'm lucky, but because I don't let myself fall for the panic. I don't take the bait.
It's not luck, it's strategy.
Let me show you what I'm talking about. Let's do a little bit of ultramath, and don't worry, I'll do the math for you.
Let's say for simplicity, you're running a 100-mile race and the cutoff pace is even throughout the race, okay? Just to keep things very simple. And you want to bank one hour on cutoff.
If you want to do that in the first 10 miles, you'll need to run 6 minutes per mile faster than cutoff pace. 6. That's not realistic for most of us.
So even if you give yourself 20 miles to build that 1-hour cushion, that's still 3 minutes per mile faster. That's hard to sustain, especially on technical terrain or climbs.
But even if you give yourself 30 miles to build that 1-hour cushion, you'd still need to run 2 minutes faster per mile.
Now, on paper, that might sound doable, but it's problematic in the early miles if they're technical or hilly or you get stuck in a conga line, or you need extra time in an aid station for anything. Any one thing can throw you off because you don't have a lot of miles to make up that lost time. You only have 30.
And the moment you start losing the cushion you built, again, that panic sets in and you're no longer calmly building time, you're scrambling to get back what you lost. It's not strategy, that's gambling.
So, now compare that math to this. If you build your cushion gradually, all race long over the course of this same 100 miles, now you only have to run 36 seconds faster per mile over 100 miles to finish an hour ahead of cutoff. Seconds, not minutes.
Feel yourself relax? Way easier to think about running 36 seconds faster per mile than 2 or 3 minutes, or 6.
And to carry the strategy further, if you run 1 minute per mile faster than cutoff pace over the course of this 100 miles, you'll finish 1 hour and 40 minutes ahead of it, well over that 1 hour.
If you run 2 minutes faster than that cutoff pace over the whole 100 miles, you'll finish, get ready, 3 hours and 20 minutes ahead of cutoff. That's if you run 2 minutes faster than cutoff pace over the whole 100 miles. Pennies in the bank.
And I mentioned it, but I want to go back and let this one part really sink in. This is average pace over 100 miles, not just in the first 10, 20, or 30 miles. You're gradually building cutoff over 100 miles instead of grabbing as much as you can in the beginning and trying to hold on to it for dear life the rest of the race.
That means that if you have a slow mile or section here or there, or stop at an aid station to change socks, you're not in trouble and you don't need to freak out because you've still got miles ahead to even things out, timewise.
Even better, if you run with this gradual strategy, you make decisions with a clear head, not from fear or panic. You're in charge. You can slow down, take care of yourself, and speed up later, because you trust yourself to do it.
And even if the cutoff pace in your race varies, unlike this hypothetical race, even if it varies or there are big climbs, you can plan for steady gains while taking that variability into account. You can adjust your plan to take that variability into account, but plan to build on cutoff the whole race.
Now, I want to be clear that this takes confidence, obviously. And it also takes a desire to do it this way. You have to train yourself not to react when that initial fear shows up at the start of the race, which it will.
Because the thing that's holding most runners back isn't their physical pace, it's the belief that, "I can't trust myself to be strong later, so I have to hoard time now and hope I can hold on to it."
That belief that you can't trust yourself to be strong later creates a lot of pressure and it creates a lot of panic. And it leads a lot of runners to quit mentally before their body gives out, just to get rid of the pressure and make it stop.
So, here's your mindset rep for the week. On your next long run, or even better, if you can find a small race or just a fun race to do, next time you do this, start at your target pace and stay there.
And feel the urge to go out too fast. Imagine yourself in a race if it's just a long run. Feel that urge to go out too fast and get some of those miles done quickly. And don't let yourself take the bait. Practice being patient.
Watch your brain say, "I could be building cushion right now and getting this done faster," and ask, "But do I need to?"
Practice feeling that urge and simply letting it pass. And then finish strong and in good shape. Prove to yourself that this strategy works. Prove it in training, prove it in smaller, less important races.
You don't need to feel confident with it yet, you just need to practice believing in it.
So, here's what I want you to take away today. The runners who finish strong are the ones who build their cushion gradually, not grabbing it out of panic all at once. Just mile by mile, trusting their plan. They don't chase time, they create it.
Because they're not reacting to fear, they're running their own race.
Look, building cushion this way might not feel impressive at first. You might feel slow. You might feel like you're getting left behind, but it adds up and it's more likely to last you to the finish. Because you're not gambling on a fast start. You're making steady, smart deposits that will protect you later on.
And that's what gets you to the finish line feeling strong.
This strategy, it's not flashy, but it works, and it rewards runners like you, runners who are steady and determined and don't give up.
Alright, talk to you all 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.
If there's one thing I hear all the time from ultra runners at the start of a race, it's this: "I just want to get as far ahead on cutoff as I can."
Makes total sense, right? Nobody wants to feel like they're going to get pulled for time at the next aid station, and nobody wants to spend hours doing mental math and finding again and again that they're behind where they want to be.
So the instinct is, bank time now while you're fresh. Push early, build a cushion so you don't have to stress the rest of the way.
But that strategy? It's a trap. And it's a trap I see smart, strong runners fall into again and again.
They don't trust themselves to handle whatever's ahead. They don't believe they can stay consistent when things get hard, so they try to eliminate that fear by grabbing as much cushion as they can before anything goes wrong.
But the moment they do that, they're no longer running their race. They're running cutoff stress's race.
And here's the kicker: most runners who do this already expect to struggle later on. They expect to suffer, to slow down, and to lose time. So they panic early and try and outrun what they believe is the inevitable. They front-load their effort thinking, "If I can just build a big enough lead now, I won't have to worry about it later."
But what happens? They go out too fast. They push a pace they can't sustain. They burn through energy and nutrition and mental energy, decision-making, in the first chunk of a race.
They do all the work and build the cushion, and then in their minds, that hard work is over, and all they should have to do now for the rest of the race is maintain pace. They should be able to relax and focus on finishing without stress.
Except, they can't relax. Because now, it's a new fear. They start to fear any sign that cushion is slipping.
Now they're holding on to that cushion they built and scared to lose a minute of it because they don't believe they can rebuild it if they have to, and they definitely don't want to have to try.
So, one slow mile and the fear starts rushing in. "I'm losing time. My race is falling apart. I knew this would happen."
That cushion that they worked so hard to build? It feels fragile. Like if they lose any of it, the race is over. So, they surge ahead to try and regain time quickly, but then can't hold that pace for long and crash again.
So the cycle becomes sprint, crash, panic, repeat. And it becomes a self-fulfilling spiral. That's absolutely miserable. Not just physically, but mentally.
Because the whole race then becomes about surviving cutoff. Not running strong and not racing, just surviving. They're constantly on edge, second-guessing everything, hoping every aid station buys them just a little bit more time, and every time their cushion shrinks even a little bit, the stress explodes.
I want to be clear here. They're not crashing because they're weak or they didn't train enough or the wheels just kind of happened to fall off. They crash because they ran scared instead of running smart.
But here's the good news. There is a better way. Your races don't have to work like this.
But, the one caveat is that this requires patience. And it requires trust. And yes, that takes mental strength. But it also makes your entire race more enjoyable and way less chaotic.
So, here's the smartest strategy, and you might not expect this, but the best way to stay ahead of cutoff is to stop trying to outrun it by grabbing all the cushion you can all at once. The solution is to build your cushion gradually, mile by mile, a little at a time over the course of the entire race.
It's like putting pennies in the bank. One penny doesn't feel like much, but consistently, over the course of an ultra, over the course of 100 miles, all those pennies add up to something solid. And doing it gradually doesn't cost you everything upfront.
Here's a quick story. For years, I've routinely started at the pace I plan to run, and I don't necessarily have a whole lot of speeds in my gear list. So I start at that pace I want to run, not faster, just sticking to my plan and trusting it. And every single time, I watch people take off in a flood ahead of me.
I end up near the back of the pack and sometimes literally dead last, with runners sometimes even out of sight. And I've built a high tolerance for not letting that mess with my head or caring how it looks to other people. I don't take off sprinting with them just to avoid the discomfort of noticing that I'm behind.
I stay steady. I stick to my plan because I know it works. And eventually, in a 100-mile race, when I hit 60 or 70 miles, I'll slowly start passing people. One after another. And I'll see plenty of runners sitting in the aid stations trashed. Runners who looked so strong early, who seemed to be untouchable, are now suffering and struggling and dropping. And it's so hard to see.
And I hear the same comments again and again, "It's just not my day." "I felt good early until the wheels came off." "I ran well until I didn't." And a lot of runners even blame their training, but I saw what happened. They went out fast, super fast, because they were afraid to fall behind.
So they ended up racing to kill the fear instead of racing to finish.
Meanwhile, I'm still moving strong. I may not be fast, but I'm calm and focused and in control. And I finish race after race that way. Not because I'm lucky, but because I don't let myself fall for the panic. I don't take the bait.
It's not luck, it's strategy.
Let me show you what I'm talking about. Let's do a little bit of ultramath, and don't worry, I'll do the math for you.
Let's say for simplicity, you're running a 100-mile race and the cutoff pace is even throughout the race, okay? Just to keep things very simple. And you want to bank one hour on cutoff.
If you want to do that in the first 10 miles, you'll need to run 6 minutes per mile faster than cutoff pace. 6. That's not realistic for most of us.
So even if you give yourself 20 miles to build that 1-hour cushion, that's still 3 minutes per mile faster. That's hard to sustain, especially on technical terrain or climbs.
But even if you give yourself 30 miles to build that 1-hour cushion, you'd still need to run 2 minutes faster per mile.
Now, on paper, that might sound doable, but it's problematic in the early miles if they're technical or hilly or you get stuck in a conga line, or you need extra time in an aid station for anything. Any one thing can throw you off because you don't have a lot of miles to make up that lost time. You only have 30.
And the moment you start losing the cushion you built, again, that panic sets in and you're no longer calmly building time, you're scrambling to get back what you lost. It's not strategy, that's gambling.
So, now compare that math to this. If you build your cushion gradually, all race long over the course of this same 100 miles, now you only have to run 36 seconds faster per mile over 100 miles to finish an hour ahead of cutoff. Seconds, not minutes.
Feel yourself relax? Way easier to think about running 36 seconds faster per mile than 2 or 3 minutes, or 6.
And to carry the strategy further, if you run 1 minute per mile faster than cutoff pace over the course of this 100 miles, you'll finish 1 hour and 40 minutes ahead of it, well over that 1 hour.
If you run 2 minutes faster than that cutoff pace over the whole 100 miles, you'll finish, get ready, 3 hours and 20 minutes ahead of cutoff. That's if you run 2 minutes faster than cutoff pace over the whole 100 miles. Pennies in the bank.
And I mentioned it, but I want to go back and let this one part really sink in. This is average pace over 100 miles, not just in the first 10, 20, or 30 miles. You're gradually building cutoff over 100 miles instead of grabbing as much as you can in the beginning and trying to hold on to it for dear life the rest of the race.
That means that if you have a slow mile or section here or there, or stop at an aid station to change socks, you're not in trouble and you don't need to freak out because you've still got miles ahead to even things out, timewise.
Even better, if you run with this gradual strategy, you make decisions with a clear head, not from fear or panic. You're in charge. You can slow down, take care of yourself, and speed up later, because you trust yourself to do it.
And even if the cutoff pace in your race varies, unlike this hypothetical race, even if it varies or there are big climbs, you can plan for steady gains while taking that variability into account. You can adjust your plan to take that variability into account, but plan to build on cutoff the whole race.
Now, I want to be clear that this takes confidence, obviously. And it also takes a desire to do it this way. You have to train yourself not to react when that initial fear shows up at the start of the race, which it will.
Because the thing that's holding most runners back isn't their physical pace, it's the belief that, "I can't trust myself to be strong later, so I have to hoard time now and hope I can hold on to it."
That belief that you can't trust yourself to be strong later creates a lot of pressure and it creates a lot of panic. And it leads a lot of runners to quit mentally before their body gives out, just to get rid of the pressure and make it stop.
So, here's your mindset rep for the week. On your next long run, or even better, if you can find a small race or just a fun race to do, next time you do this, start at your target pace and stay there.
And feel the urge to go out too fast. Imagine yourself in a race if it's just a long run. Feel that urge to go out too fast and get some of those miles done quickly. And don't let yourself take the bait. Practice being patient.
Watch your brain say, "I could be building cushion right now and getting this done faster," and ask, "But do I need to?"
Practice feeling that urge and simply letting it pass. And then finish strong and in good shape. Prove to yourself that this strategy works. Prove it in training, prove it in smaller, less important races.
You don't need to feel confident with it yet, you just need to practice believing in it.
So, here's what I want you to take away today. The runners who finish strong are the ones who build their cushion gradually, not grabbing it out of panic all at once. Just mile by mile, trusting their plan. They don't chase time, they create it.
Because they're not reacting to fear, they're running their own race.
Look, building cushion this way might not feel impressive at first. You might feel slow. You might feel like you're getting left behind, but it adds up and it's more likely to last you to the finish. Because you're not gambling on a fast start. You're making steady, smart deposits that will protect you later on.
And that's what gets you to the finish line feeling strong.
This strategy, it's not flashy, but it works, and it rewards runners like you, runners who are steady and determined and don't give up.
Alright, talk to you all 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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