14. What If It's Easier Than You Think?
Years ago at Superior 100, somewhere around mile 75, I kept waiting for the hurt to start. I'd been bracing for it the entire race, checking in with my body every few miles, thinking, "Now? is it happening now?" But the miles kept flowing, my legs kept moving strong and steady, and the dreaded suffering never arrived. Finally, with about 10 miles to go, a wild thought hit me: what if the hurt never comes?
Most runners approach ultras braced for the worst, convinced that earning a buckle requires matching the course difficulty with an equal amount of misery. We've internalized messages like "no pain, no gain" and turned suffering into a weird requirement for feeling worthy of our finish. But this mindset trap doesn't prepare you for the race - it just weighs you down before you even reach the starting line.
In this episode, I share how believing your race could go better than expected isn't naive or arrogant - it's a legitimate possibility that changes everything. You'll discover why the hardest part isn't the running itself, but letting yourself believe things could go well. You’ll also learn practical tools to shift from constantly anticipating disaster to actually noticing what's going right, transforming not just your results but your entire race experience.
If you’re loving the show, please take a moment to follow, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts today!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
The two reasons we assume ultras have to be hard and miserable.
Why assuming your race has to be harder than expected creates mental resistance and dread before you even start.
What happens when you stop looking for everything going wrong and start noticing what's going right.
The three legitimate possibilities for how any race can go (and why we ignore the best one).
A simple question that can open your mind to better race possibilities.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome to Unstoppable Ultra Runner, the podcast for ultra runners 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.
Hey you all. Welcome to episode 14. Here's a question for you. What if the race could be easier than you expect? Not just not as bad as you fear it's going to be, but better than you've imagined. What if the thing making it so hard is your thinking, and that's something you can fix?
I see this all the time with clients. Runners who come to me braced for the absolute worst and leave a race stunned that it went better than they thought was possible. Not because they trained harder, not because the weather was perfect or anything like that, but because they learned to think differently. And one of the biggest differences? Learning to believe the race could go better than you expect. This might sound crazy, but if you're willing to hear me out, I think you're going to like where this goes.
First though, let me be clear. I'm not saying an ultra is going to be easy. I'm not taking anything away from the accomplishment of running an ultra. It's physically demanding and it takes serious work and you generally don't stumble into finishing an ultra by accident. But what I do want you to do is challenge the assumption that you have to suffer to earn your finish. I want you to consider that there might be another way, one that gets you there stronger, and maybe even more proud of how you did it.
Believing the race has to be hard or harder than you expect doesn't actually prepare you for the difficulty of a race. It just weighs you down. So instead, I want you to entertain the possibility that the race could go easier than you expect because it is a possibility. Let's talk about what you really want.
You want to do something hard. That's why you signed up for an ultra. You want to see what you're capable of. But if you're honest, you're also hoping it's going to go smoother than you fear. You want to feel strong out there, calm and in control. You'd love to be surprised by how well it goes, though. You want that. And at the same time, you also don't believe that's possible.
And that tension between the race you hope for, the smooth race you hope for, and the one you think you're going to have is really defeating. It creates a lot of mental resistance and dread before the race even starts. So, let's examine this. Why do we assume an ultra has to be so hard and miserable?
There are two big reasons I want to talk about. The first is that we've been taught that hard means worthy, that if you didn't suffer enough, it didn't really count. That finishing a tough race comes at a cost you have to pay, and that cost has to feel high. You know, we hear all kinds of things like, no pain, no gain. If it doesn't hurt, it doesn't count, and how bad do you want it? And the corollary to that last one is that if you don't finish, you can fall into thinking, I just didn't want it bad enough.
It becomes this weird math where the only way to earn a buckle and feel good about it is to match the difficulty of the course with an equal amount of suffering in your body. And if you don't suffer enough, it doesn't feel like you really earned it. You didn't go all in.
The second thing that's going on here is that we've also been taught that believing the race could go well is foolish. Like only a fool would think their race could go better than expected. And believing that is maybe even arrogant and setting yourself up for a downfall. So even though you want to believe it could go well, you automatically talk yourself out of it. It feels dangerous and delusional. You assume that the best you can hope for is that it won't be worse than you imagine.
But the problem is that that leaves no room for the race to go better. It just closes off that possibility that you can have a better race than you expect. And that's a mindset trap.
And here's what happens when you fall into that trap. You do everything you can think of to keep the race from being worse than expected. You train super hard, harder than you need to. You obsess over getting every single little detail right and you mentally rehearse how awful it's going to feel, hoping to in some way prepare yourself for the awfulness. And it starts to seem too awful then. So you start telling yourself you can't do it, you're in over your head, and running this race is just going to expose you as weak.
But what you're really doing here is spending all your time visualizing what you don't want. What that does is it actually inflates the difficulty of the race in your mind before you even toe the line. So when race day comes, you're then on high alert, anticipating how hard it's going to be and looking for signals that the hard part is starting.
For instance, you worry about everything, the effect of everything in the race. You notice every little ache, pain, and misstep, and each one of those only confirms how hard it's about to get. Or you make a fast first section of the race turn into a problem that you're going to pay for later. You're sure you are.
And you turn the sunny weather into a problem because it's going to be hot. So instead of being thankful that you don't have to run a rainy, muddy course, you're worried about it being hot. You turn everything into a problem and every part of the race then becomes proof that the race is getting hard.
And all that does is slow you down. It doesn't really help you solve a problem because a problem isn't really there. And that slows you down, not because the race actually got harder, but because finding all the little potential problems in everything makes the race seem harder than it actually is.
So here's what's really going on in your head. What's hard here isn't the running. You've trained for that and you're ready for that. What's hard is letting yourself believe that the race could go better than you expect.
Feel your resistance to that idea right now. That's the hard. The hard is being confident enough to accept that having a great race is a possibility. Because we've accepted these made-up suffering requirements and we treat them like fact. Like there's no other option out there. So the idea that the race could be easier? It feels wrong, like ignorance or arrogance. And you shut the door on the possibility that it could be easier.
But here's the truth. Just because a race is challenging doesn't mean it has to feel like a constant battle.
Let me tell you a story I don't often share. Years ago, I was running Superior 100, and it was probably my second or third time there. And by that time, I'd run a handful of hundreds, so I had some experience under my belt, and I knew the course and I'd trained well, and I was pacing myself as sustainably as I thought I could.
But I anticipated that I would start hurting in like the last third or quarter of the race. And I expected it the entire race. So when I got to that point, I started kind of bracing for it and waiting for it to happen. And I would think like, now? Now? Is it happening now? And I kept waiting for it to start getting hard as I ran on. And I would think like, is this it? Any second now.
But it didn't get hard. I kept waiting and the longer I ran without hurting, the more worried I got, because I was certain that the longer I postponed the hurt, the more it would like combine together and I would have to pay for all these good running miles all at one time and it was going to really hurt.
And finally, maybe 10 miles from the finish, a wild thought hit me. What if, what if the hurt never comes? It blew my mind. What if this running strong and steady thing where the running is just flowing - what if this is the whole race? I hadn't let myself even consider it. But it was happening. So I let my guard down a little bit, and nothing bad happened. And I let my guard down a little more, and I was still fine.
And I realized I could either keep bracing for disaster or I could soak up every last mile of this incredible race I was having. And I was not, not going to pass up this experience by spending it waiting for something bad to happen. I was going to soak it up as fully as I could while I had it.
And I remember a point distinctly, all these years later, reaching the overlook above town and the finish line and just grinning to myself, knowing that I had maybe a mile or two left in this beautiful race, and the hurt was never going to set in. I was going to enjoy every last second of it. I was not going to miss it by waiting for something to go wrong.
And this race showed me, thankfully early on, something I have never forgotten, that there is way more possibility out there than just the race being hard.
So, what's the solution here? It's not necessarily working harder to prevent the hard, although training is great. I'm not doubting training. It's thinking differently. Believing the race can go easier than you expect. Not by shortcutting or skipping work, but by using your head, by training your brain to allow the possibility that it might go better than you think.
And that's what I teach my clients with the mindset process, how to open your mind up to possibilities that you aren't even seeing. It's not about repeating mantras that you don't believe or faking till you make it. It's the skill of catching blind spots like this, the belief that the race has to be worse than you expect, and instead building the belief that it could actually go better. It's not delusion and it's not hope. It's a legitimate possibility that you learn to believe in.
I mean, look, your brain already has a ton of practice imagining the suffering and how awful it's going to feel. You've probably been rehearsing that version of the race in your head for months. And now, it's time to give equal weight to the version of the race you actually want. Not because you're naive, but because you're finally using your mental strength to imagine something good.
So here's something to try. Start by recognizing that there are literally three possibilities for how any race can go. It could be harder than you expect, it could be as hard as you expect, and it could also be easier than you expect. All three things are a possibility. And that third one, it does exist. It's not wishful thinking. It's an actual outcome that's there available for you.
Now ask yourself this question. How could it be easy? How could the race be easy? This is one of my favorite questions. And I'm not asking how could it be perfect or effortless. How could it be easier than you've imagined?
And there may not be any immediate answers that jump to your head, but stick with the question. Don't give into the urge for distraction, which is what your brain's going to want to do. Stick with the question and let your imagination have fun with it. Let the answers, even if they sound crazy at first, come to you.
How could it be easy? You keep trying solutions to your blister problem instead of getting frustrated that you can't fix the blister, and you find a solution. Or you stop that self-sabotage thing you always do because you're just done with it. Or you appreciate how your training prepared you instead of second-guessing it. Those are all ways the race could go easier and you can start piling on more and more things into this list.
If you've been mentally rehearsing how awful the race is going to be, this might take mental strength, giving yourself permission to imagine something good, and then letting it feel possible and even exciting.
But here's what happens when you do. You stop looking for everything that's going wrong and you actually start noticing everything that's going right. You see all the ways the race is already working out in your favor, how smooth you're making the aid station stops, how many of the miles just flow, and how dutifully your muscles respond when you ask them to climb yet another tough climb.
It changes your race experience, which then changes your results for the better. Not because you worked harder. Because you let it be easier than you expected in your head, which translates to your body.
So, here's the takeaway. You don't have to make yourself miserable to earn a finish. You don't have to pay for the difficulty of a race with an equal amount of misery. What earns that buckle is your physical, emotional, and mental skill. And opening your mind to the possibility of a better race? That takes skill.
Think about it this way. It takes more self-control to let something go well than to fight it the whole way. But it's worth it. You don't just get a better result, you get a better experience of the race.
So next time you think, it's going to be worse than I want it to be. I know it. I want you to pause and ask, but what if it's better? Because it just might be.
This shift can change everything about the race. Not just how it goes, but how it feels. You get to have a better race, a better experience, and better results. You don't have to suffer your way through the race to earn a finish. And you don't have to match the course difficulty with an equal amount of misery to deserve that buckle. You can make it easier.
And it's not by cutting corners, but by making a deeper change in your head, by training your mind to see the possibility, the legitimate possibility that it could go better than you think.
Because it's not suffering that earns the buckle. It's your skill, your mental, emotional, and physical skill. Letting the race go well takes just as much strength and maybe more. It takes awareness, patience, and self-control, but it's way worth it.
Because when you open your mind to the possibility that the race can go better than you expect, you start seeing things you couldn't before. How much is already going right, how capable you really are, and how good it can actually get. You give yourself the chance to be surprised, to run a race that expands what you thought was possible. And that turns the race into something far more meaningful than just hard.
All right, that's it for the week. Thanks for tuning in and share this with a friend, especially one who's getting ready for a big race. They'll appreciate it. See 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.
Hey you all. Welcome to episode 14. Here's a question for you. What if the race could be easier than you expect? Not just not as bad as you fear it's going to be, but better than you've imagined. What if the thing making it so hard is your thinking, and that's something you can fix?
I see this all the time with clients. Runners who come to me braced for the absolute worst and leave a race stunned that it went better than they thought was possible. Not because they trained harder, not because the weather was perfect or anything like that, but because they learned to think differently. And one of the biggest differences? Learning to believe the race could go better than you expect. This might sound crazy, but if you're willing to hear me out, I think you're going to like where this goes.
First though, let me be clear. I'm not saying an ultra is going to be easy. I'm not taking anything away from the accomplishment of running an ultra. It's physically demanding and it takes serious work and you generally don't stumble into finishing an ultra by accident. But what I do want you to do is challenge the assumption that you have to suffer to earn your finish. I want you to consider that there might be another way, one that gets you there stronger, and maybe even more proud of how you did it.
Believing the race has to be hard or harder than you expect doesn't actually prepare you for the difficulty of a race. It just weighs you down. So instead, I want you to entertain the possibility that the race could go easier than you expect because it is a possibility. Let's talk about what you really want.
You want to do something hard. That's why you signed up for an ultra. You want to see what you're capable of. But if you're honest, you're also hoping it's going to go smoother than you fear. You want to feel strong out there, calm and in control. You'd love to be surprised by how well it goes, though. You want that. And at the same time, you also don't believe that's possible.
And that tension between the race you hope for, the smooth race you hope for, and the one you think you're going to have is really defeating. It creates a lot of mental resistance and dread before the race even starts. So, let's examine this. Why do we assume an ultra has to be so hard and miserable?
There are two big reasons I want to talk about. The first is that we've been taught that hard means worthy, that if you didn't suffer enough, it didn't really count. That finishing a tough race comes at a cost you have to pay, and that cost has to feel high. You know, we hear all kinds of things like, no pain, no gain. If it doesn't hurt, it doesn't count, and how bad do you want it? And the corollary to that last one is that if you don't finish, you can fall into thinking, I just didn't want it bad enough.
It becomes this weird math where the only way to earn a buckle and feel good about it is to match the difficulty of the course with an equal amount of suffering in your body. And if you don't suffer enough, it doesn't feel like you really earned it. You didn't go all in.
The second thing that's going on here is that we've also been taught that believing the race could go well is foolish. Like only a fool would think their race could go better than expected. And believing that is maybe even arrogant and setting yourself up for a downfall. So even though you want to believe it could go well, you automatically talk yourself out of it. It feels dangerous and delusional. You assume that the best you can hope for is that it won't be worse than you imagine.
But the problem is that that leaves no room for the race to go better. It just closes off that possibility that you can have a better race than you expect. And that's a mindset trap.
And here's what happens when you fall into that trap. You do everything you can think of to keep the race from being worse than expected. You train super hard, harder than you need to. You obsess over getting every single little detail right and you mentally rehearse how awful it's going to feel, hoping to in some way prepare yourself for the awfulness. And it starts to seem too awful then. So you start telling yourself you can't do it, you're in over your head, and running this race is just going to expose you as weak.
But what you're really doing here is spending all your time visualizing what you don't want. What that does is it actually inflates the difficulty of the race in your mind before you even toe the line. So when race day comes, you're then on high alert, anticipating how hard it's going to be and looking for signals that the hard part is starting.
For instance, you worry about everything, the effect of everything in the race. You notice every little ache, pain, and misstep, and each one of those only confirms how hard it's about to get. Or you make a fast first section of the race turn into a problem that you're going to pay for later. You're sure you are.
And you turn the sunny weather into a problem because it's going to be hot. So instead of being thankful that you don't have to run a rainy, muddy course, you're worried about it being hot. You turn everything into a problem and every part of the race then becomes proof that the race is getting hard.
And all that does is slow you down. It doesn't really help you solve a problem because a problem isn't really there. And that slows you down, not because the race actually got harder, but because finding all the little potential problems in everything makes the race seem harder than it actually is.
So here's what's really going on in your head. What's hard here isn't the running. You've trained for that and you're ready for that. What's hard is letting yourself believe that the race could go better than you expect.
Feel your resistance to that idea right now. That's the hard. The hard is being confident enough to accept that having a great race is a possibility. Because we've accepted these made-up suffering requirements and we treat them like fact. Like there's no other option out there. So the idea that the race could be easier? It feels wrong, like ignorance or arrogance. And you shut the door on the possibility that it could be easier.
But here's the truth. Just because a race is challenging doesn't mean it has to feel like a constant battle.
Let me tell you a story I don't often share. Years ago, I was running Superior 100, and it was probably my second or third time there. And by that time, I'd run a handful of hundreds, so I had some experience under my belt, and I knew the course and I'd trained well, and I was pacing myself as sustainably as I thought I could.
But I anticipated that I would start hurting in like the last third or quarter of the race. And I expected it the entire race. So when I got to that point, I started kind of bracing for it and waiting for it to happen. And I would think like, now? Now? Is it happening now? And I kept waiting for it to start getting hard as I ran on. And I would think like, is this it? Any second now.
But it didn't get hard. I kept waiting and the longer I ran without hurting, the more worried I got, because I was certain that the longer I postponed the hurt, the more it would like combine together and I would have to pay for all these good running miles all at one time and it was going to really hurt.
And finally, maybe 10 miles from the finish, a wild thought hit me. What if, what if the hurt never comes? It blew my mind. What if this running strong and steady thing where the running is just flowing - what if this is the whole race? I hadn't let myself even consider it. But it was happening. So I let my guard down a little bit, and nothing bad happened. And I let my guard down a little more, and I was still fine.
And I realized I could either keep bracing for disaster or I could soak up every last mile of this incredible race I was having. And I was not, not going to pass up this experience by spending it waiting for something bad to happen. I was going to soak it up as fully as I could while I had it.
And I remember a point distinctly, all these years later, reaching the overlook above town and the finish line and just grinning to myself, knowing that I had maybe a mile or two left in this beautiful race, and the hurt was never going to set in. I was going to enjoy every last second of it. I was not going to miss it by waiting for something to go wrong.
And this race showed me, thankfully early on, something I have never forgotten, that there is way more possibility out there than just the race being hard.
So, what's the solution here? It's not necessarily working harder to prevent the hard, although training is great. I'm not doubting training. It's thinking differently. Believing the race can go easier than you expect. Not by shortcutting or skipping work, but by using your head, by training your brain to allow the possibility that it might go better than you think.
And that's what I teach my clients with the mindset process, how to open your mind up to possibilities that you aren't even seeing. It's not about repeating mantras that you don't believe or faking till you make it. It's the skill of catching blind spots like this, the belief that the race has to be worse than you expect, and instead building the belief that it could actually go better. It's not delusion and it's not hope. It's a legitimate possibility that you learn to believe in.
I mean, look, your brain already has a ton of practice imagining the suffering and how awful it's going to feel. You've probably been rehearsing that version of the race in your head for months. And now, it's time to give equal weight to the version of the race you actually want. Not because you're naive, but because you're finally using your mental strength to imagine something good.
So here's something to try. Start by recognizing that there are literally three possibilities for how any race can go. It could be harder than you expect, it could be as hard as you expect, and it could also be easier than you expect. All three things are a possibility. And that third one, it does exist. It's not wishful thinking. It's an actual outcome that's there available for you.
Now ask yourself this question. How could it be easy? How could the race be easy? This is one of my favorite questions. And I'm not asking how could it be perfect or effortless. How could it be easier than you've imagined?
And there may not be any immediate answers that jump to your head, but stick with the question. Don't give into the urge for distraction, which is what your brain's going to want to do. Stick with the question and let your imagination have fun with it. Let the answers, even if they sound crazy at first, come to you.
How could it be easy? You keep trying solutions to your blister problem instead of getting frustrated that you can't fix the blister, and you find a solution. Or you stop that self-sabotage thing you always do because you're just done with it. Or you appreciate how your training prepared you instead of second-guessing it. Those are all ways the race could go easier and you can start piling on more and more things into this list.
If you've been mentally rehearsing how awful the race is going to be, this might take mental strength, giving yourself permission to imagine something good, and then letting it feel possible and even exciting.
But here's what happens when you do. You stop looking for everything that's going wrong and you actually start noticing everything that's going right. You see all the ways the race is already working out in your favor, how smooth you're making the aid station stops, how many of the miles just flow, and how dutifully your muscles respond when you ask them to climb yet another tough climb.
It changes your race experience, which then changes your results for the better. Not because you worked harder. Because you let it be easier than you expected in your head, which translates to your body.
So, here's the takeaway. You don't have to make yourself miserable to earn a finish. You don't have to pay for the difficulty of a race with an equal amount of misery. What earns that buckle is your physical, emotional, and mental skill. And opening your mind to the possibility of a better race? That takes skill.
Think about it this way. It takes more self-control to let something go well than to fight it the whole way. But it's worth it. You don't just get a better result, you get a better experience of the race.
So next time you think, it's going to be worse than I want it to be. I know it. I want you to pause and ask, but what if it's better? Because it just might be.
This shift can change everything about the race. Not just how it goes, but how it feels. You get to have a better race, a better experience, and better results. You don't have to suffer your way through the race to earn a finish. And you don't have to match the course difficulty with an equal amount of misery to deserve that buckle. You can make it easier.
And it's not by cutting corners, but by making a deeper change in your head, by training your mind to see the possibility, the legitimate possibility that it could go better than you think.
Because it's not suffering that earns the buckle. It's your skill, your mental, emotional, and physical skill. Letting the race go well takes just as much strength and maybe more. It takes awareness, patience, and self-control, but it's way worth it.
Because when you open your mind to the possibility that the race can go better than you expect, you start seeing things you couldn't before. How much is already going right, how capable you really are, and how good it can actually get. You give yourself the chance to be surprised, to run a race that expands what you thought was possible. And that turns the race into something far more meaningful than just hard.
All right, that's it for the week. Thanks for tuning in and share this with a friend, especially one who's getting ready for a big race. They'll appreciate it. See 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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