29. How To Stop Finishing So Close to Cutoff
If you’ve ever crossed the finish line barely ahead of cutoff, you know that stress can feel like it’s chasing you all race long. You start strong, but somewhere along the way, it feels like cutoff has taken control.
In this episode, I explore what’s really happening when cutoff becomes the center of your focus, and how small shifts in where you put your attention can completely change how you race. You’ll learn how to calm your mind, make better mid-race decisions, and finally run the race you’ve trained for instead of the one cutoff tries to control.
Tune in to discover how to take back ownership of your race and finish strong on your own terms.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why cutoff haunts you throughout your race even when you should be capable of finishing well ahead of it.
How the concept of "steer stare" from driver safety applies to ultrarunning.
How your brain’s tendency to conserve energy makes you run slower.
Practical steps to shift from cutoff-focused racing to goal-focused racing.
What actually changes in your race when you stop measuring against cutoff and start measuring against your goal.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
What if the reason cutoff haunts you the entire race and you finish closer to it than you want to is because you're unconsciously aiming at it?
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.
Welcome to Episode 29. Last week, I talked all about cutoff stress that happens when we fall into running cutoff's race. When we feel some cutoff stress, we react to it instead of making decisions, so we run what cutoff stress tells us to run. And when we do that, we actually create more stress for ourselves. The solution to this spiral is to stubbornly make your own intentional decisions instead of letting cutoff stress push you into reacting.
Today, I'll be talking about cutoff stress from a different angle, but I wanted to remind you to go back and listen to Episode 28 if you haven't already.
Okay, if cutoff feels like a dark cloud that hangs over you the entire race, this episode is for you. You know what I'm talking about. You're closer to it than you want to be, and you just can't shake it. It's there at every aid station, it's on every climb, it's there when you're moving well, and it's definitely there when you're not moving well.
You're constantly doing the math, like, how much cushion do I have? Did I gain time in that section or lose it? How far am I ahead now? Your whole race just becomes about building cushion, maintaining cushion, and trying to rebuild cushion when you lose it. It's you against cutoff, always. You just can't get away from it, and you can't get it out of your head.
It makes the race miserable. It's exhausting. And here's the kicker: you end up with a race that's way under what you should have been capable of and closer to cutoff than you ever wanted to be. You should have been able to run so much better than you did.
So today, I want to talk about why this happens, and it might not be what you think. You might believe that your problem is just that you're too slow, or you fall apart in races, or that you're just one of those runners who's just lucky to finish, and that's just you.
But what if I told you that the real problem is simpler and more fixable than that? What if cutoff hangs over you because you've put it there? Because you're so focused on it that you've unconsciously made it your target? That you're actually aiming at cutoff? You're running to it without even realizing it. And that's actually good news because if that's happening, you can fix it.
Here's what I mean. You just want to finish comfortably ahead of cutoff. You don't even want to have to think about it. You just want to run and enjoy your race. That's what you want. You don't want the stress, and that's what you trained for. And on paper, you should be able to do it.
But what actually happens in the race is that you end up running close to cutoff anyway. Cutoff is right there the whole time. You're stressing every section, every aid station. Did I make it? How far ahead am I? Am I okay? How much time do I have?
You spend the race thinking about cutoff, calculating cushion, feeling that constant pressure. The exact cutoff stress you're trying to avoid becomes your entire race. It's exhausting. And at the end, you finish, but barely ahead of cutoff. You're frustrated and depleted, and you didn't have the race you wanted. Deep down, you know you didn't do what you were actually capable of doing, and it shouldn't have gone this way. Does that sound familiar?
Here's what's really going on. When you start planning your race, you look at all the details: the number of aid stations, how far apart they are, which ones allow drop bags, crew, and pacers, and what the cutoff times are. You know that chart that just about every race has where it lists the aid stations and the cutoffs and all of that? That's what you look at.
And when you look at cutoff, the overall cutoff and the aid station cutoffs, you think, okay, this is what I got to do, meaning, this is what I've got to do to finish. I just need to stay ahead of this, these times. And you probably think, okay, I can do that, and I'll just build as much cushion on cutoff as I can. And that sounds reasonable.
But notice what just happened in that scenario. The times you're talking about, the times you need to meet, the times you need to stay ahead of, are cutoff times, not your goal times. Those are cutoff times. Without meaning to, you've just made cutoff your reference point, your measuring stick. And in doing that, you've unconsciously made it your target.
And here's how this plays out. There's a concept in driver safety called steer stare. It's simple but powerful. You unconsciously steer toward whatever you're looking at, whatever you're staring at. You'll notice this if you're driving down the highway and you keep staring at the guard rail because you're afraid of hitting it, where do you end up drifting? Toward the guard rail.
The same thing happens with cutoff. You're constantly checking. How far ahead am I? How much cushion do I have? Did I gain cushion or did I lose it in the last section?
Every single measurement you're making is relative to cutoff. So cutoff essentially becomes your North Star. It's the thing you're navigating by, the thing you're measuring your race by.
And even though it's what you don't want, it's still your hard, concrete target, because staying as far ahead of cutoff as I can isn't actually a target. It's a concept. It's not a time. It's just an idea. It doesn't tell you what to do. But cutoff, cutoff gives you a nice, exact time, a specific number, something concrete to measure against. So that becomes what you aim at.
And here's where it gets you. When you're ahead of cutoff, what happens? You relax. You've got a little bit of time, so you slow down. You think, okay, I can afford to take it a little bit easier here. And you think, I've got some cushion. I can take it easy for a bit. When you're close to cutoff, though, what happens? You panic, you dig deep, you push hard because you have to. You see the pattern there? You're literally using cutoff to decide when to push and when to coast. You're pacing off of it. You're running to it.
It's a negative goal. You're running away from something you fear rather than toward something you want. But here's the critical part: it's still functioning as your goal. And so that's how you end up running: as fast as you need to stay ahead of cutoff. The minimum.
You're not running as fast as you could run, not even a strong, solid run, just enough. You're not running your race; you're running cutoff's race again, but from a different direction. You're running at cutoff's pace. You're trying to stay just as far enough ahead of it to feel safe, but never truly getting away from it.
And that's why it hangs over you the entire time. That's why you can't shake it. That's why the race becomes exhausting, because you've made cutoff the thing you're measuring everything against.
And you might be thinking, but wait a minute, I had a goal, and I still ended up running close to cutoff. Here's how that happens even when you have a goal. You set a more ambitious goal, something that would keep you comfortably away from cutoff, maybe an hour ahead of cutoff, maybe more. But you don't commit to it the same way you commit to avoiding cutoff.
In your mind, that goal is a nice-to-have, not a, I have to hit this or else. It's optional. It's aspirational. It's something you'd love to do, you'd be delighted if you do it, and you might be able to do it if everything goes well.
But cutoff, cutoff is a must-do. That's a real threat. It's a race-ender, so it's not optional. So when you're out there in the race, what are you actually measuring yourself against? What are you really checking at every aid station, even if you have a different goal? You're checking yourself against cutoff.
Sure, it's nice and uplifting if you're hitting your goal times, but what really matters in the back of your mind, what you're actually worried about, and what you're actually navigating by and pacing yourself against is cutoff. Your goal is effectively written in pencil, where cutoff is written in permanent marker. And so even though you had a goal, you end up running cutoff's pace anyway.
So what happens? Even if you have a goal, you unintentionally plan your entire race around cutoff pace. Think about it. You know every cutoff for every aid station. You know exactly what pace you need to hit to make cutoff, and you write those cutoff times on your arm or on a card that you keep in your pocket, however you do that.
But your goal times, maybe you calculated those once, maybe you have a vague sense of them. Maybe you only know that you want to finish an hour ahead of cutoff, but maybe you didn't even write those down.
The cutoff times are what you know, what you check, what you reference constantly throughout the race, and so those become your actual reference points, your real targets. It's not your goal; it's cutoff, even if you never meant for it to happen, and of course we don't. Cutoff pace becomes your goal pace by default.
So, here's what you need to understand. Cutoff is the minimum you can do and still finish. We know that. But think of it this way: it's the floor.
And that's actually the problem, because your brain naturally wants to aim for the least amount of effort that will get you to the result. Brains just are like that. Your brain sees the floor and says, great, that's all I need to do. It's not laziness; it's just how brains work. They try to be efficient, and they try to conserve energy because they're all about survival. So brains aim for good enough. And when good enough is cutoff, that's where you end up.
And here's what we're going to do. We're going to raise the floor. Instead of making cutoff your minimum acceptable outcome, you're going to choose a new floor, your goal. And when you raise that floor, you eliminate the option of just scraping by. Think about it this way. When your floor is, quote, I just want to make cutoff, you're giving yourself permission to perform at that level. At least I finished becomes acceptable. Mission accomplished.
But when you raise the floor, when you decide that finishing an hour ahead is your new minimum, your new non-negotiable, your new must-do, you fundamentally change what you'll accept for yourself, and you've moved the line. Now, even on a tough day, you're still aiming for that higher standard, and you're not drifting down to cutoff because that's not your floor anymore. Your floor is higher. Your minimum acceptable performance is higher.
So, how do you do it? Well, there's a couple of steps here. First, pick your new floor. Choose a goal that feels achievable. We're not going to go wild here. And this is not a nice-to-have, but an I can do this, and I'm willing to work for this kind of goal. It doesn't have to be ridiculously ahead of cutoff. An hour ahead is great. Even half an hour will work. Just pick something that feels realistic and gets you away from cutoff stress and that makes you feel genuinely proud when you think about achieving it.
Step number two, make that your new minimum in your head. This is crucial. Your goal isn't the ceiling anymore; it's the floor. It's not your quote, best case scenario if everything goes perfectly. It's your baseline, your standard, your minimum, what you're committed to doing, period. This doesn't mean you can't do better than that. There's of course a lot of room between your new floor and your ceiling, but this goal that you're picking? This is your new minimum acceptable performance.
All right. Step three, once you have that, treat it like you treated cutoff, but better. Remember how seriously you took cutoff? How you knew every cutoff time at every aid station? You wrote them on your arm or on your card or whatever you use, and you checked them constantly every time you came into an aid station, you checked to see how you were doing against cutoff. Do that with your goal, but with excitement instead of fear.
Break down exactly what your goal looks like at every aid station. Know these times like you knew cutoff. Write these down and look at these and reference these instead of cutoff. And train for this goal, and talk about it. Like, I'm running this time or faster. Visualize yourself hitting those splits at every aid station. Not hitting cutoff. Visualize yourself hitting those goal splits at every aid station. Imagine crossing the finish line on goal and how good you'll feel.
And the last step, change your self-talk. When you focus on a goal instead of just avoiding cutoff, your internal dialogue needs to completely shift. You need to shift away from saying things like, I just want to stay ahead of cutoff, or I've got a goal and it would be nice, and if I'm lucky I can hit it, or I hope I can hang on, but I really want to stay ahead of cutoff.
Instead of saying that stuff, say this: This is my goal. I'm going for this goal. This is what I'm aiming for. I can do this. I've trained for this. I'm ready for this. I know all the times I need to hit. I see how it's possible. I've planned for it. Change your internal dialogue to support your goal. It's a completely different energy than, I just can't afford to miss cutoff.
And of course, you still need to be aware of cutoff, but you're not steering toward it anymore. You're steering toward something you actually want. You steer where you want to go, not toward the guard rail.
When you raise the floor, here's what actually happens in your race. You stop the exhausting cushion game that we all hate. There's no more constantly calculating how much cushion do I have? Did I lose time? Am I okay?
None of that fear-based stuff because you're not measuring against cutoff anymore. You're measuring against your goal that you want to hit. You check your watch at the aid station and think, am I on pace for my goal? Not, am I still ahead of cutoff? So that dark cloud lifts because you're not giving it your intention anymore.
Another thing that happens is you make better decisions in the moment. At mile 60, let's say you come into an aid station, and with cutoff as your floor, you think, okay, I've got 45 minutes of cushion. I can afford to slow down a little bit. With a raised floor, though, you think, I've got 45 minutes on cutoff, but I'm 15 minutes off my goal pace. I need to make up the 15 minutes in the next two sections. Same situation, two different decisions, better race with the raised floor.
A third thing that actually happens is you actually enjoy the race instead of spending 30 hours in a state of dread and fear and panic trying to stay ahead of something you fear, you spend 30 hours reaching for something you want. You get to feel proud at aid stations when you're hitting your splits. You get to feel excited about what you're doing, not dread that you're going to miss the next cutoff. You get to cross that finish line knowing you ran your race, not cutoff's race.
And the fourth thing that happens is you run what you're actually capable of. Here's the bottom line: reaching for what you want, even if you miss it by a bit, will always have you running better than running from what you fear. You'll be less stressed, you'll make smarter decisions, and you'll finally see what you can really do when you're not spending the entire race just trying to stay ahead of the minimum.
Look, I'll be honest with you, this takes mental strength. Focusing on cutoff is easy. It's the path of least resistance. Your brain likes it because it's the lowest bar possible, and your brain loves low bars. So raising your floor, that's harder. It means deciding that good enough isn't actually good enough for you. And in the race, this is when it really counts, you'll feel that pull. You'll feel that urge to just slow down and let go of your goal, to drift back down to that familiar old floor of I just want to make cutoff.
Your brain will whisper, you're ahead of cutoff. You can relax. You've done enough. And in that moment, you need to remember, no, this is my floor now. This is what I do. And that takes strength, real strength. But here's what I know about you. You've got that strength. You wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you didn't. You wouldn't be training for ultras if you weren't willing to fight for something you really want, something that matters to you.
So here's my challenge to you. Stop running to cutoff. Stop spending your entire race with that dark cloud hanging over you. Stop finishing exhausted and frustrated, knowing you could have, should have, done better.
Raise your floor of what's your minimum acceptable performance. Pick a goal that excites you. Make it your new minimum. Steer toward something you actually want because when you do that, you're not going to just have a better race, you're going to have your race, one you enjoy, one you're proud of, and that is what you came here to do.
All right, you all, that's this week's episode. If you know someone who could use this, share it with them. It might be exactly what they need to hear.
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.
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.
Welcome to Episode 29. Last week, I talked all about cutoff stress that happens when we fall into running cutoff's race. When we feel some cutoff stress, we react to it instead of making decisions, so we run what cutoff stress tells us to run. And when we do that, we actually create more stress for ourselves. The solution to this spiral is to stubbornly make your own intentional decisions instead of letting cutoff stress push you into reacting.
Today, I'll be talking about cutoff stress from a different angle, but I wanted to remind you to go back and listen to Episode 28 if you haven't already.
Okay, if cutoff feels like a dark cloud that hangs over you the entire race, this episode is for you. You know what I'm talking about. You're closer to it than you want to be, and you just can't shake it. It's there at every aid station, it's on every climb, it's there when you're moving well, and it's definitely there when you're not moving well.
You're constantly doing the math, like, how much cushion do I have? Did I gain time in that section or lose it? How far am I ahead now? Your whole race just becomes about building cushion, maintaining cushion, and trying to rebuild cushion when you lose it. It's you against cutoff, always. You just can't get away from it, and you can't get it out of your head.
It makes the race miserable. It's exhausting. And here's the kicker: you end up with a race that's way under what you should have been capable of and closer to cutoff than you ever wanted to be. You should have been able to run so much better than you did.
So today, I want to talk about why this happens, and it might not be what you think. You might believe that your problem is just that you're too slow, or you fall apart in races, or that you're just one of those runners who's just lucky to finish, and that's just you.
But what if I told you that the real problem is simpler and more fixable than that? What if cutoff hangs over you because you've put it there? Because you're so focused on it that you've unconsciously made it your target? That you're actually aiming at cutoff? You're running to it without even realizing it. And that's actually good news because if that's happening, you can fix it.
Here's what I mean. You just want to finish comfortably ahead of cutoff. You don't even want to have to think about it. You just want to run and enjoy your race. That's what you want. You don't want the stress, and that's what you trained for. And on paper, you should be able to do it.
But what actually happens in the race is that you end up running close to cutoff anyway. Cutoff is right there the whole time. You're stressing every section, every aid station. Did I make it? How far ahead am I? Am I okay? How much time do I have?
You spend the race thinking about cutoff, calculating cushion, feeling that constant pressure. The exact cutoff stress you're trying to avoid becomes your entire race. It's exhausting. And at the end, you finish, but barely ahead of cutoff. You're frustrated and depleted, and you didn't have the race you wanted. Deep down, you know you didn't do what you were actually capable of doing, and it shouldn't have gone this way. Does that sound familiar?
Here's what's really going on. When you start planning your race, you look at all the details: the number of aid stations, how far apart they are, which ones allow drop bags, crew, and pacers, and what the cutoff times are. You know that chart that just about every race has where it lists the aid stations and the cutoffs and all of that? That's what you look at.
And when you look at cutoff, the overall cutoff and the aid station cutoffs, you think, okay, this is what I got to do, meaning, this is what I've got to do to finish. I just need to stay ahead of this, these times. And you probably think, okay, I can do that, and I'll just build as much cushion on cutoff as I can. And that sounds reasonable.
But notice what just happened in that scenario. The times you're talking about, the times you need to meet, the times you need to stay ahead of, are cutoff times, not your goal times. Those are cutoff times. Without meaning to, you've just made cutoff your reference point, your measuring stick. And in doing that, you've unconsciously made it your target.
And here's how this plays out. There's a concept in driver safety called steer stare. It's simple but powerful. You unconsciously steer toward whatever you're looking at, whatever you're staring at. You'll notice this if you're driving down the highway and you keep staring at the guard rail because you're afraid of hitting it, where do you end up drifting? Toward the guard rail.
The same thing happens with cutoff. You're constantly checking. How far ahead am I? How much cushion do I have? Did I gain cushion or did I lose it in the last section?
Every single measurement you're making is relative to cutoff. So cutoff essentially becomes your North Star. It's the thing you're navigating by, the thing you're measuring your race by.
And even though it's what you don't want, it's still your hard, concrete target, because staying as far ahead of cutoff as I can isn't actually a target. It's a concept. It's not a time. It's just an idea. It doesn't tell you what to do. But cutoff, cutoff gives you a nice, exact time, a specific number, something concrete to measure against. So that becomes what you aim at.
And here's where it gets you. When you're ahead of cutoff, what happens? You relax. You've got a little bit of time, so you slow down. You think, okay, I can afford to take it a little bit easier here. And you think, I've got some cushion. I can take it easy for a bit. When you're close to cutoff, though, what happens? You panic, you dig deep, you push hard because you have to. You see the pattern there? You're literally using cutoff to decide when to push and when to coast. You're pacing off of it. You're running to it.
It's a negative goal. You're running away from something you fear rather than toward something you want. But here's the critical part: it's still functioning as your goal. And so that's how you end up running: as fast as you need to stay ahead of cutoff. The minimum.
You're not running as fast as you could run, not even a strong, solid run, just enough. You're not running your race; you're running cutoff's race again, but from a different direction. You're running at cutoff's pace. You're trying to stay just as far enough ahead of it to feel safe, but never truly getting away from it.
And that's why it hangs over you the entire time. That's why you can't shake it. That's why the race becomes exhausting, because you've made cutoff the thing you're measuring everything against.
And you might be thinking, but wait a minute, I had a goal, and I still ended up running close to cutoff. Here's how that happens even when you have a goal. You set a more ambitious goal, something that would keep you comfortably away from cutoff, maybe an hour ahead of cutoff, maybe more. But you don't commit to it the same way you commit to avoiding cutoff.
In your mind, that goal is a nice-to-have, not a, I have to hit this or else. It's optional. It's aspirational. It's something you'd love to do, you'd be delighted if you do it, and you might be able to do it if everything goes well.
But cutoff, cutoff is a must-do. That's a real threat. It's a race-ender, so it's not optional. So when you're out there in the race, what are you actually measuring yourself against? What are you really checking at every aid station, even if you have a different goal? You're checking yourself against cutoff.
Sure, it's nice and uplifting if you're hitting your goal times, but what really matters in the back of your mind, what you're actually worried about, and what you're actually navigating by and pacing yourself against is cutoff. Your goal is effectively written in pencil, where cutoff is written in permanent marker. And so even though you had a goal, you end up running cutoff's pace anyway.
So what happens? Even if you have a goal, you unintentionally plan your entire race around cutoff pace. Think about it. You know every cutoff for every aid station. You know exactly what pace you need to hit to make cutoff, and you write those cutoff times on your arm or on a card that you keep in your pocket, however you do that.
But your goal times, maybe you calculated those once, maybe you have a vague sense of them. Maybe you only know that you want to finish an hour ahead of cutoff, but maybe you didn't even write those down.
The cutoff times are what you know, what you check, what you reference constantly throughout the race, and so those become your actual reference points, your real targets. It's not your goal; it's cutoff, even if you never meant for it to happen, and of course we don't. Cutoff pace becomes your goal pace by default.
So, here's what you need to understand. Cutoff is the minimum you can do and still finish. We know that. But think of it this way: it's the floor.
And that's actually the problem, because your brain naturally wants to aim for the least amount of effort that will get you to the result. Brains just are like that. Your brain sees the floor and says, great, that's all I need to do. It's not laziness; it's just how brains work. They try to be efficient, and they try to conserve energy because they're all about survival. So brains aim for good enough. And when good enough is cutoff, that's where you end up.
And here's what we're going to do. We're going to raise the floor. Instead of making cutoff your minimum acceptable outcome, you're going to choose a new floor, your goal. And when you raise that floor, you eliminate the option of just scraping by. Think about it this way. When your floor is, quote, I just want to make cutoff, you're giving yourself permission to perform at that level. At least I finished becomes acceptable. Mission accomplished.
But when you raise the floor, when you decide that finishing an hour ahead is your new minimum, your new non-negotiable, your new must-do, you fundamentally change what you'll accept for yourself, and you've moved the line. Now, even on a tough day, you're still aiming for that higher standard, and you're not drifting down to cutoff because that's not your floor anymore. Your floor is higher. Your minimum acceptable performance is higher.
So, how do you do it? Well, there's a couple of steps here. First, pick your new floor. Choose a goal that feels achievable. We're not going to go wild here. And this is not a nice-to-have, but an I can do this, and I'm willing to work for this kind of goal. It doesn't have to be ridiculously ahead of cutoff. An hour ahead is great. Even half an hour will work. Just pick something that feels realistic and gets you away from cutoff stress and that makes you feel genuinely proud when you think about achieving it.
Step number two, make that your new minimum in your head. This is crucial. Your goal isn't the ceiling anymore; it's the floor. It's not your quote, best case scenario if everything goes perfectly. It's your baseline, your standard, your minimum, what you're committed to doing, period. This doesn't mean you can't do better than that. There's of course a lot of room between your new floor and your ceiling, but this goal that you're picking? This is your new minimum acceptable performance.
All right. Step three, once you have that, treat it like you treated cutoff, but better. Remember how seriously you took cutoff? How you knew every cutoff time at every aid station? You wrote them on your arm or on your card or whatever you use, and you checked them constantly every time you came into an aid station, you checked to see how you were doing against cutoff. Do that with your goal, but with excitement instead of fear.
Break down exactly what your goal looks like at every aid station. Know these times like you knew cutoff. Write these down and look at these and reference these instead of cutoff. And train for this goal, and talk about it. Like, I'm running this time or faster. Visualize yourself hitting those splits at every aid station. Not hitting cutoff. Visualize yourself hitting those goal splits at every aid station. Imagine crossing the finish line on goal and how good you'll feel.
And the last step, change your self-talk. When you focus on a goal instead of just avoiding cutoff, your internal dialogue needs to completely shift. You need to shift away from saying things like, I just want to stay ahead of cutoff, or I've got a goal and it would be nice, and if I'm lucky I can hit it, or I hope I can hang on, but I really want to stay ahead of cutoff.
Instead of saying that stuff, say this: This is my goal. I'm going for this goal. This is what I'm aiming for. I can do this. I've trained for this. I'm ready for this. I know all the times I need to hit. I see how it's possible. I've planned for it. Change your internal dialogue to support your goal. It's a completely different energy than, I just can't afford to miss cutoff.
And of course, you still need to be aware of cutoff, but you're not steering toward it anymore. You're steering toward something you actually want. You steer where you want to go, not toward the guard rail.
When you raise the floor, here's what actually happens in your race. You stop the exhausting cushion game that we all hate. There's no more constantly calculating how much cushion do I have? Did I lose time? Am I okay?
None of that fear-based stuff because you're not measuring against cutoff anymore. You're measuring against your goal that you want to hit. You check your watch at the aid station and think, am I on pace for my goal? Not, am I still ahead of cutoff? So that dark cloud lifts because you're not giving it your intention anymore.
Another thing that happens is you make better decisions in the moment. At mile 60, let's say you come into an aid station, and with cutoff as your floor, you think, okay, I've got 45 minutes of cushion. I can afford to slow down a little bit. With a raised floor, though, you think, I've got 45 minutes on cutoff, but I'm 15 minutes off my goal pace. I need to make up the 15 minutes in the next two sections. Same situation, two different decisions, better race with the raised floor.
A third thing that actually happens is you actually enjoy the race instead of spending 30 hours in a state of dread and fear and panic trying to stay ahead of something you fear, you spend 30 hours reaching for something you want. You get to feel proud at aid stations when you're hitting your splits. You get to feel excited about what you're doing, not dread that you're going to miss the next cutoff. You get to cross that finish line knowing you ran your race, not cutoff's race.
And the fourth thing that happens is you run what you're actually capable of. Here's the bottom line: reaching for what you want, even if you miss it by a bit, will always have you running better than running from what you fear. You'll be less stressed, you'll make smarter decisions, and you'll finally see what you can really do when you're not spending the entire race just trying to stay ahead of the minimum.
Look, I'll be honest with you, this takes mental strength. Focusing on cutoff is easy. It's the path of least resistance. Your brain likes it because it's the lowest bar possible, and your brain loves low bars. So raising your floor, that's harder. It means deciding that good enough isn't actually good enough for you. And in the race, this is when it really counts, you'll feel that pull. You'll feel that urge to just slow down and let go of your goal, to drift back down to that familiar old floor of I just want to make cutoff.
Your brain will whisper, you're ahead of cutoff. You can relax. You've done enough. And in that moment, you need to remember, no, this is my floor now. This is what I do. And that takes strength, real strength. But here's what I know about you. You've got that strength. You wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you didn't. You wouldn't be training for ultras if you weren't willing to fight for something you really want, something that matters to you.
So here's my challenge to you. Stop running to cutoff. Stop spending your entire race with that dark cloud hanging over you. Stop finishing exhausted and frustrated, knowing you could have, should have, done better.
Raise your floor of what's your minimum acceptable performance. Pick a goal that excites you. Make it your new minimum. Steer toward something you actually want because when you do that, you're not going to just have a better race, you're going to have your race, one you enjoy, one you're proud of, and that is what you came here to do.
All right, you all, that's this week's episode. If you know someone who could use this, share it with them. It might be exactly what they need to hear.
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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