63. How to Listen to Your Body During an Ultra
You're deep into a race. Your legs hurt, your energy is gone, and every step feels harder than the last. Your body is telling you it's done, so it’s done... right? Not necessarily. One of the biggest mistakes ultra runners make is assuming they know what their body is saying when they're actually listening to something else entirely.
In this episode, I break down why so many runners struggle to know when to push and when to back off during a race. The problem isn't that you're weak or that you lack grit. The problem is that your brain is constantly interpreting the signals your body sends, and those interpretations aren't always accurate. Learning the difference can be the key to avoiding unnecessary DNFs and making better decisions when things get tough.
You'll discover how to tell the difference between what your body is actually communicating and the story your brain is telling about it, why so many runners regret dropping out the next day, and how to build a stronger relationship with your body so you can race with more confidence. If you've ever wondered whether you should push through, slow down, or stop, this episode will help you make that decision with far more clarity.
My 1:1 Mental Mastery Coaching for Ultrarunners is a six-month coaching program where we build the mental skills experienced ultrarunners use to handle difficult races well. Schedule a consult call to learn more here.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why "listening to your body" is more complicated than most runners realize.
The difference between what your body is saying and what your brain is saying about your body.
Why many runners regret dropping out after they recover from a low point.
How your brain's desire for comfort can influence race decisions.
The difference between hearing and truly listening during a race.
How to gather better information before deciding to slow down or stop.
How learning to listen more accurately can help you finish more races.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
The Ultrarunner’s Mastery Debrief Template helps you evaluate your races like experienced ultrarunners do - identifying what worked, what didn’t work, and what to do differently next time. Download yours for free here.
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Episodes Related to How to Listen to Your Body During an Ultra:
Ep #47: How to Manage Fatigue Brain: Strategies for Smarter Race Decisions
Ep #53: DNF Post-Mortem: What Went Right and What to Do Next
Ep #56: How to Tell an Excuse From a Reason in Ultra Running
Full Episode Transcript:
You're in the back half of a race, exhausted. You can't go on. Feeling like this, there's no way you can finish. Your body is telling you it's done. But is 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 63. As I'm recording this episode, it's two and a half weeks after my hip replacement surgery. And I'm working my way through recovery, one small step at a time. So this is the perfect time to talk about something that doesn't seem like a problem, but ruins a lot of races: listening to your body.
It's obvious, right? You're tired, you have no energy left, your quads are shot, so your body is clearly telling you it's done. It's just a fact. Case closed, where's the mystery in this? But not so fast. Because that assumption, my body says it's done and I have to listen to it, ruins races.
If you want to drop out of a race, if you've already decided that you want to drop out, you want to quit, and you're looking for a reason to do it, this is a really popular way to justify dropping. But this episode is for all of you who badly want to finish, who in that tired moment deep in a race when everything is hurting, aren't sure what your body is saying. You aren't sure if you're making the right decision or if it's just your tiredness speaking.
This is for everyone who's been confused in that moment, wondering, is that what my body is saying? I want to push and I want to finish, but I don't want to harm it. Which is really the question. How do you listen to your body? What does that actually look like?
So let's look at what actually happens when you try to answer that, when you try to listen to your body. Here's what usually happens. You reach that moment at a race where you feel bad in all kinds of ways. The physical hurts and discomforts that you've accumulated along the way have snowballed into this one giant, big realization that I'm suffering.
Feeling bad and how extremely bad you feel becomes your focus. You can't think of much else except for that and how to make it stop. You stop thinking about the race and your pace and executing your plan. All you can think about is how bad your feet hurt and how acutely exhausted you are and how much worse you feel every step and how there's no relief in sight. You can only assume that this is your body telling you it's done because this is only going to get worse.
And what if you injure yourself? What if you push too hard or too long and actually hurt yourself? I mean, your body definitely isn't saying, hey, I'd love to run 50 more miles. So that is the only other thing it could be saying. The disappointing but inevitable choice seems to be drop out of the race. It's not what you wanted, but that just is the way it is.
Still, even as you come to that conclusion, a part of you wonders, is that what my body is saying? Am I making the right decision? But you push that aside, you decided to drop, you made the decision, and now you're going to carry it out. So you get to the next aid station and tell the volunteers you're dropping. Done. This is you taking care of your body.
But when the volunteer asks you, are you sure? You say, got to listen to my body. Like, hey, it's the one telling me to stop, not my choice. My body's telling me to stop. But you're the only one in your body. So you're the only one who knows how things really feel and what your body is really saying. The volunteers, your crew, your pacers, can't tell you what your body is saying or what to do.
You're the only one who can hear what your body is saying. But here's how you know that listening didn't work. The next day, you regret dropping because you bounced back quickly. In fact, today, the next day, you feel frustratingly fine. So you think back to that moment at the aid station and what you could have done instead. I could have eaten. I could have had some fluids. I could have walked some, whatever. I could have pulled out of it and finished. I had plenty of time. Why on earth did I drop?
You end up feeling like a failure because you didn't need to drop. But in the moment, in that moment in the aid station, you were so sure that you had to. How did you get it so wrong? The most common way we answer that question is telling ourselves that we're weak, mentally, physically, or both. And to fix it, you decide that you have to work a lot harder and suffer a lot more to get used to feeling bad, so you get used to that feeling and you build the grit and tenacity. So next time, you're used to feeling bad and you can just power through that moment where you dropped.
And training harder might make you fitter, no doubt about it, but it won't fix this. Because this isn't a fitness problem. So what is it? I mean, you weren't lying to yourself, you weren't faking the pain. So if it wasn't weakness and it wasn't your body, what was it?
Here's what's really happening. You're listening to what your brain is saying about your body, not to your body. Your brain is acting as an interpreter for your body, a kind of go-between. And that's who you've actually been listening to. And here's how that works. Your body experiences something like a tight muscle. It sends a signal to your brain and your brain receives it. But because your brain is programmed for your survival and to avoid pain and choose comfort, it interprets that signal that your body sends to mean you can't go any further, you're done. And then, your brain tells you to drop so you can start feeling better.
You don't question that instruction because it seems smart. And you're already looking for a way to control how you feel so that you can feel better, and your brain has here presented you with an airtight solution. So you react and drop. And later, afterwards, you realize that you could have pulled out of that low and walked for a bit to recharge. Cool down, eaten something more at the aid station. You could have gone on. You were wrong about your body being done. And now you're confused and disappointed because you were so sure in that moment that your race had to be over, but it didn't.
It's not because you made the wrong decision, it's because you were listening to the wrong thing and didn't realize it. The problem isn't that you gave up, it's that you never found out if you actually needed to give up. That's what's going on. You're not actually listening to your body, even though it seems like you are. You're hearing your brain's interpretation of what's going on with your body. That loud, easy message it hands to you that says, drop out.
And here's the mistake you don't realize you're making. You're treating what your brain says as if it's the same thing as listening to your body itself directly. But it's not. And there's a real difference also between hearing and listening. Hearing is the passive physiological process of sound waves being detected by your ear and registered by the brain. It happens automatically without effort. You hear that your body has sent a signal.
Listening on the other hand is an active, intentional process that involves attention, interpretation, and understanding of what's being communicated. When you really listen, you put a space between hearing what the brain is saying and reacting to it, to interpret for yourself what that signal means. You probably heard this distinction between hearing and listening when it comes to conversations with people. Let's say you're talking with a friend at a trail head and they're trying to tell you something, but you're hearing the voice in your own head instead, what you're going to say next, what you need to do. You're not really listening to your friend at all. It's the same with your body.
You stop at hearing when you need to go another step beyond and actually listen. So, you hear what your brain is saying about your body's condition while thinking about how badly you want some control over how you feel, how good it would feel to stop and get out of those shoes and lie down and sleep. You don't realize that you might not actually have been listening to your body until the next day when the consequences of dropping really hit you. Because it probably wouldn't occur to you that your brain and your body would tell you two different things. Most of us don't know that. And your brain is telling you what you want to hear also, so you have no incentive to question it.
So no, you didn't lie to yourself and you didn't fake the pain, but somewhere between feeling bad and deciding you're done and having to drop out, something got missed. And that's what we're going to change. Here's an example of how I did this from this morning's 1.25-mile walk around the fountain here in town. An example of hearing what your brain is saying versus listening to your body.
So, about half a mile into this walk, my hip, calf, and the arch of my foot, all on the hip surgery leg, started aching in a really painful way. My first thought was the obvious one. Maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew. Maybe this is too much mileage, too soon. Maybe I should quit. Maybe I'm hurting myself. But I stopped and actually checked in and listened to my body. Is it the pace? No. Slowing down didn't change anything. The ache was the same either way, fast or slow. Was it my form? Partly. I'm still favoring my good leg out of habit. So I straightened that up and that helped a little bit, but the real culprit was the distance.
I'd done this same walk the day before, and no rest in between that day and today. So my body was telling me the mileage was fine, just not all at once. So I sat on a bench for a few minutes and the ache started easing up. And that was it. Not, oh no, I'm doing too much. I'm injuring myself. Just keep the pace easy, fix your form, and take a break or two. That's an example of hearing your brain's verdict, but then going a step further and actually listening to what your body is saying.
And here's how it works in a race. Let's say you've been walking through the night. You've just walked the whole night section, and now the sun is coming up and you feel good again and you want to run again, but you can't. Your legs just won't do it. They won't obey. You're done running. You think, that's clear, done. I'm going to have to walk the rest of the way in. This is as fast as you go now. Except your legs aren't done. They've just been locked into walking for hours. So, you listen to your body and you try a light jog, and it turns out you can. And that feels better than you expected it to. So you try a little bit more jogging. And a few minutes later, you're running again in a race that you were sure you'd be walking the rest of.
Or, let's just say you're past halfway in a technical race, like a technical 100, really long technical race, and your quads feel shot. Your race, as far as you can tell, is over. Maybe you make it to the next aid station, eke that little one more section out, but that's it. Except your quads aren't actually injured. They're not actually used all up either. They're just hard use tight from the climb that you just pushed through. And now that you're at the top of the hill, now that you're top of the ridge, you can ease off and use those quads a little bit less. And when you do that, they start coming back. You weren't done.
Listening tells me what I need to do to take care of my body. That's how I think of it. I don't just assume my body is saying it's done and then I can't finish. That's what my brain's telling me. So it takes an extra effort to stop that process and question what your brain is telling you. And you can use that feeling that your body is done as a signal not to drop, but to actually tune into your body and listen to what it's saying. You've got to make your own decision about what your body is telling you instead of reacting immediately to what your brain is saying.
When you learn to do this, when you learn to listen for yourself instead of react to the story that's in your head, you don't have to wonder if you're actually listening to your body or falling prey to negative thinking. You have more working room in the race to adjust and recover. It's not so black and white anymore. You get to know your body on a much deeper level. You're better able to judge when you can push and when you need to back off. And you're better able to catch an injury forming early. Your body is less of an unpredictable mystery. You build a better, closer relationship with it, and that always helps your running. It's no longer this unreliable team member who could betray you at any moment.
This simple fix, learning how to listen to your body instead of just take what your brain says for granted, changes how you race. Instead of one bad mile turning into, I'm done, you catch the small thing early and adjust, so you stay in the race instead of dropping out of it. Instead of guessing whether you can push or whether you should back off, you actually know because you asked. And instead of spending the back half of a race confused, fighting your own head, trying to decide what's real or not, you spend it doing the thing you actually came to do, run the race. And that means you get better at finishing races.
So, how do you listen to your body? You pause. You ask what's actually happening in it and where you check that out. And you test it before you believe that your body is done. You let your body answer in detail instead of letting your brain hand you just this one big verdict. Next time you hit that tough moment when you're tired and trying to make this decision and you think that your body is done and you can't go on, don't argue with it, but don't obey it. Do what I did on that walk. Pause, check what's actually going on in your body, and make a decision instead of an assumption. So the next time your body says it's done, don't take your brain's word for it or let tiredness decide. Find out for yourself.
All right, y'all. That's this week's episode. Thanks for listening. If you know someone who could use this, share it with them. It might be exactly what they need to hear. See you next week. Bye.
Thanks for listening to Unstoppable Ultra Runner. If you want more ultra talk, mindset tools, and strategies for running with confidence, visit www.susanidonnelly.com. This podcast receives production support from the team at Digital Freedom Productions. That’s it for today’s episode. See you next week.
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 63. As I'm recording this episode, it's two and a half weeks after my hip replacement surgery. And I'm working my way through recovery, one small step at a time. So this is the perfect time to talk about something that doesn't seem like a problem, but ruins a lot of races: listening to your body.
It's obvious, right? You're tired, you have no energy left, your quads are shot, so your body is clearly telling you it's done. It's just a fact. Case closed, where's the mystery in this? But not so fast. Because that assumption, my body says it's done and I have to listen to it, ruins races.
If you want to drop out of a race, if you've already decided that you want to drop out, you want to quit, and you're looking for a reason to do it, this is a really popular way to justify dropping. But this episode is for all of you who badly want to finish, who in that tired moment deep in a race when everything is hurting, aren't sure what your body is saying. You aren't sure if you're making the right decision or if it's just your tiredness speaking.
This is for everyone who's been confused in that moment, wondering, is that what my body is saying? I want to push and I want to finish, but I don't want to harm it. Which is really the question. How do you listen to your body? What does that actually look like?
So let's look at what actually happens when you try to answer that, when you try to listen to your body. Here's what usually happens. You reach that moment at a race where you feel bad in all kinds of ways. The physical hurts and discomforts that you've accumulated along the way have snowballed into this one giant, big realization that I'm suffering.
Feeling bad and how extremely bad you feel becomes your focus. You can't think of much else except for that and how to make it stop. You stop thinking about the race and your pace and executing your plan. All you can think about is how bad your feet hurt and how acutely exhausted you are and how much worse you feel every step and how there's no relief in sight. You can only assume that this is your body telling you it's done because this is only going to get worse.
And what if you injure yourself? What if you push too hard or too long and actually hurt yourself? I mean, your body definitely isn't saying, hey, I'd love to run 50 more miles. So that is the only other thing it could be saying. The disappointing but inevitable choice seems to be drop out of the race. It's not what you wanted, but that just is the way it is.
Still, even as you come to that conclusion, a part of you wonders, is that what my body is saying? Am I making the right decision? But you push that aside, you decided to drop, you made the decision, and now you're going to carry it out. So you get to the next aid station and tell the volunteers you're dropping. Done. This is you taking care of your body.
But when the volunteer asks you, are you sure? You say, got to listen to my body. Like, hey, it's the one telling me to stop, not my choice. My body's telling me to stop. But you're the only one in your body. So you're the only one who knows how things really feel and what your body is really saying. The volunteers, your crew, your pacers, can't tell you what your body is saying or what to do.
You're the only one who can hear what your body is saying. But here's how you know that listening didn't work. The next day, you regret dropping because you bounced back quickly. In fact, today, the next day, you feel frustratingly fine. So you think back to that moment at the aid station and what you could have done instead. I could have eaten. I could have had some fluids. I could have walked some, whatever. I could have pulled out of it and finished. I had plenty of time. Why on earth did I drop?
You end up feeling like a failure because you didn't need to drop. But in the moment, in that moment in the aid station, you were so sure that you had to. How did you get it so wrong? The most common way we answer that question is telling ourselves that we're weak, mentally, physically, or both. And to fix it, you decide that you have to work a lot harder and suffer a lot more to get used to feeling bad, so you get used to that feeling and you build the grit and tenacity. So next time, you're used to feeling bad and you can just power through that moment where you dropped.
And training harder might make you fitter, no doubt about it, but it won't fix this. Because this isn't a fitness problem. So what is it? I mean, you weren't lying to yourself, you weren't faking the pain. So if it wasn't weakness and it wasn't your body, what was it?
Here's what's really happening. You're listening to what your brain is saying about your body, not to your body. Your brain is acting as an interpreter for your body, a kind of go-between. And that's who you've actually been listening to. And here's how that works. Your body experiences something like a tight muscle. It sends a signal to your brain and your brain receives it. But because your brain is programmed for your survival and to avoid pain and choose comfort, it interprets that signal that your body sends to mean you can't go any further, you're done. And then, your brain tells you to drop so you can start feeling better.
You don't question that instruction because it seems smart. And you're already looking for a way to control how you feel so that you can feel better, and your brain has here presented you with an airtight solution. So you react and drop. And later, afterwards, you realize that you could have pulled out of that low and walked for a bit to recharge. Cool down, eaten something more at the aid station. You could have gone on. You were wrong about your body being done. And now you're confused and disappointed because you were so sure in that moment that your race had to be over, but it didn't.
It's not because you made the wrong decision, it's because you were listening to the wrong thing and didn't realize it. The problem isn't that you gave up, it's that you never found out if you actually needed to give up. That's what's going on. You're not actually listening to your body, even though it seems like you are. You're hearing your brain's interpretation of what's going on with your body. That loud, easy message it hands to you that says, drop out.
And here's the mistake you don't realize you're making. You're treating what your brain says as if it's the same thing as listening to your body itself directly. But it's not. And there's a real difference also between hearing and listening. Hearing is the passive physiological process of sound waves being detected by your ear and registered by the brain. It happens automatically without effort. You hear that your body has sent a signal.
Listening on the other hand is an active, intentional process that involves attention, interpretation, and understanding of what's being communicated. When you really listen, you put a space between hearing what the brain is saying and reacting to it, to interpret for yourself what that signal means. You probably heard this distinction between hearing and listening when it comes to conversations with people. Let's say you're talking with a friend at a trail head and they're trying to tell you something, but you're hearing the voice in your own head instead, what you're going to say next, what you need to do. You're not really listening to your friend at all. It's the same with your body.
You stop at hearing when you need to go another step beyond and actually listen. So, you hear what your brain is saying about your body's condition while thinking about how badly you want some control over how you feel, how good it would feel to stop and get out of those shoes and lie down and sleep. You don't realize that you might not actually have been listening to your body until the next day when the consequences of dropping really hit you. Because it probably wouldn't occur to you that your brain and your body would tell you two different things. Most of us don't know that. And your brain is telling you what you want to hear also, so you have no incentive to question it.
So no, you didn't lie to yourself and you didn't fake the pain, but somewhere between feeling bad and deciding you're done and having to drop out, something got missed. And that's what we're going to change. Here's an example of how I did this from this morning's 1.25-mile walk around the fountain here in town. An example of hearing what your brain is saying versus listening to your body.
So, about half a mile into this walk, my hip, calf, and the arch of my foot, all on the hip surgery leg, started aching in a really painful way. My first thought was the obvious one. Maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew. Maybe this is too much mileage, too soon. Maybe I should quit. Maybe I'm hurting myself. But I stopped and actually checked in and listened to my body. Is it the pace? No. Slowing down didn't change anything. The ache was the same either way, fast or slow. Was it my form? Partly. I'm still favoring my good leg out of habit. So I straightened that up and that helped a little bit, but the real culprit was the distance.
I'd done this same walk the day before, and no rest in between that day and today. So my body was telling me the mileage was fine, just not all at once. So I sat on a bench for a few minutes and the ache started easing up. And that was it. Not, oh no, I'm doing too much. I'm injuring myself. Just keep the pace easy, fix your form, and take a break or two. That's an example of hearing your brain's verdict, but then going a step further and actually listening to what your body is saying.
And here's how it works in a race. Let's say you've been walking through the night. You've just walked the whole night section, and now the sun is coming up and you feel good again and you want to run again, but you can't. Your legs just won't do it. They won't obey. You're done running. You think, that's clear, done. I'm going to have to walk the rest of the way in. This is as fast as you go now. Except your legs aren't done. They've just been locked into walking for hours. So, you listen to your body and you try a light jog, and it turns out you can. And that feels better than you expected it to. So you try a little bit more jogging. And a few minutes later, you're running again in a race that you were sure you'd be walking the rest of.
Or, let's just say you're past halfway in a technical race, like a technical 100, really long technical race, and your quads feel shot. Your race, as far as you can tell, is over. Maybe you make it to the next aid station, eke that little one more section out, but that's it. Except your quads aren't actually injured. They're not actually used all up either. They're just hard use tight from the climb that you just pushed through. And now that you're at the top of the hill, now that you're top of the ridge, you can ease off and use those quads a little bit less. And when you do that, they start coming back. You weren't done.
Listening tells me what I need to do to take care of my body. That's how I think of it. I don't just assume my body is saying it's done and then I can't finish. That's what my brain's telling me. So it takes an extra effort to stop that process and question what your brain is telling you. And you can use that feeling that your body is done as a signal not to drop, but to actually tune into your body and listen to what it's saying. You've got to make your own decision about what your body is telling you instead of reacting immediately to what your brain is saying.
When you learn to do this, when you learn to listen for yourself instead of react to the story that's in your head, you don't have to wonder if you're actually listening to your body or falling prey to negative thinking. You have more working room in the race to adjust and recover. It's not so black and white anymore. You get to know your body on a much deeper level. You're better able to judge when you can push and when you need to back off. And you're better able to catch an injury forming early. Your body is less of an unpredictable mystery. You build a better, closer relationship with it, and that always helps your running. It's no longer this unreliable team member who could betray you at any moment.
This simple fix, learning how to listen to your body instead of just take what your brain says for granted, changes how you race. Instead of one bad mile turning into, I'm done, you catch the small thing early and adjust, so you stay in the race instead of dropping out of it. Instead of guessing whether you can push or whether you should back off, you actually know because you asked. And instead of spending the back half of a race confused, fighting your own head, trying to decide what's real or not, you spend it doing the thing you actually came to do, run the race. And that means you get better at finishing races.
So, how do you listen to your body? You pause. You ask what's actually happening in it and where you check that out. And you test it before you believe that your body is done. You let your body answer in detail instead of letting your brain hand you just this one big verdict. Next time you hit that tough moment when you're tired and trying to make this decision and you think that your body is done and you can't go on, don't argue with it, but don't obey it. Do what I did on that walk. Pause, check what's actually going on in your body, and make a decision instead of an assumption. So the next time your body says it's done, don't take your brain's word for it or let tiredness decide. Find out for yourself.
All right, y'all. That's this week's episode. Thanks for listening. If you know someone who could use this, share it with them. It might be exactly what they need to hear. See you next week. Bye.
Thanks for listening to Unstoppable Ultra Runner. If you want more ultra talk, mindset tools, and strategies for running with confidence, visit www.susanidonnelly.com. This podcast receives production support from the team at Digital Freedom Productions. That’s it for today’s episode. See you next week.
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