64. Why Mental Skills Matter Every Step of an Ultra
When most runners think about mental skills, they think about the big moments that require them. Pushing through pain. Digging deep when they want to quit. Finding the determination to make it to the finish line. But surprisingly, that's not where mental skills make the biggest difference.
In this episode, I challenge one of the biggest misconceptions in ultra running: that mental strength only matters when your race is falling apart. The truth is, your race is shaped long before you reach that dramatic moment. Every pacing decision, every hill you choose to run or walk, every runner you pass, and every moment you spend second-guessing yourself requires mental skills. Those small decisions may seem insignificant on their own, but over the course of an ultra, they quietly determine how efficiently you race.
You'll learn how thousands of everyday decisions influence your performance and what it looks like to engage your mind from the very first step instead of waiting until the race is on the line. When you stop treating mental skills as an emergency tool and start using them throughout your race, you'll waste less time, race with greater confidence, and give yourself a much better chance of reaching the finish line.
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 mental skills matter long before you're thinking about dropping from a race.
The mindset mistake that quietly costs runners time throughout an ultra.
Why thousands of small decisions shape your race more than one dramatic moment.
How to stop racing on autopilot and make more intentional decisions.
Why using your mental skills from the first mile makes the final miles easier to manage.
How to race with greater focus, confidence, and consistency from start to finish.
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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Full Episode Transcript:
You're probably losing time in every race. And it's not because of your training. It's not your mileage, your nutrition, or your gear. It's a mindset mistake hiding in plain sight. And once you see it, you can't unsee 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 64. Today we are talking about a mindset mistake that is hiding in plain sight. It is one that costs runners the performance that they are definitely capable of and costs some of them races. And it's easy to miss, partly because the moments we celebrate in ultra running are the big dramatic ones, the dig deep moments, the against all odds finishes, the inspiring moments. And this mistake I'm talking about today is totally preventable.
So, here's what happens. Let's just say that you're, for easy math, you're in a 100-mile race. It's one that you've trained for, and you're super excited to run. And here you are in the race and it was going okay until it wasn't. Now you're trying not to freak out or get frustrated, but you're closer to cutoff than you wanted to be, and you thought you'd be well ahead of cutoff, but now here you are, worried about cutoff, the exact thing that you didn't want to be doing.
You did the training, you put in the miles, you showed up prepared, but obviously, it wasn't enough. Why? How did your training fail? Maybe you're just not cut out for this. Maybe you're too old, maybe this, maybe that. Aid station after aid station, you watch your hard-earned cushion on cutoff dwindle instead of build.
And then, deep in the race, you make it to an aid station and everything comes to a head. You're exhausted, you're hurt, you're stressed with how uncomfortably close you are to cutoff, and you've got five minutes on cutoff. You're not sure you can make it to the next aid station in time. Or that you even want to try, because it just seems like a losing battle. You're definitely not excited about going on and hurting worse and trying harder and stressing just to get pulled at the next aid station and still not finish. So dropping now seems like the smartest solution.
Now. Now is the moment. This is when you need to summon the mental strength to keep going and finish because this moment is when tough runners turn on the grit and push through. This is when strong runners dig deep and find that other gear. This moment is when driven runners persevere against all odds. This is the moment you've been bracing for, the one you knew might be coming, the one you've worried about for months, the what if, the one moment that you were hoping to be strong enough to be talking about with pride after the race is over and you're holding the finish buckle in your hands. Now. Now is the moment to use mental strength to power through and keep going.
And that's true, but there's also a critical mistake hidden in that thinking. Yes, you need the mental skills and strength now in this moment, but you needed them the whole way. Not just now. The mistake is thinking your mind only matters when you're faced with the dramatic give up or dig deep moment. But a race uses your mind every single step of the way. Every moment you're in it.
This is the way I like to think about it. A race is made up of millions of micro decisions. Decisions that directly affect how fast you go, how well you do. And every one of those decisions takes mental skill to make well, especially under the pressure of a race.
When you let those little micro decisions happen without thinking about them, every step is just driven by whatever thoughts, and assumptions, and beliefs, and doubts, and fears happen to be running through your head at that moment.
Get this math. An average ultra runner takes about 1500 steps per mile. In a 100-mile race, that's 150,000 steps, which is mind-boggling in itself. But get this. That is 150,000 decisions about each step. Whether to take that step, how fast to take that step, where to plant your foot, how strong to push off, whether your heart rate feels sustainable, if that hot spot is developing into a blister, if you need to drink now, and on and on and on.
So, if you're not in control of that 150,000 decisions, you're not in control of your race. And here are just three simple everyday places in any race where those 150,000 decisions happen, where mental skills matter the whole way.
First example is pace. Pace is a huge one because every step is a judgment call about what you think is sustainable. And that judgment lives in your head. It's not in your watch or on your pace card. No matter what your watch says, level of effort matters. And level of effort is subjective. If you're already tired and you're hurting three quarters of the way through a race, your perceived level of effort is going to be really super high. But if you're in the first mile of the race, it can feel super low.
So, here's what's going on in your head. Should you speed up, slow down? Are you going out too fast? What's going to be sustainable over the rest of the race? Are you running a smart, conservative pace or too slow? Are you going to pay for this pace later? When all of those questions are just rumbling around in your mind without you answering them, you stop paying attention to what you're actually doing. You're thinking about those questions.
So you're not focused on how running feels right now. You're trying to forecast into the future, like whether you're going to make it to the finish line. You're not asking, is this sustainable? What you're really asking is, am I going to make it this way? That is a very different question. And it's one that you can't answer at mile 20. So these questions just spiral and spiral in your head. And while they're spiraling, guess what you're not focused on? What you're actually doing and how you're actually running. That rock in front of you, that root in front of you.
So that's one example, pace. The second routine place that mindset plays a huge role in any race is deciding when to walk. That decision is everywhere. It's in a challenging mountain race, it's on a flat rails to trails course, it's in a last person standing race, a fixed time race, it's in every race. And what you're thinking is, is this hill steep enough to walk? At what point on this slope am I going to start walking? If I committed to run a 10-2 ratio, when and how often is it okay for me to change that ratio? How much stop time can I afford on each loop of a last person standing race and still be able to start the next loop on time?
Without the mental skills working for you in those moments, those decisions happen by default. You walk the moment that you see the hill because your mind is off somewhere else, replaying what somebody said at work or worrying about the next aid station or back spinning about pace, and you don't decide when to walk. You just start walking. And you lose seconds that way on every hill that you could have run 10 more steps on without even realizing you're doing that. Those seconds here and there, they add up. Over the course of 100 miles, the time you lose to unintentional decisions like that about walking may not seem dramatic, but it accumulates in little bits and pieces here and there, and that's why you don't notice it. But it is costing you time and it doesn't have to.
All right, the third routine place that your thinking matters is passing. Like both passing others and getting passed. No matter who's passing who, it's distracting. And that distraction pulls you away from the things you need to focus on to actually finish the race. Like when somebody is coming up behind you, here's what's going on in your mind. Who is that? Do they want to pass? Did I slow down and that's why they're catching me? Am I going too slow? How long are they going to wait before passing? Do they know how to pass or are they going to want me to step aside? Which side are they going to want to pass on? Do they even see that I've scooted over as far as I can to make it easy for them to pass?
And when you're passing someone else, here's where your attention goes. Am I ready to expend the effort to pass? Can I stay ahead of them? What if I can't? What if they try and keep up with me? Am I running unsustainably fast just to try and catch them? Should I just try and stay behind them to the next aid station? What if I go by them now and I can't hold it and they pass me back in a minute? That'd be embarrassing.
When other runners are anywhere in sight, you're going to be trying to answer these questions instead of focusing on what you need to focus on: eating, drinking, pace, staying upright. You're focused on the picture in your mind, like who's behind you, what they're doing, what it means, instead of focused on your race and what your body is actually doing. And every moment you spend there, not focused on what you're doing, is a moment you're not focused on your race and doing the things you need to do to get to the finish line.
Pace, when to walk, passing, those are present in every race. And when you don't realize you're making decisions about these normal routine things, you end up making decisions out of reaction to what's in your head at that particular moment, or you just don't decide at all. You just kind of let those things happen and you lose time that you didn't have to lose. And that time adds up.
So, here's the mistake behind all of this that gets you into this situation, is thinking that mental skills and strength only matter in that big moment of crisis when you're thinking of dropping. Like mental skills are something to break glass for and reach for in case of emergency. You know, that dramatic moment that race reports and social media and race videos all highlight, it's the one moment that you're supposed to fear. So, that's what you prepare for. It's like using the Bat signal. You only call Batman when there's danger. So you don't develop the mental skills and capabilities and strength for the everyday stuff.
You're a strong determined person and you're pretty sure you can get through that one tough moment when it comes to it. I mean, it's only one moment in a race and you know what to do, keep going, it's obvious, right? But that thinking, that exact thinking makes mental skills feel optional. Like something to develop after you've gotten your body in perfect shape. And even then, you're willing to gamble that that epic moment won't happen to you or that if it does, you're going to be tough enough to handle it.
But that belief that mental skills and strength and strategy and all of that only matter in that one moment of a race is exactly why you're standing in the aid station right now planning to drop. Because that crisis moment isn't random. It's the result of miles and miles of unintentional decisions and reactive thinking and time that you didn't have to lose.
You can only fully focus on one thing at a time. And when hesitation and doubt and indecision and second guessing are taking up that focus in your brain, that space in your brain, you aren't focused on what's actually going to get you to the finish line.
So what you need to do is build the mental skills and capabilities now to make the most of every step and every mile. Train your mind while you train your body. Because those two things have to work together in a race anyway. And that's exactly what we do in Mental Mastery Coaching. If you want to find out what that looks like for you, grab a spot on my calendar for a free consult call. The link is in the show notes. Because when you do build your mental skills, here's what your race looks like.
With pace, you know how to make the call and you move on. And all that mental energy where you were wasting on worry and second guessing and all those questions in your head, all that mental energy stays available for you for the next 80 miles. With walking, you already know the answer ahead of time before the question even comes up.
You decided your criteria ahead of time. How steep you want to walk and what you want to run, what ratio, your 10-2 ratio or whatever, when it's okay to adjust your decisions so that when you hit the trail, you're not wondering. You're not doing any of that questioning in your head, you're not negotiating with yourself. You just run it or walk it and move on. Simple. With passing, you minimize the necessary distraction and when it's done, when you've passed them or they've passed you, you return to focusing on the essentials that are going to get you to the finish line. Again, simple, calm.
When you use your mind the whole race, you stop letting things like pace and walking and passing and all the other 150,000 decisions that you are making just happen. You actually make the decisions and you make them in a way that serves your race. You stop floundering around in the moment or not having criteria or a compass for making the decision and maybe not even realizing you're making a decision at all. You engage the power of your mind the whole way instead of just in that one moment of crisis.
You stay on top of your race the whole way, so those epic moments are less likely to happen. You're more comfortable with your thoughts and mental skills and you're not plagued by the fear that you don't know what you're doing. You're more calm about the race. You're more confident in yourself. And if it comes to it, you don't have to wonder if you have the mental strength in that one big crisis moment of drop or keep going. You know you have the mental strength because you use that mental muscle all the time.
When you know that mindset matters in every single little thing you do in the race, and you develop the mental skills to race efficiently, you lose less time to distractions and second guessing yourself and worrying about what you do. You save time that you would have been wasting. You improve your ability to finish and you spend less time having to worry about cutoff.
Which means you enjoy races more. Remember the scenario we started with? Five minutes on cutoff, exhausted, hurting, about to drop in the aid station. Now, imagine you'd been using your mind the whole race, not saving it for this one big moment. Imagine making intentional decisions about pace from mile one, knowing exactly when you were going to walk and when you weren't. Getting the passing done and getting right back to business. You might not be in that crisis moment at all.
And if you are, because ultras are unpredictable and hard things happen, you're not tapped out. You've got plenty of mental capacity for more. You know you can keep going because you've been doing it the whole way. That's what mental skills used all race long actually looks like. Not just the rare dramatic dig deep moment, it's the 150,000 small decisions that actually get you to the finish line before it ever comes to that rare moment.
If you want to run your best, don't underestimate the power of all the ways that mindset matters, big and small. It's not just in how you handle the big moments, it's in how you handle everything.
All right, you 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 64. Today we are talking about a mindset mistake that is hiding in plain sight. It is one that costs runners the performance that they are definitely capable of and costs some of them races. And it's easy to miss, partly because the moments we celebrate in ultra running are the big dramatic ones, the dig deep moments, the against all odds finishes, the inspiring moments. And this mistake I'm talking about today is totally preventable.
So, here's what happens. Let's just say that you're, for easy math, you're in a 100-mile race. It's one that you've trained for, and you're super excited to run. And here you are in the race and it was going okay until it wasn't. Now you're trying not to freak out or get frustrated, but you're closer to cutoff than you wanted to be, and you thought you'd be well ahead of cutoff, but now here you are, worried about cutoff, the exact thing that you didn't want to be doing.
You did the training, you put in the miles, you showed up prepared, but obviously, it wasn't enough. Why? How did your training fail? Maybe you're just not cut out for this. Maybe you're too old, maybe this, maybe that. Aid station after aid station, you watch your hard-earned cushion on cutoff dwindle instead of build.
And then, deep in the race, you make it to an aid station and everything comes to a head. You're exhausted, you're hurt, you're stressed with how uncomfortably close you are to cutoff, and you've got five minutes on cutoff. You're not sure you can make it to the next aid station in time. Or that you even want to try, because it just seems like a losing battle. You're definitely not excited about going on and hurting worse and trying harder and stressing just to get pulled at the next aid station and still not finish. So dropping now seems like the smartest solution.
Now. Now is the moment. This is when you need to summon the mental strength to keep going and finish because this moment is when tough runners turn on the grit and push through. This is when strong runners dig deep and find that other gear. This moment is when driven runners persevere against all odds. This is the moment you've been bracing for, the one you knew might be coming, the one you've worried about for months, the what if, the one moment that you were hoping to be strong enough to be talking about with pride after the race is over and you're holding the finish buckle in your hands. Now. Now is the moment to use mental strength to power through and keep going.
And that's true, but there's also a critical mistake hidden in that thinking. Yes, you need the mental skills and strength now in this moment, but you needed them the whole way. Not just now. The mistake is thinking your mind only matters when you're faced with the dramatic give up or dig deep moment. But a race uses your mind every single step of the way. Every moment you're in it.
This is the way I like to think about it. A race is made up of millions of micro decisions. Decisions that directly affect how fast you go, how well you do. And every one of those decisions takes mental skill to make well, especially under the pressure of a race.
When you let those little micro decisions happen without thinking about them, every step is just driven by whatever thoughts, and assumptions, and beliefs, and doubts, and fears happen to be running through your head at that moment.
Get this math. An average ultra runner takes about 1500 steps per mile. In a 100-mile race, that's 150,000 steps, which is mind-boggling in itself. But get this. That is 150,000 decisions about each step. Whether to take that step, how fast to take that step, where to plant your foot, how strong to push off, whether your heart rate feels sustainable, if that hot spot is developing into a blister, if you need to drink now, and on and on and on.
So, if you're not in control of that 150,000 decisions, you're not in control of your race. And here are just three simple everyday places in any race where those 150,000 decisions happen, where mental skills matter the whole way.
First example is pace. Pace is a huge one because every step is a judgment call about what you think is sustainable. And that judgment lives in your head. It's not in your watch or on your pace card. No matter what your watch says, level of effort matters. And level of effort is subjective. If you're already tired and you're hurting three quarters of the way through a race, your perceived level of effort is going to be really super high. But if you're in the first mile of the race, it can feel super low.
So, here's what's going on in your head. Should you speed up, slow down? Are you going out too fast? What's going to be sustainable over the rest of the race? Are you running a smart, conservative pace or too slow? Are you going to pay for this pace later? When all of those questions are just rumbling around in your mind without you answering them, you stop paying attention to what you're actually doing. You're thinking about those questions.
So you're not focused on how running feels right now. You're trying to forecast into the future, like whether you're going to make it to the finish line. You're not asking, is this sustainable? What you're really asking is, am I going to make it this way? That is a very different question. And it's one that you can't answer at mile 20. So these questions just spiral and spiral in your head. And while they're spiraling, guess what you're not focused on? What you're actually doing and how you're actually running. That rock in front of you, that root in front of you.
So that's one example, pace. The second routine place that mindset plays a huge role in any race is deciding when to walk. That decision is everywhere. It's in a challenging mountain race, it's on a flat rails to trails course, it's in a last person standing race, a fixed time race, it's in every race. And what you're thinking is, is this hill steep enough to walk? At what point on this slope am I going to start walking? If I committed to run a 10-2 ratio, when and how often is it okay for me to change that ratio? How much stop time can I afford on each loop of a last person standing race and still be able to start the next loop on time?
Without the mental skills working for you in those moments, those decisions happen by default. You walk the moment that you see the hill because your mind is off somewhere else, replaying what somebody said at work or worrying about the next aid station or back spinning about pace, and you don't decide when to walk. You just start walking. And you lose seconds that way on every hill that you could have run 10 more steps on without even realizing you're doing that. Those seconds here and there, they add up. Over the course of 100 miles, the time you lose to unintentional decisions like that about walking may not seem dramatic, but it accumulates in little bits and pieces here and there, and that's why you don't notice it. But it is costing you time and it doesn't have to.
All right, the third routine place that your thinking matters is passing. Like both passing others and getting passed. No matter who's passing who, it's distracting. And that distraction pulls you away from the things you need to focus on to actually finish the race. Like when somebody is coming up behind you, here's what's going on in your mind. Who is that? Do they want to pass? Did I slow down and that's why they're catching me? Am I going too slow? How long are they going to wait before passing? Do they know how to pass or are they going to want me to step aside? Which side are they going to want to pass on? Do they even see that I've scooted over as far as I can to make it easy for them to pass?
And when you're passing someone else, here's where your attention goes. Am I ready to expend the effort to pass? Can I stay ahead of them? What if I can't? What if they try and keep up with me? Am I running unsustainably fast just to try and catch them? Should I just try and stay behind them to the next aid station? What if I go by them now and I can't hold it and they pass me back in a minute? That'd be embarrassing.
When other runners are anywhere in sight, you're going to be trying to answer these questions instead of focusing on what you need to focus on: eating, drinking, pace, staying upright. You're focused on the picture in your mind, like who's behind you, what they're doing, what it means, instead of focused on your race and what your body is actually doing. And every moment you spend there, not focused on what you're doing, is a moment you're not focused on your race and doing the things you need to do to get to the finish line.
Pace, when to walk, passing, those are present in every race. And when you don't realize you're making decisions about these normal routine things, you end up making decisions out of reaction to what's in your head at that particular moment, or you just don't decide at all. You just kind of let those things happen and you lose time that you didn't have to lose. And that time adds up.
So, here's the mistake behind all of this that gets you into this situation, is thinking that mental skills and strength only matter in that big moment of crisis when you're thinking of dropping. Like mental skills are something to break glass for and reach for in case of emergency. You know, that dramatic moment that race reports and social media and race videos all highlight, it's the one moment that you're supposed to fear. So, that's what you prepare for. It's like using the Bat signal. You only call Batman when there's danger. So you don't develop the mental skills and capabilities and strength for the everyday stuff.
You're a strong determined person and you're pretty sure you can get through that one tough moment when it comes to it. I mean, it's only one moment in a race and you know what to do, keep going, it's obvious, right? But that thinking, that exact thinking makes mental skills feel optional. Like something to develop after you've gotten your body in perfect shape. And even then, you're willing to gamble that that epic moment won't happen to you or that if it does, you're going to be tough enough to handle it.
But that belief that mental skills and strength and strategy and all of that only matter in that one moment of a race is exactly why you're standing in the aid station right now planning to drop. Because that crisis moment isn't random. It's the result of miles and miles of unintentional decisions and reactive thinking and time that you didn't have to lose.
You can only fully focus on one thing at a time. And when hesitation and doubt and indecision and second guessing are taking up that focus in your brain, that space in your brain, you aren't focused on what's actually going to get you to the finish line.
So what you need to do is build the mental skills and capabilities now to make the most of every step and every mile. Train your mind while you train your body. Because those two things have to work together in a race anyway. And that's exactly what we do in Mental Mastery Coaching. If you want to find out what that looks like for you, grab a spot on my calendar for a free consult call. The link is in the show notes. Because when you do build your mental skills, here's what your race looks like.
With pace, you know how to make the call and you move on. And all that mental energy where you were wasting on worry and second guessing and all those questions in your head, all that mental energy stays available for you for the next 80 miles. With walking, you already know the answer ahead of time before the question even comes up.
You decided your criteria ahead of time. How steep you want to walk and what you want to run, what ratio, your 10-2 ratio or whatever, when it's okay to adjust your decisions so that when you hit the trail, you're not wondering. You're not doing any of that questioning in your head, you're not negotiating with yourself. You just run it or walk it and move on. Simple. With passing, you minimize the necessary distraction and when it's done, when you've passed them or they've passed you, you return to focusing on the essentials that are going to get you to the finish line. Again, simple, calm.
When you use your mind the whole race, you stop letting things like pace and walking and passing and all the other 150,000 decisions that you are making just happen. You actually make the decisions and you make them in a way that serves your race. You stop floundering around in the moment or not having criteria or a compass for making the decision and maybe not even realizing you're making a decision at all. You engage the power of your mind the whole way instead of just in that one moment of crisis.
You stay on top of your race the whole way, so those epic moments are less likely to happen. You're more comfortable with your thoughts and mental skills and you're not plagued by the fear that you don't know what you're doing. You're more calm about the race. You're more confident in yourself. And if it comes to it, you don't have to wonder if you have the mental strength in that one big crisis moment of drop or keep going. You know you have the mental strength because you use that mental muscle all the time.
When you know that mindset matters in every single little thing you do in the race, and you develop the mental skills to race efficiently, you lose less time to distractions and second guessing yourself and worrying about what you do. You save time that you would have been wasting. You improve your ability to finish and you spend less time having to worry about cutoff.
Which means you enjoy races more. Remember the scenario we started with? Five minutes on cutoff, exhausted, hurting, about to drop in the aid station. Now, imagine you'd been using your mind the whole race, not saving it for this one big moment. Imagine making intentional decisions about pace from mile one, knowing exactly when you were going to walk and when you weren't. Getting the passing done and getting right back to business. You might not be in that crisis moment at all.
And if you are, because ultras are unpredictable and hard things happen, you're not tapped out. You've got plenty of mental capacity for more. You know you can keep going because you've been doing it the whole way. That's what mental skills used all race long actually looks like. Not just the rare dramatic dig deep moment, it's the 150,000 small decisions that actually get you to the finish line before it ever comes to that rare moment.
If you want to run your best, don't underestimate the power of all the ways that mindset matters, big and small. It's not just in how you handle the big moments, it's in how you handle everything.
All right, you 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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