25. Quiet Quitting & How to Stay In the Race
The difference between dropping from an ultra and quiet quitting is profound. When you drop, at least you make a conscious decision. When you quiet quit, you keep moving through aid stations, consuming calories, going through all the motions - but mentally, you've already thrown in the towel.
Quiet quitting destroys more than just individual races. It erodes your confidence, kills your joy in ultrarunning, and creates a pattern of self-abandonment that becomes easier to repeat each time. The good news? You can recognize this pattern and break it.
Tune in this week to learn four specific strategies that will enable you to stay mentally engaged when things get tough, and discover what's actually possible when you stop writing the story before it's over.
If you’re loving the show, please take a moment to follow, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts today!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why quiet quitting races is more damaging long term than just dropping out.
How to talk to yourself when the quiet-quitting starts.
Why predicting doom ahead causes you to mentally check out while physically continuing.
4 practical strategies to stay mentally engaged when your brain wants to give up.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
If you’re loving the show, please take a moment to follow, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts today!
Full Episode Transcript:
Have you ever quit a race without actually dropping? Kept moving but stopped caring? It's what I call quiet quitting, and it can destroy more races than poor training.
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 25. I had a client recently who was training for his third attempt at a 100-miler. In his previous two races, he'd hit that inevitable low point. You know the one where you're slowing down, everything hurts, your legs feel dead, and the cutoffs ahead feel impossible. His brain started hinting that it was time to pack it in, but here's what happened. Instead of dropping, he did something that might be worse. He gave up.
He kept moving, kept eating, kept drinking. To anybody watching, he was still in the race, but mentally, he'd already thrown in the towel. He was going through the motions, certain he'd get pulled at the next cutoff, and honestly not caring if he did. He quiet quit his race.
The frustrating part? When he looked back the next day, he realized he absolutely could have made those cutoffs. He had the fitness. He had the time. What he didn't have was the mental fight. He'd abandoned himself when he needed himself the most. And that's what feels so bad about it.
The key here is that it doesn't look like quitting, but it is. It's when you give up pushing but keep going through the motions. You're still moving towards aid stations, still consuming calories and fluids, but you've stopped fighting for your finish. It's the bare minimum approach. You'll do what's required to stay upright and moving so you can tell yourself you're trying, but you don't really care about cutoffs. If you get pulled, it was meant to be. If you somehow make it, fine, but you're not going to try hard enough to be disappointed when you don't. It's a super sneaky way we sabotage ourselves.
And why do we do this? In one word, predicting. You're thinking ahead and anticipating doom ahead. Your mind projects forward to all the cutoffs you have left and all the miles you had still to cover and concludes it's impossible. On the surface, this seems rational. Why waste energy on something that's not going to work out anyway? I'm just being realistic. But that's not really what's happening. What's really happening is you don't want to drop, you promised yourself you wouldn't, but you also don't want to fight for the finish because you don't believe the effort is going to pay off.
Your brain is looking at all those miles ahead and concluding it's going to take more than what you've got or more than you want to give to reach that finish line. It's predicting the remaining distance will be impossibly or painfully difficult. And rather than face that painful possibility, you avoid it by mentally checking out while still going through the motions.
And listen, there's no shame if you've done this. No shame whatsoever. It's common and hugely tempting, and I've done it at some point. I just want you to see the cost so you can decide if this is really something you want to do. So you know the consequences, especially the longer-term consequences.
So, why wouldn't you quit if you don't see any way to make it? That makes sense, doesn't it? Why expend all that energy if you're sure you're not going to make it? It sounds smart, and it seems logical, but here's what quiet quitting costs you.
First, you don't get better at ultra running. Because you don't try pushing your boundary past what you think is possible. So you don't learn what it's like to do that, to give yourself a chance to do that, and to see what's actually possible despite what you think. This becomes the boundary of your limits. Unexplored endurance is beyond it. You've put a ton of training time and effort into getting to this point in the race, and if you pass up this chance to see what's actually possible, to expand what's possible, you'll have to work hard all over again to get back to this point again and have this chance again.
And it's not just that you don't improve, you actually get worse, because quiet quitting further concretes this in your mind as your limit. You can't get beyond this. It teaches you to do it again when you feel like this in a race. That's just how your races go.
Second cost is that it destroys your confidence. Because you lie to yourself. This is worse than dropping because when you drop, you make a decision. And it might not be the one you ultimately wish you'd made, but you actually make a decision and think about it. When you quiet quit, though, you avoid that decision. You're not honest with yourself about it. It's like you abandon yourself, like you don't want to tell yourself the truth.
And once you've done this to yourself, it gets easier to do it again. And you know that you might not be there to back yourself up, so you begin doubting yourself more. If you don't get a handle on it, quiet quitting on yourself can become a habit. You start hesitating to care about future races because you don't trust yourself to follow through. Lying to yourself like this destroys your confidence worse than getting pulled ever could.
And the third, even bigger cost is losing the excitement, fun, and joy of ultra running. Quiet quitting is a fast track to falling out of love with the sport. To give up and quiet quit, think about it. You have to let go of caring about your goal. So to do that, you have to kill the desire you had for it. You have to look at your goal with new eyes and instead make it stupid or ridiculous or unreasonable. You have to create an apathy about it. You have to become the bully, belittling and laughing at the goal you work so hard on and thinking that it's not worthwhile.
And that feels terrible. It's tough to try your best and not finish, but it's devastating to not care and not try. And if you do it with this goal, getting excited about another goal seems out of character. Foolish. It's way cooler and smarter not to care, or that's the way it seems. But avoiding that reality check is exactly what keeps you stuck. To get past quiet quitting, you need to summon the courage to care enough about your race to look at the situation more objectively. The solution is questioning what your brain is telling you it will really take to finish.
And here are four strategies to do exactly that. The first is to just stop predicting what's ahead and focus on where you are right now. Be present. How are you doing on fueling? On hydration? How's your pace? Are there any immediate problems you need to solve? You're still in the race, so focus on what you're doing right now instead of projecting miles ahead into the future. One step, and then the next, and then the next, and just tune out the rest for a while.
The second strategy to avoid quiet quitting is to predict possibility as much as your brain is predicting impossibility ahead. Think about what's going right and how the situation could actually improve. Let's say you're 60 miles into 100. That's most of the race already done. And you might just be in a low that you can fix with better fueling. You're still moving. Maybe slowing the pace slightly will help you bounce back. When you catch yourself catastrophizing ahead, deliberately list three things that could go right or three problems that you could solve enough to get to the finish.
Alright, the third strategy to avoid quiet quitting is to shorten your prediction window. One reason the miles ahead seem so impossible is because it feels like you have to solve the entire remaining distance right now. You have to know exactly how you're going to do every mile from here to the finish. So instead, only think as far ahead as the next aid station or the top of the next climb. Set micro goals, like strong hiking for the next 30 minutes, and then reassess. This makes the future ahead, the immediate future, less abstract and more achievable. So think in terms of shorter segments. They add up to get the job done. And sometimes you can only commit to caring for 30 minutes at a time, and that's enough. The key here is staying engaged rather than abandoning yourself.
And the fourth strategy to avoid quiet quitting is to just change what you think finishing has to require. Adjust your finish goal, or the way you think the remaining miles have to look. Maybe your A-goal time isn't happening, but a strong finish where you fought against the odds to the end, maybe that's within reach. Maybe this is a day where it's not pretty, but you survive and you reach the finish. That's incredibly satisfying and absolutely worth fighting for.
Practice good-enough effort. This isn't giving up, it's strategic. Find the effort level you can sustain that keeps you moving efficiently without demanding perfection. Good enough to stay in the fight, good enough to make the cutoffs, and good enough to be proud of.
The payoff is that when you choose to care enough to question this thinking, the thinking that leads to quiet quitting, and to stay in the fight, even if you don't hit your original goal, several things happen. You improve your confidence for future races because you've proven to yourself that you can stay mentally engaged when things get tough and you can count on yourself in the tough moments. You get to keep the joy in your race. You're still participating in your own adventure instead of just mindlessly enduring it. And sometimes, often actually, you surprise yourself with what you discover is possible when you stop writing the story before it's over.
The next time you feel the urge to quiet quit, remember, the worst part isn't missing a cutoff. It's lying to yourself about why you missed it. Your pace might not be what you planned, and your splits might not look pretty, but if you're still fighting for it, you're still in the race. And that version of you, the one who cares and who tries and who stays in the fight even when the outcome is uncertain, that's the runner you want to be. That's the stronger runner. That's the runner who's going to surprise you with what's possible.
So don't quiet quit on yourself. You came way too far and worked way too hard to check out before the story's over.
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 25. I had a client recently who was training for his third attempt at a 100-miler. In his previous two races, he'd hit that inevitable low point. You know the one where you're slowing down, everything hurts, your legs feel dead, and the cutoffs ahead feel impossible. His brain started hinting that it was time to pack it in, but here's what happened. Instead of dropping, he did something that might be worse. He gave up.
He kept moving, kept eating, kept drinking. To anybody watching, he was still in the race, but mentally, he'd already thrown in the towel. He was going through the motions, certain he'd get pulled at the next cutoff, and honestly not caring if he did. He quiet quit his race.
The frustrating part? When he looked back the next day, he realized he absolutely could have made those cutoffs. He had the fitness. He had the time. What he didn't have was the mental fight. He'd abandoned himself when he needed himself the most. And that's what feels so bad about it.
The key here is that it doesn't look like quitting, but it is. It's when you give up pushing but keep going through the motions. You're still moving towards aid stations, still consuming calories and fluids, but you've stopped fighting for your finish. It's the bare minimum approach. You'll do what's required to stay upright and moving so you can tell yourself you're trying, but you don't really care about cutoffs. If you get pulled, it was meant to be. If you somehow make it, fine, but you're not going to try hard enough to be disappointed when you don't. It's a super sneaky way we sabotage ourselves.
And why do we do this? In one word, predicting. You're thinking ahead and anticipating doom ahead. Your mind projects forward to all the cutoffs you have left and all the miles you had still to cover and concludes it's impossible. On the surface, this seems rational. Why waste energy on something that's not going to work out anyway? I'm just being realistic. But that's not really what's happening. What's really happening is you don't want to drop, you promised yourself you wouldn't, but you also don't want to fight for the finish because you don't believe the effort is going to pay off.
Your brain is looking at all those miles ahead and concluding it's going to take more than what you've got or more than you want to give to reach that finish line. It's predicting the remaining distance will be impossibly or painfully difficult. And rather than face that painful possibility, you avoid it by mentally checking out while still going through the motions.
And listen, there's no shame if you've done this. No shame whatsoever. It's common and hugely tempting, and I've done it at some point. I just want you to see the cost so you can decide if this is really something you want to do. So you know the consequences, especially the longer-term consequences.
So, why wouldn't you quit if you don't see any way to make it? That makes sense, doesn't it? Why expend all that energy if you're sure you're not going to make it? It sounds smart, and it seems logical, but here's what quiet quitting costs you.
First, you don't get better at ultra running. Because you don't try pushing your boundary past what you think is possible. So you don't learn what it's like to do that, to give yourself a chance to do that, and to see what's actually possible despite what you think. This becomes the boundary of your limits. Unexplored endurance is beyond it. You've put a ton of training time and effort into getting to this point in the race, and if you pass up this chance to see what's actually possible, to expand what's possible, you'll have to work hard all over again to get back to this point again and have this chance again.
And it's not just that you don't improve, you actually get worse, because quiet quitting further concretes this in your mind as your limit. You can't get beyond this. It teaches you to do it again when you feel like this in a race. That's just how your races go.
Second cost is that it destroys your confidence. Because you lie to yourself. This is worse than dropping because when you drop, you make a decision. And it might not be the one you ultimately wish you'd made, but you actually make a decision and think about it. When you quiet quit, though, you avoid that decision. You're not honest with yourself about it. It's like you abandon yourself, like you don't want to tell yourself the truth.
And once you've done this to yourself, it gets easier to do it again. And you know that you might not be there to back yourself up, so you begin doubting yourself more. If you don't get a handle on it, quiet quitting on yourself can become a habit. You start hesitating to care about future races because you don't trust yourself to follow through. Lying to yourself like this destroys your confidence worse than getting pulled ever could.
And the third, even bigger cost is losing the excitement, fun, and joy of ultra running. Quiet quitting is a fast track to falling out of love with the sport. To give up and quiet quit, think about it. You have to let go of caring about your goal. So to do that, you have to kill the desire you had for it. You have to look at your goal with new eyes and instead make it stupid or ridiculous or unreasonable. You have to create an apathy about it. You have to become the bully, belittling and laughing at the goal you work so hard on and thinking that it's not worthwhile.
And that feels terrible. It's tough to try your best and not finish, but it's devastating to not care and not try. And if you do it with this goal, getting excited about another goal seems out of character. Foolish. It's way cooler and smarter not to care, or that's the way it seems. But avoiding that reality check is exactly what keeps you stuck. To get past quiet quitting, you need to summon the courage to care enough about your race to look at the situation more objectively. The solution is questioning what your brain is telling you it will really take to finish.
And here are four strategies to do exactly that. The first is to just stop predicting what's ahead and focus on where you are right now. Be present. How are you doing on fueling? On hydration? How's your pace? Are there any immediate problems you need to solve? You're still in the race, so focus on what you're doing right now instead of projecting miles ahead into the future. One step, and then the next, and then the next, and just tune out the rest for a while.
The second strategy to avoid quiet quitting is to predict possibility as much as your brain is predicting impossibility ahead. Think about what's going right and how the situation could actually improve. Let's say you're 60 miles into 100. That's most of the race already done. And you might just be in a low that you can fix with better fueling. You're still moving. Maybe slowing the pace slightly will help you bounce back. When you catch yourself catastrophizing ahead, deliberately list three things that could go right or three problems that you could solve enough to get to the finish.
Alright, the third strategy to avoid quiet quitting is to shorten your prediction window. One reason the miles ahead seem so impossible is because it feels like you have to solve the entire remaining distance right now. You have to know exactly how you're going to do every mile from here to the finish. So instead, only think as far ahead as the next aid station or the top of the next climb. Set micro goals, like strong hiking for the next 30 minutes, and then reassess. This makes the future ahead, the immediate future, less abstract and more achievable. So think in terms of shorter segments. They add up to get the job done. And sometimes you can only commit to caring for 30 minutes at a time, and that's enough. The key here is staying engaged rather than abandoning yourself.
And the fourth strategy to avoid quiet quitting is to just change what you think finishing has to require. Adjust your finish goal, or the way you think the remaining miles have to look. Maybe your A-goal time isn't happening, but a strong finish where you fought against the odds to the end, maybe that's within reach. Maybe this is a day where it's not pretty, but you survive and you reach the finish. That's incredibly satisfying and absolutely worth fighting for.
Practice good-enough effort. This isn't giving up, it's strategic. Find the effort level you can sustain that keeps you moving efficiently without demanding perfection. Good enough to stay in the fight, good enough to make the cutoffs, and good enough to be proud of.
The payoff is that when you choose to care enough to question this thinking, the thinking that leads to quiet quitting, and to stay in the fight, even if you don't hit your original goal, several things happen. You improve your confidence for future races because you've proven to yourself that you can stay mentally engaged when things get tough and you can count on yourself in the tough moments. You get to keep the joy in your race. You're still participating in your own adventure instead of just mindlessly enduring it. And sometimes, often actually, you surprise yourself with what you discover is possible when you stop writing the story before it's over.
The next time you feel the urge to quiet quit, remember, the worst part isn't missing a cutoff. It's lying to yourself about why you missed it. Your pace might not be what you planned, and your splits might not look pretty, but if you're still fighting for it, you're still in the race. And that version of you, the one who cares and who tries and who stays in the fight even when the outcome is uncertain, that's the runner you want to be. That's the stronger runner. That's the runner who's going to surprise you with what's possible.
So don't quiet quit on yourself. You came way too far and worked way too hard to check out before the story's over.
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.
Enjoy the Show?
Don’t miss an episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you listen to podcasts!
Next
Next