What's the one thing you're most afraid of happening in your next ultra? Maybe it's missing a cutoff, getting injured, or wanting to quit when things get tough. Whatever your worst-case scenario is, you probably do everything you can to avoid thinking about it. But what if avoiding that fear is actually giving it more control over your race?
It's natural to focus on everything you can control before race day, from your gear to your drop bags and crew. But when your biggest fear is left unexamined, it can massively influence your training, your decisions, and how confidently you race. In this episode, I explain why deliberately facing your worst-case scenario can be one of the most powerful things you do to prepare for an ultra.
Join me this week to discover how to take the power away from your biggest race fear and approach the starting line with greater confidence. I share how I help ultra runners examine their worst-case scenarios and make a plan for handling them, so they can stop worrying about what might happen and focus on running their best race.
Race Crafting is a four-session coaching process where we work together to build a complete plan for your next ultra, so you can manage race anxiety, prepare for challenges, and approach race day with confidence. Learn more about Race Crafting here.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why avoiding your worst-case scenario can give it more control over your race.
How fear can influence your training, pacing, and race-day decisions.
Why facing your biggest fear can make your other race worries feel more manageable.
How to question the likelihood of your worst-case scenario instead of assuming it will happen.
The key questions to ask when preparing for what could go wrong.
How planning your response to a feared situation can reduce race anxiety.
Why preparing for the worst can help you think more clearly and race with greater confidence.
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.
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.
If you’re loving the show, please take a moment to follow, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts today!
Episodes Related to The Power of Facing Your Worst-Case Scenario:
Full Episode Transcript:
The scariest thing you can do before your race is the one thing that will calm you down the most. Think about your worst-case scenario on purpose. In this episode, I'm going to show you why facing the one fear you've been avoiding makes every other fear smaller so you can think clearly and run your best race.
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 81. Before we start, I want to ask a favor. Please share this podcast with at least one friend who might get some value from it. People tell me regularly how much it's helped them and how they wish they'd found it earlier. So, let's help some friends out by sharing this good stuff. Thanks.
All right, it is almost Halloween. When this airs, it's going to be the week of Halloween, the one time of year that people actually go looking for things that scare them. So let's do that with your race. If you're going to run your best, you have to do something about the worry that builds gradually through training to the point that when you get in the race, it can be paralyzing.
It weighs you down in training, and it stresses you in the race. You can't train or race your best while you're worried about what might happen in the race and whether all your effort in training is going to be wasted. One thing that really worries you is what you don't control in the race. You want to control as much of your race as you can so you have the ability to influence things and make it all go the way you want.
But instead, you give up a lot of your control to one very specific thing: your worst-case scenario. Without realizing it, you put that in charge of your race. And here's what most runners don't know. Here's a secret. If you face that one fear, every other fear gets smaller.
All right, let's think about a race. You really want to hit your goal, but there is so much in a race. The longer the race, the more this is true. There is so much that you don't control. So many things that could stop you between the starting line and the finish line, and it scares you to think about them, especially your worst-case scenario.
And when I think of this fear, when I think of worst-case scenario, in my mind, I see it as this giant fire-breathing dragon in a cave, this dark cave, and that dragon is somewhere in that dark cave. Now, just the thought of it can make you break out in a cold sweat. It does for me. And it could be anything because everybody's different.
It could be something outside of you, like running in remote woods at night with no other runners around, falling and injuring yourself, being out of your depth in a scary section of a race, like a really high-altitude section at night with no way to drop for miles. Or it could be inner fears, like wanting to quit at the same place as you did last time or wanting to quit at the car in a loop race or missing cutoff.
For some of you, the dragon isn't lurking somewhere on the trail ahead of you. It's sitting next to your camp chair or your tent or at the car on a multi-loop course. Like it's holding your car keys in a claw, smirking at you. And you just want to face the race happy and confident. You definitely don't want this dragon around. And that thing, that worst-case scenario, that dragon, feels dangerous to think about, even.
Like thinking about it alone could make it happen. So you try really hard not to think about it. Instead, think happy, confident things. At the same time, you control everything you think you can control. Right? Smart. You settle on the perfect shoes. You rethink your drop bags maybe five times. You line up crew and pacers to make yourself feel better, more confident, especially if you're going for a new distance.
You've polished every piece of armor that you own. And the dragon is still waiting in the cave. You've poured effort into what you can control so you don't have to look at what you can't. And despite all that effort, which is all good effort, you definitely want drop bags and all of that, despite all of that effort, there's still this giant, lurking dragon that's like 100 times your size that could come out of its cave and attack you at any moment in the race.
You're sure that you can't control it. So you run scared of it appearing in the race. It controls your decisions, your experience, and your results. It makes training kind of miserable because it hangs over that. It prompts you to go out too fast so you can finish before your worst-case scenario has a chance to happen.
Or you run overly carefully because you're bracing for it to happen, or sometimes runners drop before it happens because they're so worried it's going to happen that they go ahead and preventatively drop so it doesn't have a chance to happen. You do all of this stuff because you want to control everything, rightfully so. So you've done everything you can think of, except that one thing that would actually help: look at worst-case scenario.
And by doing that, by avoiding looking at worst-case scenario, you're basically handing it control of your race. Because then it sucks energy and motivation out of your training. I mean, what's the point of all that training if your worst fear is just going to happen in the race anyway?
In the race, even if that fear, that worst-case scenario doesn't happen, you run poorly because you just know all the time that it's lurking around the next corner or the next or the next. You spend the race, every step of the race, waiting for it to happen, braced for your fear instead of focused on making your race happen, doing your race.
And if something even close to your worst fear happens, let's just say you fall but you don't get hurt, that rattles you enough that it might as well have happened. You fall, you don't get hurt, but you think, "Ah, I knew it would happen. See, it's happened." And you decide it has. Game over. And if it actually does happen, you immediately give up. You don't even try to solve the problem or to see if there's another way that you can keep going.
And notice that in two of those three scenarios where it doesn't even have to happen, the worst fear doesn't even happen, that dragon never even emerges from the cave. And that's what I meant at the start. You don't have to fall or get hurt or even run alone in the dark for your big fear to end your race. Avoiding facing that big fear already did end that race.
You have got to do what you don't want to do. You've got to go to worst-case scenario. You've got to think about it in detail, on purpose. If you listen to episode 24, I don't think Apple counts episodes anymore, but it is episode 24, and it's called "Make Worry a Strategic Ultra Advantage,” if you listen to that episode, you will recognize what I'm talking about here as strategic pessimism.
Answering the what-ifs and planning for them. Except today, we're taking that strategy, strategic pessimism, to the scariest what-if, the one that you don't want to ask. Look at it closely. How likely is it really? Does the race actually increase the risk of it happening? What would actually happen?
If it did happen, what would actually happen? And, of course, what can you do to prevent it? Question this fear. And then, once you've really questioned it and looked at it from a lot of different angles, plan what you'll do if it happens anyway. You can't let this run your training or your race. Facing your worst fear is really so simple, but we don't want to do it.
We really don't want to do it because it seems scarier to acknowledge that it could happen and face it than it does to ignore it. Now, I've done this enough myself, believe me, and with clients to know that there are a million things you'd rather do than think about your worst case. But ignoring it just keeps it hanging around longer as something to worry about.
It makes it a bigger deal than it actually is. It's like that suspenseful music in a dragon movie, let's say. It's playing constantly in the background, and you know something is just about to happen. It's playing constantly in the background all through your training and all through the race. And that's because an unexamined fear like that stays really vague and unspecific.
And vague threats feel huge. But once you really examine this thing, once you face it, the dragon turns from something that could stop you to just a problem to solve. And that you can do. Thinking about it doesn't make it more likely to happen. It shows you how likely it actually is.
And the fear is often less likely to happen than it feels, or it isn't unique to the race, and you can often do something to prevent it, a lot of things to prevent it. And whatever is left over, if it does happen, you can plan for that. And here's what makes this even more worthwhile.
I'm really going to convince you to face worst-case scenario. This is what makes it even more worthwhile. Once you know that you can handle the worst thing that could happen, everything else is manageable. So I want you to look at it this way. Someone is going to have power over your race, either you or your fear. It's one or the other, and you get to choose which one of you does.
Your worst fear will take charge of your race if you let it. Avoid thinking about it and let it control you, or face it, see how big it actually is, and plan for it so you're in charge. You can't control whether the worst case happens, but you can control your response to it. Examining it, questioning it, and then planning for it is how you take that control.
This is why when I help clients plan their race, we go directly to worst-case scenario. It's part of the first session in Race Crafting. No beating around the bush because once we face this big one, the rest of the fears are easier. I ask clients, what is it and why is it so frightening? What is the awful thing that will result if it does happen?
And instead of staying as far away from the dragon as you can so you don't have to think about it, we're going to march right up to its cave and look inside. We work on managing that fear, feeling it, feeling the panic, feeling the fear, standing in front of that dragon breathing fire at you, and not running away. Thinking about your worst fear and exactly why it scares you.
And here are some questions you can ask if you're doing this on your own. How likely is it really? And then put it in context. Is it a risk I only face in a race, or do I face it somewhere else in life? Would it happen suddenly or gradually? Would I get warning so that I could adapt ahead of time? What can I do to prevent it? And if it happens anyway, what will I do?
Here's what I mean by looking at it in detail. Let's take a client who was worried that she'd re-injured the sprained ankle she was hoping that she had just healed. She wasn't sure, but she was hoping. It was her worst-case scenario because she did not want to spend more months losing more fitness while it healed again.
She was sure she'd make it partway in the race and then not be able to finish. That was the scenario in her head. And dropping like that was the "smart decision" she said she was already prepared to make. So we delved into the reality of it. First of all, it wouldn't have to be the race that caused another sprained ankle.
She could re-sprain it around the house or stepping off a curb while running errands in town. I mean, the only time I've actually had a stress fracture that I know of was stepping off a porch at somebody's house, not even running. She was just as likely to re-sprain it in everyday life as she was in the race, and she wasn't scared about it in everyday life. So we put it in context that way.
Next thing we looked at is, so what if it did happen in a race? Would it happen all of a sudden, or would it happen gradually? Because if it happened all of a sudden in the race, she would simply make her way to the next aid station. And the race wouldn't leave without her. I mean, the race wouldn't pack up and leave her all alone on the trail.
The sweeps would stay with her and help her get to the next aid station. And even if miles on technical trail gradually inflamed her ankle, like it wasn't totally healed yet, she'd have warning ahead of time, and she could adjust her stride or pace to reduce the likelihood that it would worsen.
And she could do some things to prevent it, like wearing an ankle brace and letting her other ankle do the more daring moves and take the more tougher terrain. As we walked through what to her had been a very fearful possibility, she relaxed. The dragon wasn't this giant thing anymore. It was more her size. And though it wasn't pleasant to consider it, it wasn't mind-numbingly scary anymore either.
And here's the power in doing this. Facing worst-case scenario made all her other fears seem smaller. The race as a whole then looked far more doable than it had been before. It put everything in a more doable context. So on race day, she started without the brace. She had the ankle brace. She started without it because she was worried it might chafe her, but she carried it. And so when her ankle did start bothering her like she feared, she didn't panic.
She just put on the ankle brace, adjusted her stride a little, and made sure she wasn't overusing that ankle in the mud holes that were all along the course, and she finished. Something that she didn't initially think was possible, or she even planned not to. And she finished without a new sprain. And now, she has proof that she can handle it if her worst fear shows up. And she has the confidence that gives her, too.
Now, if your worst-case scenario is something more like giving up in a race and quitting when you could finish, the same questioning works. How likely is it? It might be likely, especially if you've dropped at the same mileage that you're going to hit in this race and you've dropped at that same mileage the last three races or something like that.
So it might be likely. But put it in context. I regularly find that clients have examples from other parts of their life where they don't quit in truly tough circumstances, sometimes far harder than what they'll actually face in the race, things like caretaking for an ailing parent or partner. So they already have the skill and ability to keep going in the race.
They've done it there in real life, and they can do it here in the race. Now, would quitting happen suddenly or gradually? Well, like with that client's ankle, the urge to quit rarely comes suddenly out of nowhere. I mean, if you've done it, like me, you know it. It builds up over the miles with warning signs like negative self-talk and bargaining with yourself. So you can catch it early.
And when I help a client plan their race, we go over where they're most likely to be tempted to drop and how they will handle it. The same type of questioning shrinks this worst-case scenario dragon, too. When you turn around and face this dragon instead of running from it and stand your ground while you examine it and question it, it shrinks and loses its fire.
The fear comes down to Labrador size and Labrador laid-back temperament. So if the worst case actually does show up, you don't even need a sword. The chances are a leash will do. And since your biggest fear is now a Labrador, the rest of the fears are puppies. The advantage is now yours because you've faced it and taken control. The power in going to worst-case scenario in detail is huge.
Accepting that the biggest fear, the thing you're most worried about happening, can happen and facing it and planning for it makes all other fears manageable. You immediately relax. Feel that weight off your shoulders and your mind. You can stop the endless worry spiral.
And when that worry does resurface, and it will, you simply remind yourself of the likelihood and what you have planned for it, going back to the plan and re-visualizing what you're going to do puts the worry to rest again. And calmer means clearer. You think better when problems come up, and you run better because of it.
And that means you can relax and train and race confident about your ability to handle whatever comes up because you're prepared for the worst. That allows you to take the attention that was consumed with all that worry spiral and put it toward thinking about how to get your training and race done at the highest level.
So you train and race more confidently, knowing your biggest fear is taken care of, and the end result is you don't have to hope your worst fear doesn't happen because even if it does, you're ready. You've seen its real size, and you know what to do. This week, think about your upcoming race and your own dragon, whatever it is. How likely is it? Is it a risk I only face in the race, or do I face it elsewhere in life?
Would it happen suddenly or gradually? Would I get warning so I could adapt? What can I do to prevent it? And if it happens anyway, what will I do? Pick that worst case that you've been avoiding, the absolute worst that you don't want to think about. Maybe even give it a name to tame it, and then walk it through those five questions.
If you want a race plan that gives you the best possible shot at your goal, worst-case scenario included, that's what we build in Race Crafting. Check it out at susanidonnelly.com/race-crafting. That's Susan, middle initial I, Donnelly, D-O-N-N-E-L-L-Y.com/race-crafting. We can tame that dragon and set you up for a fantastic race.
All right, y'all, that's this week's episode. If you know somebody 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 81. Before we start, I want to ask a favor. Please share this podcast with at least one friend who might get some value from it. People tell me regularly how much it's helped them and how they wish they'd found it earlier. So, let's help some friends out by sharing this good stuff. Thanks.
All right, it is almost Halloween. When this airs, it's going to be the week of Halloween, the one time of year that people actually go looking for things that scare them. So let's do that with your race. If you're going to run your best, you have to do something about the worry that builds gradually through training to the point that when you get in the race, it can be paralyzing.
It weighs you down in training, and it stresses you in the race. You can't train or race your best while you're worried about what might happen in the race and whether all your effort in training is going to be wasted. One thing that really worries you is what you don't control in the race. You want to control as much of your race as you can so you have the ability to influence things and make it all go the way you want.
But instead, you give up a lot of your control to one very specific thing: your worst-case scenario. Without realizing it, you put that in charge of your race. And here's what most runners don't know. Here's a secret. If you face that one fear, every other fear gets smaller.
All right, let's think about a race. You really want to hit your goal, but there is so much in a race. The longer the race, the more this is true. There is so much that you don't control. So many things that could stop you between the starting line and the finish line, and it scares you to think about them, especially your worst-case scenario.
And when I think of this fear, when I think of worst-case scenario, in my mind, I see it as this giant fire-breathing dragon in a cave, this dark cave, and that dragon is somewhere in that dark cave. Now, just the thought of it can make you break out in a cold sweat. It does for me. And it could be anything because everybody's different.
It could be something outside of you, like running in remote woods at night with no other runners around, falling and injuring yourself, being out of your depth in a scary section of a race, like a really high-altitude section at night with no way to drop for miles. Or it could be inner fears, like wanting to quit at the same place as you did last time or wanting to quit at the car in a loop race or missing cutoff.
For some of you, the dragon isn't lurking somewhere on the trail ahead of you. It's sitting next to your camp chair or your tent or at the car on a multi-loop course. Like it's holding your car keys in a claw, smirking at you. And you just want to face the race happy and confident. You definitely don't want this dragon around. And that thing, that worst-case scenario, that dragon, feels dangerous to think about, even.
Like thinking about it alone could make it happen. So you try really hard not to think about it. Instead, think happy, confident things. At the same time, you control everything you think you can control. Right? Smart. You settle on the perfect shoes. You rethink your drop bags maybe five times. You line up crew and pacers to make yourself feel better, more confident, especially if you're going for a new distance.
You've polished every piece of armor that you own. And the dragon is still waiting in the cave. You've poured effort into what you can control so you don't have to look at what you can't. And despite all that effort, which is all good effort, you definitely want drop bags and all of that, despite all of that effort, there's still this giant, lurking dragon that's like 100 times your size that could come out of its cave and attack you at any moment in the race.
You're sure that you can't control it. So you run scared of it appearing in the race. It controls your decisions, your experience, and your results. It makes training kind of miserable because it hangs over that. It prompts you to go out too fast so you can finish before your worst-case scenario has a chance to happen.
Or you run overly carefully because you're bracing for it to happen, or sometimes runners drop before it happens because they're so worried it's going to happen that they go ahead and preventatively drop so it doesn't have a chance to happen. You do all of this stuff because you want to control everything, rightfully so. So you've done everything you can think of, except that one thing that would actually help: look at worst-case scenario.
And by doing that, by avoiding looking at worst-case scenario, you're basically handing it control of your race. Because then it sucks energy and motivation out of your training. I mean, what's the point of all that training if your worst fear is just going to happen in the race anyway?
In the race, even if that fear, that worst-case scenario doesn't happen, you run poorly because you just know all the time that it's lurking around the next corner or the next or the next. You spend the race, every step of the race, waiting for it to happen, braced for your fear instead of focused on making your race happen, doing your race.
And if something even close to your worst fear happens, let's just say you fall but you don't get hurt, that rattles you enough that it might as well have happened. You fall, you don't get hurt, but you think, "Ah, I knew it would happen. See, it's happened." And you decide it has. Game over. And if it actually does happen, you immediately give up. You don't even try to solve the problem or to see if there's another way that you can keep going.
And notice that in two of those three scenarios where it doesn't even have to happen, the worst fear doesn't even happen, that dragon never even emerges from the cave. And that's what I meant at the start. You don't have to fall or get hurt or even run alone in the dark for your big fear to end your race. Avoiding facing that big fear already did end that race.
You have got to do what you don't want to do. You've got to go to worst-case scenario. You've got to think about it in detail, on purpose. If you listen to episode 24, I don't think Apple counts episodes anymore, but it is episode 24, and it's called "Make Worry a Strategic Ultra Advantage,” if you listen to that episode, you will recognize what I'm talking about here as strategic pessimism.
Answering the what-ifs and planning for them. Except today, we're taking that strategy, strategic pessimism, to the scariest what-if, the one that you don't want to ask. Look at it closely. How likely is it really? Does the race actually increase the risk of it happening? What would actually happen?
If it did happen, what would actually happen? And, of course, what can you do to prevent it? Question this fear. And then, once you've really questioned it and looked at it from a lot of different angles, plan what you'll do if it happens anyway. You can't let this run your training or your race. Facing your worst fear is really so simple, but we don't want to do it.
We really don't want to do it because it seems scarier to acknowledge that it could happen and face it than it does to ignore it. Now, I've done this enough myself, believe me, and with clients to know that there are a million things you'd rather do than think about your worst case. But ignoring it just keeps it hanging around longer as something to worry about.
It makes it a bigger deal than it actually is. It's like that suspenseful music in a dragon movie, let's say. It's playing constantly in the background, and you know something is just about to happen. It's playing constantly in the background all through your training and all through the race. And that's because an unexamined fear like that stays really vague and unspecific.
And vague threats feel huge. But once you really examine this thing, once you face it, the dragon turns from something that could stop you to just a problem to solve. And that you can do. Thinking about it doesn't make it more likely to happen. It shows you how likely it actually is.
And the fear is often less likely to happen than it feels, or it isn't unique to the race, and you can often do something to prevent it, a lot of things to prevent it. And whatever is left over, if it does happen, you can plan for that. And here's what makes this even more worthwhile.
I'm really going to convince you to face worst-case scenario. This is what makes it even more worthwhile. Once you know that you can handle the worst thing that could happen, everything else is manageable. So I want you to look at it this way. Someone is going to have power over your race, either you or your fear. It's one or the other, and you get to choose which one of you does.
Your worst fear will take charge of your race if you let it. Avoid thinking about it and let it control you, or face it, see how big it actually is, and plan for it so you're in charge. You can't control whether the worst case happens, but you can control your response to it. Examining it, questioning it, and then planning for it is how you take that control.
This is why when I help clients plan their race, we go directly to worst-case scenario. It's part of the first session in Race Crafting. No beating around the bush because once we face this big one, the rest of the fears are easier. I ask clients, what is it and why is it so frightening? What is the awful thing that will result if it does happen?
And instead of staying as far away from the dragon as you can so you don't have to think about it, we're going to march right up to its cave and look inside. We work on managing that fear, feeling it, feeling the panic, feeling the fear, standing in front of that dragon breathing fire at you, and not running away. Thinking about your worst fear and exactly why it scares you.
And here are some questions you can ask if you're doing this on your own. How likely is it really? And then put it in context. Is it a risk I only face in a race, or do I face it somewhere else in life? Would it happen suddenly or gradually? Would I get warning so that I could adapt ahead of time? What can I do to prevent it? And if it happens anyway, what will I do?
Here's what I mean by looking at it in detail. Let's take a client who was worried that she'd re-injured the sprained ankle she was hoping that she had just healed. She wasn't sure, but she was hoping. It was her worst-case scenario because she did not want to spend more months losing more fitness while it healed again.
She was sure she'd make it partway in the race and then not be able to finish. That was the scenario in her head. And dropping like that was the "smart decision" she said she was already prepared to make. So we delved into the reality of it. First of all, it wouldn't have to be the race that caused another sprained ankle.
She could re-sprain it around the house or stepping off a curb while running errands in town. I mean, the only time I've actually had a stress fracture that I know of was stepping off a porch at somebody's house, not even running. She was just as likely to re-sprain it in everyday life as she was in the race, and she wasn't scared about it in everyday life. So we put it in context that way.
Next thing we looked at is, so what if it did happen in a race? Would it happen all of a sudden, or would it happen gradually? Because if it happened all of a sudden in the race, she would simply make her way to the next aid station. And the race wouldn't leave without her. I mean, the race wouldn't pack up and leave her all alone on the trail.
The sweeps would stay with her and help her get to the next aid station. And even if miles on technical trail gradually inflamed her ankle, like it wasn't totally healed yet, she'd have warning ahead of time, and she could adjust her stride or pace to reduce the likelihood that it would worsen.
And she could do some things to prevent it, like wearing an ankle brace and letting her other ankle do the more daring moves and take the more tougher terrain. As we walked through what to her had been a very fearful possibility, she relaxed. The dragon wasn't this giant thing anymore. It was more her size. And though it wasn't pleasant to consider it, it wasn't mind-numbingly scary anymore either.
And here's the power in doing this. Facing worst-case scenario made all her other fears seem smaller. The race as a whole then looked far more doable than it had been before. It put everything in a more doable context. So on race day, she started without the brace. She had the ankle brace. She started without it because she was worried it might chafe her, but she carried it. And so when her ankle did start bothering her like she feared, she didn't panic.
She just put on the ankle brace, adjusted her stride a little, and made sure she wasn't overusing that ankle in the mud holes that were all along the course, and she finished. Something that she didn't initially think was possible, or she even planned not to. And she finished without a new sprain. And now, she has proof that she can handle it if her worst fear shows up. And she has the confidence that gives her, too.
Now, if your worst-case scenario is something more like giving up in a race and quitting when you could finish, the same questioning works. How likely is it? It might be likely, especially if you've dropped at the same mileage that you're going to hit in this race and you've dropped at that same mileage the last three races or something like that.
So it might be likely. But put it in context. I regularly find that clients have examples from other parts of their life where they don't quit in truly tough circumstances, sometimes far harder than what they'll actually face in the race, things like caretaking for an ailing parent or partner. So they already have the skill and ability to keep going in the race.
They've done it there in real life, and they can do it here in the race. Now, would quitting happen suddenly or gradually? Well, like with that client's ankle, the urge to quit rarely comes suddenly out of nowhere. I mean, if you've done it, like me, you know it. It builds up over the miles with warning signs like negative self-talk and bargaining with yourself. So you can catch it early.
And when I help a client plan their race, we go over where they're most likely to be tempted to drop and how they will handle it. The same type of questioning shrinks this worst-case scenario dragon, too. When you turn around and face this dragon instead of running from it and stand your ground while you examine it and question it, it shrinks and loses its fire.
The fear comes down to Labrador size and Labrador laid-back temperament. So if the worst case actually does show up, you don't even need a sword. The chances are a leash will do. And since your biggest fear is now a Labrador, the rest of the fears are puppies. The advantage is now yours because you've faced it and taken control. The power in going to worst-case scenario in detail is huge.
Accepting that the biggest fear, the thing you're most worried about happening, can happen and facing it and planning for it makes all other fears manageable. You immediately relax. Feel that weight off your shoulders and your mind. You can stop the endless worry spiral.
And when that worry does resurface, and it will, you simply remind yourself of the likelihood and what you have planned for it, going back to the plan and re-visualizing what you're going to do puts the worry to rest again. And calmer means clearer. You think better when problems come up, and you run better because of it.
And that means you can relax and train and race confident about your ability to handle whatever comes up because you're prepared for the worst. That allows you to take the attention that was consumed with all that worry spiral and put it toward thinking about how to get your training and race done at the highest level.
So you train and race more confidently, knowing your biggest fear is taken care of, and the end result is you don't have to hope your worst fear doesn't happen because even if it does, you're ready. You've seen its real size, and you know what to do. This week, think about your upcoming race and your own dragon, whatever it is. How likely is it? Is it a risk I only face in the race, or do I face it elsewhere in life?
Would it happen suddenly or gradually? Would I get warning so I could adapt? What can I do to prevent it? And if it happens anyway, what will I do? Pick that worst case that you've been avoiding, the absolute worst that you don't want to think about. Maybe even give it a name to tame it, and then walk it through those five questions.
If you want a race plan that gives you the best possible shot at your goal, worst-case scenario included, that's what we build in Race Crafting. Check it out at susanidonnelly.com/race-crafting. That's Susan, middle initial I, Donnelly, D-O-N-N-E-L-L-Y.com/race-crafting. We can tame that dragon and set you up for a fantastic race.
All right, y'all, that's this week's episode. If you know somebody 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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