THE ANATOMY OF A DNF
Last week I lined up at the Uwharrie 100 miler.
A 100-mile ultramarathon in North Carolina, consisting of 5 x 20.5 mile laps. Each lap was 3,500 ft of elevation, with a total of almost 18,000ft.
The race's slogan: "Simply Unrelentless"
I signed up with this race 7 weeks out. I had just come back from a DNF at One Water Race in Sweden and I needed a tough challenge to help get the bad taste of not completing OWR out of my mouth.
My rational was that I had a huge amount of aerobic base and if I could figure out a way to strengthen my legs, then I should be able to give it a solid effort.
Well....I was wrong!
Plain and simple, I was grossly overmatched by this course. As someone who lives in one of the flattest areas on the East Coast, I just didn't have the preparation that I needed.
I thought I did. I added stair climbing, uphill treadmill running, and strength straining. I did everything I thought I could do to get myself ready.
I started the first lap in great shape. Running effortlessly. Being conservative on the technical, rocky single-track trails. Walking the uphills and cautiously descending the downhills.
But when I took off for the second lap, my legs just stopped. The downhills ranged from 10-30% in some sections and my quads had nothing. I fought through some of the early doubts and slowed my pace even more to try and see if my legs would loosen back up. By the 3rd lap, I could barely muster a shuffle on the downhills. I had the energy to go but couldn't bend my legs to run.
On the 3rd lap, I asked my wife if she wanted to join me for a lap. She's not an endurance runner and she knows that if I'm asking for company then I'm hurting really bad! We decided to walk the entire 3rd lap. It took more than 8 hours. Almost twice as long as my first and second lap combined!
And this is where we breakdown the process of a DNF:
Let me first start by saying, I have never been a person who thinks that DNF'ing a race should even enter someone's mind. I've always felt that if you want something bad enough, then you will train and prepare for the race conditions. Of course, there are injuries and mechanicals, but a DNF because your sore or tired was never something that I thought was logical.
Well, here's the breakdown of humble pie. These are all the thoughts that went through my head over the last 8-hour lap. In no particular order, because they circled and swirled the whole time.
- Realization that I was underprepared: The first thoughts that start to creep in are pain. You can preach and practice suffering all you want. But when you're in the moment of a race and shit starts to hurt, you start looking for every mental tool possible to justify and fight through the pain. This time, I had nothing. I tried every form of self-motivation I could muster and the simple fact was that my legs didn't have it. There was no motivational quote or reflection of a training session that was going to make it possible to repeatedly descend 20-30% declines. The other athletes came prepared. They had trekking poles and had mastered the art of run-shuffling.
- Letting myself down: I don't mind putting my goals and my training out there. I consider everything I do as a self-experiment and sometimes things down go to planned. But I never considered myself a quitter. I couldn't fathom having to live with the thought that I didn't finish what I started. I'd rather break my ankle and get pulled off the course then willingly tap out.
- Letting others down: My wife generously came out to crew for me. Woke up early. Slept in the car. Ate "Adult Lunchables" all day, while I was out running in the woods. I'm a coach. My business is called Mindset Endurance. What type of mindset coach considers a DNF? What are my athletes going to think when I try to motivate them to do something they don't want to do.
- Changing the narrative: On the 3rd lap, I got to hike for 8+ hours in the woods with my wife. Probably some of the longest uninterrupted time we've had together in a long time. It was great! I was hurting, but she kept me distracted. In the end, she was hurting, and we could both commiserate on the challenge of the course. Most of the time, I come back from training or racing and she has no context of what I mean by "difficult" or "hard". Now she does! It was a great 8 hours of bonding, but maybe not the type of relationship therapy I would recommend to others!
- Accepting reality: The reality was that I couldn't continue at that pace. I had 17 hours left 2 race. My last lap was about 8:15. I wasn't getting any faster. I had tried to shuffle/run countless times during the lap and there was nothing there. If I continued through the night, I would be leaving my tired and sore wife to sleep in the car and stay at the campsite for the next 17 hours. I didn't come for that. She didn't come for that. This was supposed to be a 25-30 hour race for me. It wasn't meant to be.
In the end, I hate it. I hate the fucking DNF. But I'm ok with it.
- I'm ok with failing.
- It makes me more hungry for the next challenge.
- It makes me more focused the next time I sign up for a race.
- It makes me more humble for all the challenges I face.
- It makes me more appreciative for my wife and everyone else who support my craziness.
If you've ever DNF'd a race, understand that you are your biggest critic. Anyone else's opinion will quickly fade. You have nothing to prove to anyone but yourself. Don't let the failure define you. It's the lessons you learn and what you do after the failure that moves you forward.
I'm content with recognizing that I earned a Did Not Finish.
But I also recognize that I did NOT earn a Did Not Fail.
This was a long one! If you like more of these race reports, send me a DM on Instagram. @stevekeller.mecoaching
