3 Lessons I Learned Running My First 100KM Ultra Marathon
This Saturday, I ran my first 100 km ultra-marathon from London to Brighton. Prior to signing up to the Ultra, I’ve never run more than 20km in my life. And even before that, I was a casual runner, running a typical 5km. I never signed up to any events or competitions. I started running three years ago when I quit smoking. Replacing one bad habit with a good habit.
In this article, I want to share with you 4 lessons I learned from this experience. This was one of the hardest things I’ve ever achieved. It definitely goes in my top 5 scariest things I’ve done in my life.
The event itself was outstanding. The organizers did an amazing job, and well done to them. Everything was spot on. Every 20km they had water stops, and at half way, they had food, friends and family parking space, medics and a complimentary foot massage. So, everything went fantastically well, I have to say.
Now, the lessons I learned are important because this isn’t just about the physical side. It has to do with our lives.
- Training
The first lesson is training. Training was a detrimental aspect of finishing the race. The cut off time for runners was 16 hours. I finished in 13:31 not bad for a first-time ultra-race! I worked with a running coach. His name is Kristian and he’s one of the best. I believe this was one of the reasons I finished. Working with someone who’s done more than 100 ultra-races, I can trust he knows what he’s talking about. My aim was to finish the race within 16 hours — that was the goal. It’s important to know what the goal is, right?
I started training in November — so in total I trained for 7 months. There are so many things that I noticed during the run that Kristian had in my training plan. For example, I had hill runs. So whenever I saw them on my training plans I dreaded it, I wasn’t excited about rushing to Primrose Hill for those runs. Do you know what happened during the ultra run? There were so many freaking hills, it’s incredible. I didn’t even know that one route can have so many hills! Some were very steep as well, which were a killer at the 15th kilometre.
Another thing Kristian told me is that when I run in parks I have to run on the trail, not on the flat ground. The reason is for my legs to get accustomed to trail running. There were so many other elements to the training plan that I had to do. For example, during the weekends, it was long runs. When I had a long run, I had to wear exactly the same clothes I would wear during the race and have everything I would have in my backpack. So I did that.
I guess the biggest reason I fail in some areas of my life is because I don’t train like I trained for the 100km. I took this race seriously, despite getting injured twice in the past seven months. By seriously, I mean I trained. I barely skipped a training day (except when I got injured). I take this lesson with me and start training in areas that I want to grow and become better. I need to put time aside, prioritize and make sure I do it every day.
The main reason 65% of people didn’t finish this race, I think, is because of a lack of training. The reason we don’t achieve some of our goals is because we are not training. So if we want to achieve whatever we want to achieve we need to train, and train hard.
2. Mentality
Somebody told me a month before the race that if I don’t finish it’s not a big deal, as I can do it next year. I took it to heart and said that I will freaking finish this race. I didn’t even think of not finishing. I had a fear of getting injured, but in my mind, I said that I will finish no matter what, and I actually said, and I quote; “I will crawl to the finish line, but I will finish”.
One of the most attractive things I find in another human being is how they think, if they are growing, if they are exploring their possibilities. One of the nicest compliments I received was about my mentality. I love that.
The reason I love it is because I understand that mentality is everything. Everything starts with how we think, how we view things. In life, we can see different people wanting to achieve the same goal, yet some succeed, and some fail. Why is that? There are many reasons why, right? But I do think that mentality is the most important thing.
The lesson here is that we have to work on our mentality every day. That’s why every morning for the past 4 years I’ve been doing the stoic journal — because I want to become stronger, not physically but mentally. Because our body can fail us, we can have an accident, we can be thrown in jail, but what nobody can take from us is our mentality, how we think.
I love the concept of ‘Taking souls’ by David Goggins. In his book Can’t Hurt Me Now Goggins explains how we can take someone’s soul just by pushing further. By looking somebody straight in the eye and doing more than what was asked of us we will become the winner in a situation.
The lesson here is that if we want to achieve something, before we take the first step, we need to pause and make sure we are in the right headspace. Because one of the reasons we cross the finishing line is how we think.
3. Kindness
During the run you could see people sitting on benches and cheering for walkers and runners as they passed by. There was one road in particular that was pretty much empty. While I was running, I saw that there was a couple next to a car sitting in portable chairs. When I ran closer to them they cheered for me and said ‘Well done, keep going’. It might be a small sentence but it definitely encouraged me, not to say made me smile.
The media and the government is trying to divide us, especially in the past couple of years, with all that is happening So you are against Brexit or you are a Brexitir; it’s you are against EU or you support them. Now it’s about the vaccines, it’s either you have a vaccine and you are “with us”, or you are “against us”. This mentality is what is driving us apart as a society. It perpetuates hate in this world. We don’t need that. If you look closely, we all might have different opinions, views and values in this world but at end of the day we all have the same desires: to be loved, to be cared for, to serve.
As divided as we might think we are and how others want us to feel, we can stop that and look the other fellow human being in the eye and encourage them, give me a compliment because as the saying goes, everybody is fighting their own battles.
When I was coming to the end of the 100KM there was a small crowd, cheering. one woman in particular shouted ‘You are amazing’ — it was the sweetest thing I heard in a long time. She is a stranger that doesn’t know me, and I don’t know her, but her voice is still in my head because it made me feel great.
A friend of mine, Arthur, came with me and supported me. He stopped at the halfway point to give me some stuff I needed, and he came at at 80KM at our water stop too. He spent his whole day at the event. At the halfway stop I took a 15 minute break and at 80KM I took a five-minute break so in total he spent 20 minutes with me at the breaks (excluding the finish line). What does this show you? If this is not kindness and being there for a friend I don’t know what is. His physical presence helped me mentally because I knew he was there and my dog Chanel was with him waiting for me. It perhaps gave me the strength I needed to know to finish. You know how valuable time is, right? We can lose money but we can make more money, but time is something that once we lose it, we can’t buy more of it.
This reminded me to be there for my friends when they need me, not just saying it but meaning it. This reminded me to be kind to other human beings, smile more often, encourage fellow runners on my runs, spread more love and more joy.
We get so caught up in our own heads that we forget what really matters. Love and kindness is something that we all have and we all can give without running out of.
To conclude, I believe that to achieve any goal in life we need to think about the above. And whatever your goal might be, all I suggest is that we push ourselves a bit more. You don’t need to run or walk 100Km, but you can run or walk 5km, if you’ve done 5km, do 10km, if you’ve done 10Km do 15Km. But whatever it’s I believe we need to push ourselves to become better, to be better and by being an example. Otherwise words like ‘becoming a better human’ are empty words.
You might be wondering if I’m going next year? Of course I am. I’m already looking for the next one!
Until next time.
