Thoughts on DNF with Coaches AJW and Neal Palles #235

What drives an ultra marathoner to push through the final miles, or decide to DNF (Did Not Finish)? This episode tackles this profound question head-on, drawing from recent high-profile races like UTMB, Run Rabbit Run, and Leadville Trail 100. We explore the mental frameworks and pre-race preparations that can make or break an athlete's performance. By sharing personal stories and expert insights, we aim to provide guidance that helps athletes make confident decisions during and after a race, all while acknowledging the vital role coaches play in offering emotional support.

Coaches face a delicate balance of celebrating successes and owning failures, especially in the high-stakes world of elite races like Western States and UTMB. Through candid discussions and reflections on personal experiences, we highlight the importance of empathy, self-reflection, and continuous improvement in coaching. We delve into public perceptions of coaching effectiveness, the individualized support athletes need post-race, and the role of feedback in fostering a growth mindset.

Decision-making in ultra marathons is fraught with complexities, often involving more than just physical readiness. Using data from events like the Western States 100, we explore common issues such as nausea and mental fatigue, and how these can be mitigated through training and mental resilience. With insight from coaches AJW and Neal, we discuss lessons learned from DNFs, the integration of sports psychology into training, and the emotional journey of ultra runners. This episode offers a comprehensive look at the intricate dance of mind and body in the quest to cross the finish line.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Trail and ultra runners.
What is going on?
Welcome to another episode ofthe coop cast.
As always, I am your humblehost, coach jason coop, and this
episode of the podcast dealswith the dreaded dnf and more
what to think about before youpotentially encounter this
situation.

(00:30):
The inspiration behind thispodcast is most certainly the
more recent happenings at UTMBand, in particular, the way that
the men's field seemed to havebeen decimated in the middle of
the night and a lot of thedialogue that has emerged as a
consequence of that in theaftermath of that particular
race.
But really, what we wanted to doas coaches is bring together

(00:52):
our collective experiences, bothfrom a coaching lens as well as
participants and athletes inthese races, to hopefully armor
up all of the athletes and thecoaches that are listening to
this with some sort of frameworkto think about in advance of
having to potentially encounterthis situation where you have to
look yourself in the mirror andsay do I want to continue this

(01:16):
or do I want to stop my race?
Here I will say in advance thatwe don't have perfect answers
and a lot of times we like tokind of pass judgment on people
who drop out of races forwhatever reason, and that's
certainly not the intent of thispodcast.
Everybody's gonna have theirown value system and their own
framework of which to draw fromwhenever they are faced with

(01:39):
potentially not finishingsomething that they actually
started.
So, regardless of yourperspective here, I hope you
guys listen with an open heartand an open mind, because we do
try to bring to the table all ofthe various aspects of why this
actually might occur and thenhopefully provide a little bit
of a framework for eachindividual that's listening to

(02:00):
this to draw from whenever theypotentially might be faced with
that situation.
All right, folks, with that outof the way, I'm getting the
right out of the way.
Here's a conversation with twoof our crack coaches, our most
experienced coaches on ourroster coach AJW and coach Neil
Palace.
All about this dreaded decisionon to DNF or to not DNF.

(02:23):
On to DNF or to not.
DNF.
We can get into it now.
Since we're already talkingabout it, let me try to set the
table here.
So what I want to try to do iscreate a little bit of a
dialogue for people to help themprocess this decision-making
process before they actually getto the time where they have to

(02:47):
make it, and we're going to usethis lens of experience that we
just talked about just off air,talking about run.
Rabbit run happened thisweekend and it had what?
A 50 dnf rate or a 50 finishrate, depending on how you want
to put it.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Ajw yeah, in the hairs division I think, in which
is the faster, the self-chosen,self-selected, faster field was
about 50 percent.
That the tortoise division, Ithink, had a little bit long, a
little bit more, maybe 60 yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
So anyway, we've got that, we've got lead bill, the
lead bill trail 100, whichnotoriously has a poor finish
rate right, hovering rightaround in between 50 and 60%
every year.
We just went through UTMB and,for whatever reason, it's kind
of sad for me to say right nowis the kind of becoming a little
bit of the norm whereespecially the elite fields get

(03:39):
really decimated overnight andend up dropping out kind of
early.
A lot of them end up droppingout early in the race or earlier
in the race than you wouldthink intellectually If you were
to try to like process this inadvance.
They drop out at Corvallier atyou know ADK.
They might drop out at ChampaixLocke, which is a little bit
later in the race, but certainlynot getting, they're certainly

(04:00):
not getting cut off right.
These are DNFs by some sort ofchoice in many cases, and what I
want to try to do is use ourcollective experience, both
athletically but more from acoaching perspective, to kind of
walk through how people processthis and how they can I'm not
going to say make the rightdecision, because who's to say

(04:23):
what's like right or wrong inevery single scenario, but at
least have some sort of basis tointellectualize beforehand what
a better decision might beMaybe that's the best way to put
it what a better decisionactually might be.
Because the most tragic ones ofall of these which we'll
probably talk about in a littlebit is the DNF that people

(04:46):
regret afterwards, and I've hadthose personally.
I've had athletes that have hadthose.
I've had those as a runner, asa participant, as an athlete.
Those are always ones thathappen, that are the most tragic
, and maybe at least if we canget people in a position to
avoid those and hopefully try tomake better decisions, so that
they're kind of confident afternot only during the
decision-making process butafterwards that they've made a

(05:07):
better decision, we've done theworld a little bit of a service.
So let's kind of first talkabout the easy things.
Right, we've all gone throughthis as coaches and athletes.
Actually, I want to kind of Iwant to put the audience first
in a position, kind of, wherewe're at as coaches right, we've

(05:27):
both gone through this wherewe've had an athlete DNF, we've
either been there in person, butmore often than not we see it
through, we see it throughelectronic means, right, we're
watching the updaters, we seethe post activity comments or
whatever, and I kind of want toknow, just from your perspective
as a coach, what goes throughyour mind minds initially.

(05:48):
Neil, we'll kind of start outwith you Like what, like how
does that actually?
What's the first thing thatkind of hits you and what are
your first like steps in thiswhole process with an athlete?

Speaker 2 (05:56):
With an athlete is immediately contacting them as
soon as I can and asking themhow are they, how are you doing?
Yeah, and not just coming fromthat.
You know performanceperspective, but that person
perspective, you know who isthis person's hurting right now.
You know there's an emotionalcomponent to this that I really

(06:17):
get in touch with.
You know I've experienced moreDNFs than I like to count, you
know, but you know I like tolook at it as you know when I
think of DNFs than I like tocount, you know, but you know I
like to look at it as you know,when I think of DNFs.
I think there is no wrongchoice because that is the
choice in the moment.
That is the choice that theymade right then and there.
And that is, you know, and yeah, there's always going to be a

(06:38):
regret, but I want to know howthey're doing.
I want to know how emotionallythey're doing.
We could dig into it andprocess it right, you know,
later on, but I want to hearfrom them, their perspective,
what was going on, what washappening inside for them that
they came to that decision.

(06:59):
Or, you know, for a lot, youknow a lot of folks that I run
into.
I don't haven't seen a lot ofjust hey, I'm just going to drop
it's.
Usually there is some reallygood reason, a medical reason.
You know I had a friend whodropped it, run rabbit and he
couldn't see out of one of hiseyes, you know, and the medical
staff pulled him because he kepton tripping and falling.

(07:19):
You know, I think about, youknow, people who have some
medical issue.
That goes on and there'snothing we can control there.
You know we can't control it.
We can look back and maybe kindof fix some things or prepare
them a little bit better.
But but yeah, first thing is Iwant to know how they're doing.
You just want to give them abig hug.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
That's what I do.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
You know and you know , and that's who I am, and I
think that's how we should, youknow, be able to support them,
Because I think along with thisand I'll talk a little bit about
this is, I think there is therecan be a component of shame,
which is that self-doubt thatcomes in and also that guilt of
I should have stuck to my planor I should have done this, and
I want to be able to supportthem through that and help them

(08:03):
make those decisions a littledifferently.
The next time around is howcould we move in more in
alignment with who we want to beand how we want to show?

Speaker 1 (08:11):
up AJW, we'll kick it over to you.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
I'm a little bit on the other side of the boat than
Neil.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
This is why I had both of you on at the same time
because I knew we were going toget some compare and contrast,
and Neil mentioned shame, andI've learned, actually, and a
lot of the answers to ourquestions over the years Coop.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
It depends, but in this case it depends on the
athlete.
If, assuming I know the athletepretty well by this point which
I hope I do whether or not Iimmediately reach out or wait
for them to come to me.
I think that there is someadvantage with some athletes.

(08:53):
In some circumstance theremight be shame, there might be
embarrassment, there might befrustration, there might be
anger, where they might have nointerest in hearing from me.
I might reach out to them andthey just ghost me or something.
So I want to be very carefulabout that.
Obviously, I want to let themknow I'm there, but I also think
sometimes, if they've made ahard decision to DNF you know

(09:15):
it's not missing the cutoffs orhaving a serious injury they
might need the gift of timebefore they come and say, oh,
ajw, I lost my stomach or myquads were trashed or I should
have brought another jacket orwhatever.
And so I really think that Ihear Neil it's really important
for the athlete to know we'rethere, but sometimes being there

(09:38):
is not necessarily being there.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, I agree and disagree.
Can I throw something out therefor you?
Because there's three wayspeople approach when they're
experiencing shame.
And I'm not saying thateveryone experiences that, I'm
saying that a lot of people do.
But three ways they do is oneis they avoid, they'll avoid you
.
Two is they'll come up to you,know, they'll come to you and
they'll want more.
And then the other thing isthey'll you, they're going to

(10:04):
point fingers and pick at you,you know, and not take
responsibility for their ownstuff that's going on inside.
And there's three ways and oneof the ways to kind of
neutralize that is simply justthat empathy and just even if
it's even if they hey, they doneed time checking in just a

(10:25):
moment, you know, hey, they doneed time checking in just a
moment, you know, hey, phonecall text.
That I think helps provide thatempathy to help neutralize that
experience.
And then, you know, then westarted giving them the tools to
.
You know, deal with that.
If they're open to that, theymay not reach out to you for a
couple of weeks.
You know, I've had that, youknow.
Know, happen where it's like oh, where did they go, you know,

(10:47):
and it could be an injury.
You know where you could be aninjury, where they you know they
don't want to.
You know they, you know they'reexperiencing this inside and
they don't want to talk to you.
So I I just wanted to kind ofthrow that out.
There is kind of thinking aboutthe three different ways people
are experiencing that and thatfor us to provide empathy and
help, maybe even teach them alittle bit about self-compassion

(11:08):
, that can help wonders in thisexperience and so they can get
back up and go again and go hey,I'm here with you, I'm ready to
roll.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
So what I'm hearing from both of you for as a point
of commonality, is that there'ssome titration of the intensity
of the communication that you'reinitially providing.
Neil's intensity might be, it'sjust I was going to say a
different level, but it's reallynot, it's just different, right
?
I mean, neil's going to go fromlike big bear hug, I'm going to
cry with you to text right,that's the intent, that's, those

(11:39):
are the levels of titration, soto speak, from one end to the
other, and he's going to go fromI'm going to contact you
initially to I'm not going tocontact you at all.
Just different range, right?
Different ranges for differentpeople.
And I think that as long aswe're thinking about it as
coaches, as long as we'rethinking about it deliberately,
right and not having some sortof one size fits all solution, I

(12:00):
think that's the best stepforward, because just the DNF
itself, responding to the DNF,there are really no right or
wrong answers, they're justbetter or worse ones.
I mean, I can tell you I had togo, I had to go through this a
lot at a UTMB, not to throwanybody underneath the bus on
this, but I had a lot of successin.
A lot of urban athletes that Iworked with had a lot of success

(12:20):
and also a lot of failure atUTMB, and you got to kind of
take both sides of that coin,and so this is kind of visceral
for me right now, alsoconsidering that I was like
literally on the ground at thisevent and my first reaction as a
coach and this might not be myfirst action, but my first
reaction as a coach is, what didI screw up?

(12:42):
And I've learned that over thecourse of my coaching career is
that, personally, I always makebetter decisions as a coach from
a long-term perspective is ifmy first gut reaction is how can
I fix this?
How can I do somethingdifferently within my coaching
practice to actually make thesituation better so that the

(13:07):
athlete has better tools, betterresources, better training,
better you know, psychologicalcapacity, whatever, however you
want to put it better,everything to deal with the
milieu of what you encounterduring an ultra marathon.
Now, what I do with the athleteafter I go through that initial
point of processing of whatcould I have done better, that

(13:28):
more resembles both of what youhad just went through, and I
don't know if I can't point to adecision-making framework that
I actually have, like first Athen B and if not B then C and
then if not C then D.
Like I don't go through thatkind of deal very deliberately,
but it is very individual, basedon the athlete.
Some of them it's hey, I'mgoing to cry with you just

(13:49):
because that's what they need.
Other ones it's you need acouple of days.
Just let's just take a coupleof days.
Go, you know, don't talk toanybody, don't talk to me,
certainly.
Go hang out with your kids andyour wife or you know whoever
their support system is, and wecan kind of try to manage this
on the backend and there's awhole range of things in between
.
But at least my coachingframework is what it.

(14:11):
Where did I screw up personally?
Cause there's always something,um, there's always something
that I can do better.
And I think the other thing isI have this general.
This is going to be 30 secondsof a soap box and then I'll get
off of it.
We have this issue in coachingwhere and this is across the
board, and I have been just asguilty of this as any other

(14:31):
coach out there where we taketoo much credit when things go
well and not enoughresponsibility when they don't
go well, irrespective of theydon't go well as a DNF or an
underperformance, or theirstomach went south.
Right, that's a version of kindof not going well, and I like
to kind of course correct thatgeneral sentiment by

(14:55):
intellectualizing and processinga dnf as what could I have done
differently first, and then allthe actions kind of flow from
there.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
I have to jump in and because I've been stewing over
that.
What did I screw up for two anda half months?
I think most people listeningto this know I'm like.
My race of all races is westernstates and I it's always been a
point of pride and also notthrowing anybody under the bus,
but it's always been a point ofpride for me.
You know that when I'm coachinga Western States athlete, you

(15:28):
know it's, and for a whole hostof reasons that I'm not going to
go into right now, I had fiveathletes in Western States this
year and three this past yearand three of them did not finish
and it's still two and a halfmonths late and that's by far
the poorest performance I've hadas a coach.
Well, ajw coach athletes havehad at Western States and I've

(15:53):
been kind of and I've spokenwith all three of them and the
two who succeeded and it's stillkind of stewing.
I'm still stewing over it,frankly.
So I think that is a goodnatural instinct for us as
coaches to first say what did Iscrew up?
Maybe just ask the athlete hey,what did I screw?

Speaker 1 (16:09):
up.
That's a really, that's areally powerful lens actually.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
I ask him for feedback.
You know, what could we have?
I have done differently here.
You know, what do you see?
At AJW I experienced the samething, you know a good handful
of my athletes at Leadville, andI was like what you know, and
it was my own, I wasexperiencing it in real time for
myself, and then I wasexperiencing it for my athletes.
And you know, and that you know, kind of neutralizing that

(16:39):
experience of shame too isbringing that self-compassion to
ourselves too, but staying inthat line of, hey, let's get
that feedback, let's get thatfeedback and dig into it so we
can learn from that.
You know, there's a combinationof different things that happen
.
But yeah, I actually tend tolean in that direction of where,
what did I do?
And that's just me.

(16:59):
But you know, that I think is Ithink it's normal, I think it's
as coaches, we pride ourselveson the hey, I really want to see
them succeed, you know.
And how do we get them there?

Speaker 1 (17:10):
So it's always been it Once again.
I've seen this play out in thein the court of public appeal
many times over my almost 25year coaching career right now,
and the general sentiment that Ialways get is that when
athletes are winning, regardlessof what the win is whether it's
an actual win during a race orwhether it's them setting a PR

(17:34):
or them finishing when theydidn't think they could finish
or whatever that win actually isCoaches in general I'm talking
about the whole sphere ofcoaches, not just our CTS
coaches, but all the coaches outthere in endurance sport we
take a lot of freaking creditthat we've got the perfect
answers for everything.
Oh, double threshold workoutsare great.
High carbohydrate is great.
Ketones are amazing.

(17:55):
That's how I did this and wetend to like profess that those
are the magic solutions, but theopposite is not true when they
go wrong.
And a great example of thisacross the board that we just
saw is the compare and contrastbetween the elites at Western
States and the elites at UTMBAfter Western States.

(18:16):
I vividly remember all thisdialogue.
It wasn't that long ago.
Why is everybody running sofast?
And we all went through theanswers of why everybody's
running so fast.
We have better coolingstrategies, we have better
training, we have betternutrition, we have better
technology.
The shoes are better on and on.
Those didn't magically go awayin the eight weeks between

(18:36):
Western States and YouTube.
They're all still there.
So why is everybodyunderperforming and dropping out
?
Not everybody, but a big chunkof the elite field.
Let's not get this twisted.
It was a big chunk of the elitefield underperform and or DNF
at UTMB.
You can't have it both ways,right.
You can't profess to have themagic solution on the front end

(18:56):
and then on the back end of it,the other really high profile
race where everybody's eyes aretuned into it, just seemingly
disregard all of those thingsthat happened.
And inevitably, what thisreally points out is those magic
solutions aren't as magic as wethought that they were and
we're still left with the samekind of problem solving nature
of ultra marathon that alwayshas existed.

(19:18):
So anyway, let's kind of let'smove on to the next piece of it,
cause I want to get we're goingto get Andy and myself in
trouble if we keep talking aboutthis in this context, which is
fine.
I want to go through kind ofeasy, medium, hard.
So we've seen this for athletesand I've got a great example
queued up, so maybe I'll gosecond on this one, agw, you can

(19:39):
kind of go first.
There's kind of an easydecision DNFs that are out there
.
These things are hard.
Stuff happens.
I do think that we not thatthey are the easiest like
perfect decisions, but they areeasier decisions than the rest
of them and I kind of want to gothrough those just so we can
almost not have to think aboutit for the remainder of the

(20:02):
conversation.
Right, we want to get into themeaty stuff, the stuff that is
really should I really have donethat or not?
Was this a really good decisionor not?
So let's get rid of the easydecisions first.
What's the category of those,or how would you describe those
in your own mind?
Ajw.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
Well, you know, I think right at the top of the
list is going to be, is going tobe on the during the race
injury, right, an actualseverely sprained ankle, a
twisted knee, a resurgence of asurgery issue or something like
that, a serious or somethingrelated to not necessarily

(20:37):
running, related cardiovascularbreathing?
Neil mentioned losing eyesight,these kinds of things that you
never really predict and it's ohmy gosh, I can't do this Right.
So so those are sort of.
To me, the easy decisions arekind of that injury related.
There's just somethingcompletely unexpected.
They came and guess what?
I'm not going to be able tokeep doing this race I use.

(20:59):
In most cases in my experience,when those decisions are made,
there's no regret afterward.
That was my knee was flaring upthe way it was before and I
just had to stop.
To me, that's the easy one.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Here's the thing with that, though it's kind of
oversimplistic to say like thatthat it's a medical thing and I
know I'll give you, I'll giveyou a great example, right, and
this is public.
So this is why it's a greatexample out there, and this is
stuff that I've receivedfeedback on.
So I I crewed Tim Olson for theentirety of his Pacific crest

(21:30):
trail, what at the time was thefastest known time, and it, you
know, they've made a movie aboutit.
That's why it's very public andall this, all these other
things.
He was dealing with an injuryfor last third of the entire
thing and not one that wastrivial, the last third of the
entire thing and not one thatwas trivial.
The way they were just portrayedin the movie as a showstopper
is every bit authentic.
It wasn't overhyped oroverblown or anything like that

(21:53):
and kind of the framework thatwe came up with, this and this
was directed by the athlete andreinforced by me.
This was a hard position for meto be in and I don't, I would
have only put my position, Iwould only have put myself in
this position if it were one ofreinforcement, not creation.
The point of view of theathlete is unless there's a bone
sticking out, you are notstopping and that's pretty

(22:15):
severe.
That's not something that youwould say.
That's the rightdecision-making process for
every single person out thereand the kind of like looking
back on that, my kind of.
I don't have any regrets withhow I handled that and how we
handled that with Tim, how hiswhole collective team had
approached that.
If there were any regrets, it'speople misconstruing that they

(22:39):
should have the same value setand there's not a good
opportunity to do that withinthe context of a film that's
actually being produced.
Right, we tried to do it insome of the events and, when it
came up, in different like formsof dialogue.
But just to say a quote,unquote medical I guess my point
with this is just to say aquote unquote medical event.

(23:00):
You have to oh my gosh, he'slike gestures and zoom Whoever's
watching the.
YouTube version it's going to gocrazy.
I'm going to edit this out ofthe podcast one, but we'll keep
it in.
We'll keep it in the real,we'll keep it in the YouTube
version.
My point with that is is thisdecision-making process of a
medical event could be a reasonthat I DNF the severity of that

(23:24):
medical piece of it is it youcan come up with so many
different variations of it.
I think it's hard to reallyencapsulate.
I kind of put one caveat abovethem all that I think everybody
should adhere to is, and that isis if you have somebody from
medical, like a medicalpersonnel at a race not an aid

(23:44):
station volunteer, with all duerespect to the aid station
volunteers, not your crew who'strying to play doctor at the
time, but an actual medicalprofessional whose job is to
keep everybody safe If they aretelling you that you need to
withdraw from the race, do it,Don't pass, go, let them make
the decision.
Put it in your mind that you'reletting them make their decision

(24:06):
because they're a professionaland you're not in that situation
.
That's the one easiest of theeasy that I can think of, but
all the other ones related toinjury, although they're still
in this category of easier noteasy is the way that I would
think about it, it's easier.
There's still all these gradesof medical issues that make this
joke all the time.

(24:27):
Everybody's injured after anultra marathon, so if everybody
dropped out?
because, I mean seriously.
If everybody dropped outbecause of an injury, nobody
would ever finish, becauseeverybody's injured to some
degree.
It's just a matter of how youknow how severe it is.
So I think, even in the easyones and this is to our point
that these decisions are veryhard, even in the easier ones,

(24:47):
there's this kind of likegrading system that everybody
needs to internalize at least alittle bit in order to have a
good framework.
So, neil, I've been talkingenough.
I'm going to turn it over toyou on this easier decisions
piece.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
Yeah, I mean, you know it comes.
You mentioned it.
Values, you know.
I mean you think about.
You know someone on the extremeside like david goggins.
You know he's running withbroken legs, you know, and you
know other things going on.
That's his personal values.
I'm not going to argue that, youknow, for me, I, I look at
longevity in the sport.
I want to be able to run whenI'm 70, 80, you know.

(25:19):
And okay, how do that?
Well, I have to back off Ifsomething cracks, snapples or
pops.
That's my decision and Itotally agree with you.
The medical you know, having adoctor, having someone, a
medical staff, saying you can'tgo, you know you're also putting
the race at risk too.
You know now you're puttingother people at risk by.

(25:40):
Hey, if we have to comesearching for you, that's a
problem.
So you know it comes down to.
You know there's this grade.
You know, yeah, some cracks andapples pop, yeah, you probably
want to stop.
But you know, ultimately it'syour choice.
I passed someone at Leadville acouple of years back and I was
limping.
I'm going up power line and I'm, you know, just suffering and I
couldn't move very fast at all.

(26:01):
Just suffering and I couldn'tmove very fast at all.
I passed someone, my sister,saying you pass this guy, oh he
has a broken ankle.
You know this guy was going uppower line with a broken ankle
to finish and that's his choice,you know.
Eventually it was cut off.
But yeah, I'm not here to argueit.
I do think for longevity in thesport, which is something that

(26:22):
people you know probably want tothink about.
You know, is this somethingthat I is going to prevent me
from going to the next race ordoing something else that I love
, or, you know, even justquality of living?

Speaker 1 (26:36):
you know I'm gonna be limping down the stairs the
rest of my life because of thisum it's tricky because there's
no perfect litmus test for it,right like you don't have
something on your garmin watchthat says oh well, if you cut
out the next 13 miles of theleadville trail 100, you've now
cut off 2.2 years of your ultrarunning career right, there's
nothing kind of like that.

(26:57):
There's no way to test it andeven if you could let's just say
in a perfect world, let's justsay you could right, how would
you like I don't know understandhow anybody would, even if they
had all the data right?
Yeah, that's still hard toprocess.
So it's like you're making aguess on top of a guess on top
of a guess on top of a guess,and that's all you got.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, it's all guessing.
And coming back to that againand again, self-compassion I
mean you're going to make thatdecision.
I've made that decision, valina.
Once it was a month after I hadCOVID and my chest was aching
and I was coughing and I waslike, ah, this is something bad
happening.
And you know, the doctor, youknow the medical didn't pull me

(27:40):
and they said everything's fine.
I'm like I don't know, that'sthe choice.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Let me skip forward in our outline.
I think this is a good part ofit.
I ask you guys to come up withkind of a learning lesson from
either from yourself or from anathlete, however you want to
position it, from a DNF.
That shouldn't have been andwe're going to use kind of the
example is what the lesson islearning.
I'll start on this one just tolet you guys process it a little
bit.
On this one, just to let youguys process it a little bit.

(28:07):
I can't remember what year itwas, but it was an odd year, odd
numbered year, um that I wasdoing the hard rock 100 and I'd
previously finished hard rocktwice in the even numbered year
direction, which helped me out.
Ajw, that's clockwise right,even number of years are
clockwise and the odd oranti-clockwise or
counterclockwise.

(28:27):
In order to be a real hardrocker, you've got to finish it
in both directions, which iskind of a silly thing, but it's
what everybody likes to do.
So I didn't have that finishand I went into that year of
hard rock certainly wellunderprepared and with some
underlying health issues thathadn't been, kind of like,
completely diagnosed yet.
I'm a reasonably fit person,right.

(28:49):
I'm a 30, 35 hour finisher andthe cutoff is 48 hours, right.
So what I'm trying to set uphere is I've got a lot of
physical bandwidth to actuallyget a finish done.
So I ended up dropping out ofthat race at Cunningham late
into that year.
What's the mile marker on thatone in those years?
Ajw, it's 90 K or somethinglike that, yeah, that year.

(29:09):
What's the mile marker on thatone in those years?
Ajw, it's 90 K or somethinglike that, yeah, anyway, and I
had plenty of time I don'tremember what the timing was,
but plenty of time and althoughI had a host of excuses going
into the race, most of whichwere what King Clover would call
crybaby excuses, but somelegitimate excuses certainly.
I personally regret that DNF themost, not because of the

(29:31):
ultimate decision, it's that Ididn't give myself as much time
as possible to actually get thefinish done.
That's the regretful part.
It's not the decision of I'mgoing to stop here, it's this
decision of I'm going to givemyself.
I could have stayed there foreight hours, 10 hours and just

(29:51):
gone through an entire, like ourcolleague John Fitzgerald just
did it toward the shots.
He spent nine hours at one aidstation.
Sorry, johnny, to divulge thatright now, but I guess since
it's a publicly availableinformation on the aid station
tables, everybody could go lookit up.
Anyway, my point with that isis not the ultimate decision to
DNF, I'm kind of likecomfortable with that.
My, my personal point of regretis not going through the

(30:15):
process of hey, how much time doI have?
Do I really want this?
Can I let whatever things areailing me which I had multiple
at the time resolve between nowand the finish and just being
more patient with the entire,with the entire process?
And I hope that serves as alearning lesson to people, kind
of on two fronts.
First off, a lot of people havea lot of time to finish races

(30:41):
and I was in that very samesituation.
I probably had at least 10hours, at least 10 hours to go.
50k probably on the order of 14hours to go.
50k that's not that big of astretch.
But the second thing is younever know.
Let me put it a different way.
We're very bad at forecastingduring events, and what I mean

(31:05):
by that is that when things arereally bad, our forecast is that
they are always going to getworse, and they very rarely, if
ever, always get worse.
They might get worse for atemporary amount of time, but
usually they resolve itself.
Either you quit, like I did,and everything gets better right
, or you just locomote down thetrail at an easier intensity and

(31:26):
somehow they fix themselves.
And what I would like to kind oflike remind people as they're
going through this is it neveralways gets worse.
You do have time to resolvethings if you are not pushing
the cutoffs and sometimes if youjust give yourself a little bit
of space.
It might not be the race thatyou wanted, but it's the race
that you got and you'll learnfrom that inevitably.

(31:47):
So that's my, that's like mypersonal thing, like I've had a
DNF that I certainly regret andI just hope some people can
learn from it.
Neil, we'll turn it over to youfrom the DNF.
That shouldn't have been.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Which one, you know.
I mean, I think you know evento for one of my athletes and
I'm not going to even talk aboutthe rate, which particular race
it was but it was really warmand I think at this point he was
two thirds of the way into therace and was having some stomach
issues and they didn't getbetter immediately, but he had

(32:25):
stopped and made that decisionto get to end the race.
You know, I know, looking backand talking with the athlete,
you know there were a lot ofregrets and we both talked about
is yeah, you know you hadplenty of time to problem solve
and even just sit there and letit resolve and work through
different things so you can getto that finish.

(32:46):
You know, and I think that'sprobably one of your most common
scenarios with, you know, giissues it's not just because
something's going on doesn'tmean it's over Stop.
And you said, the word that Ilove here is patience is being
patient with it.
Yeah, your time goals might beout the window, you know, but

(33:07):
that's okay.
You know to get to the finish,let's see how.
You know just taking that time,being patient with yourself,
taking care of yourself herethere's that self-compassion
again and then moving forwardwith that.
It's so critical, you know.
You know I could speak in itfor another DNF that I did, and
it was.
You know I had plenty of time.

(33:30):
You know I was sitting at HopePass, leadville, you know, and I
had plenty of time to come downinto Twin Lakes, get off the
altitude.
Here's the thing is.
Here's the thing is.
The you know is our judgment isclouded when we're under fueled
, when we're, you know, isclouded when we're under fueled,

(33:52):
when we're, you know, tired andand we got to remember this
when we have all thesephysiological stressors, our
judgment is going to be cloudedand we're not going to do what
we intend to do.
And this is where, going backto our plan, you go back to the
plan.
Go back to the plan.
And also being prepared toadjust the plan, whatever that
is, go back to the plan, go backto the plan.
And also being prepared toadjust the plan, whatever that
is, go back to the plan.
Remember, you know all thisstuff is your judgment's clouded

(34:15):
.
You're 60 miles into a race,you're going to be tired, you're
going to be hungry, your brainisn't working as well as you'd
like it at this point, but wecould override that and this is
kind of this mental toughnesspiece is we could override that
by having these very processygoals of okay, I'm going to go
back to taking care of myselfhere.

(34:36):
How, what do I need to do tofix this?
Be patient, you know.
Use your mental skills, youknow, bring in some self-talk
and bring these other strategiesinto the play here.
But I think that's we.
You got to go into it knowingthat your judgment's going to be
clouded here.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
Do you think that's so as a coach, neil, like this
is kind of where your specialtywould really come through.
How well do you have a fix on?
Do the athletes actuallydeliberately develop that in
training versus the first timethat they have to experience
triaging?

Speaker 2 (35:10):
what you just described is on hope pass yeah,
well, yeah, exactly, I think yousetting it up.
You know, in those scenarios intraining, you know that you're
not necessarily okay.
The run without your rainjacket or something like.
Don't run with, with any food,don't do something like that,
you know.
But you know, getting out thereon longer and longer periods of

(35:34):
time at the end of a block, youknow have a hard, long run.
That's where you're going tohave these situations come up
and I love it and processing itwith the athletes after that.
Well, how did that go?
What worked for you?
The earlier on we work on thatstuff and they're prepared, you
know, the less likely they'regoing to get stuck in those
scenarios.

(35:55):
You know it's yeah, I mean,that's in my opinion, but it's a
lot of it also is experiential,you know.
I think that's what it comesdown to is experiential, you,
and the more time you're doingthis, more you're gonna oh, yeah
, okay, but if we could providethem with that information, take
, your mind's gonna be reallycloudy here.

(36:15):
Get ready for it.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
A lot of this is how, and a lot of the sports psych
that I sports psychologist thatI work in with my elite athletes
, and I've described this in acouple of other podcasts, but I
do think this is really relevanthere.

(36:41):
What they'll do is they'll lookat the training that I'm
prescribing and then they'lldesign the mental framework that
they're working on, kind of big, long training run that the
long run can kind of facilitate,or if the run is really intense
.
There's a different kind of setof things that they're doing and
they actually kind of list them.
And this is what I like aboutworking collaboratively with a
team and having all eyes ontraining peaks, so to speak, is

(37:03):
that they actually put thosethings in training peaks as
essentially as workouts right Imean, that's the analog to it or
as tasks to do, and it givesthis more consistent
reinforcement point that thesports psych person doesn't have
to solely rely upon themselvesto actually be that only point

(37:24):
of reinforcement.
I can be the point ofreinforcement.
Training peaks itself is apoint of reinforcement where
they're like literally likelooking at it on the calendar,
sports psych is, you know, andkind of their whole team is on
the same page.
And to my point earlier, what Iwas trying to facilitate is, if
it's your first time, you know,having to encounter deploying
some of these skills during arace.

(37:45):
That's a hard environment toactually get to, to get it right
on.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah, and that's where practicing.
I mean, I love thatcollaborative environment.
You know to be able to work inthat collaborative environment
because now so let's say,someone's coming to me
individually for mentalperformance work, yeah, that's
great, but if I'm not puttingyou know, if they're not
practicing it.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Yeah, you can't do it on an island.
I mean you can, it's not aseffective if you're doing it on
an island Like I do.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
It's not as effective .
You know working with a team is, it could be huge.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Yeah, here's the thing man we're going to.
This is going to go off therails really quickly, but that's
fine.
I do find that with sportspsych we can spend just a couple
minutes on this and we'll turnit over to ajw.
With sports psych, inparticular, in the teams that
I've worked with, I find thatit's the one that would that has
the most resistance to openingup to the rest of the team.

(38:39):
And you're nodding like that.
All of that that makes sense.
The only way that I can like.
the only way that I canintellectualize that or
rationalize that is it's the onethat's the most vulnerable for
people, or where they have to bethe most vulnerable, and
opening that up to the othermembers of the team the head
coach which would be me in mycase right, the head run coach,

(39:02):
their nutritionist, theirwhoever else is kind of advising
them straight training coach,and things like that
nutritionist there, whoever elseis kind of advising them
straight training coach, andthings like that.
It's just a hard.
It's just hard.
It's harder for the athletesbecause it does include these
points of vulnerability that noteverybody's that comfortable
with.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yeah, I mean that that part's huge, I think also
depending on the sports psych.
I mean, we're bound by allsorts of confidentiality rules
and that, you know, and thatcreates some you know,
definitely some hesitancy.
Um, however, you know,therapists and sports psych work

(39:38):
collaboratively in teams inhealth care all the time and you
know, I think, with theappropriate even just releases
just to be able to hey, we'regoing to have this generalized
communication.
I think that's important,especially where our goal is to
get you to perform, you know,you know, to the best of your

(39:59):
abilities, and so that's.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
But that's a challenge, you know, and I
definitely understand that, andthat's a topic of many ethics
courses and also athletes notall athletes perform the best
using this like open book,completely open transparency
deal, and we see that just tofor to really bring it down to a
level that everybody canrecognize.

(40:22):
We see that when the eliteathletes go strava dark, that's
not all.
That is not always just toobscure what they're doing from
a competitive standpoint.
In fact, that's very rarely thecase that these athletes are
doing this.
There's a whole host of reasonsthat they're doing this.
They don't want to be bothered,they don't want people to see
where they're running and youknow, like fanboy, fangirl them

(40:44):
and things like that.
They don't want to deal withthe scrutiny that some of the
media puts on them.
Oh, you're doing too much,you're going to get injured.
Oh, this is why so-and-sounderperformed because they did
a six-hour long run instead of afive-hour long run or whatever.
That opens up.
I think a lot of the reasons forthat or I guess my parallel to

(41:05):
that is I tend to have this MOthat more transparency is always
better.
I understand that when anathlete is working with multiple
people, they're not alwaysgoing to that.
More transparency is better.
Theme is not the best for everysingle athlete that you have to
kind of craft.
Do you have to kind of craftthe dialogue between the team

(41:29):
with the athlete's personalityand tendencies in mind, so that
they react the best?
And that's one of the thingsthat I've been learning about
these teams is we can't justhave the exact same blueprint
for everybody on any of thoselevels, particularly about how
we communicate and what'stransparent and what's not.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
Anyway, all right, ajw, we're going to move on to
you.
What can people?

Speaker 2 (41:48):
learn.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
What can people?
I know you've got a goodexample of this.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
I've got the best, I've got the best story.
You guys, I've got a band.
It really does.
It ties in Neil's commentsabout going back to the plan and
it ties in you know what youregret and what are some of the
things that you need to planahead of time for and, if things
go off the rails, to make surethat you do it.
This was, and one of these days, coop.

(42:11):
I'd like to commission a studyof all the big races in the
world and where people are mostlikely to dnf, because I think
at the very top of the list isbrighton lodge at the wasatch
100.
Guilty, bear with Bear with me,bear with me here, bear with me

(42:31):
here.
Brighton Lodge at the Wasatch100 sits at mile 75 at the base
of the Brighton ski area, andafter runners leave Brighton
Lodge they have about a 2,500foot climb up and over
Catherine's Pass to the highestpoint on the Wasatch course.
For most people it's in themiddle of the night and for most

(42:53):
people it's freezing, cold anddark and terrible.
And the Brighton Lodge is cozyand warm.
For years the aid station hasbeen captained by a dentist and
including in the bathroom.
Indoor bathrooms with flushtoilets are already toothpasteed

(43:17):
toothbrushes for runners to goin.
I'm giving you all this becauseI was crewing and pacing a
runner back in wasatch 15 or soyears ago.
I'm not going to use his nameand we had a plan right from the
get-go.
You are not going to go intoBrighton Lodge, you're going to
walk in, you're going to tellhim your name and you're going

(43:38):
to walk back out and we're goingto crew you outside in the cold
and then you're going to go onup.
We're going to start our tripup Catherine's Pass.
Then race day comes and therunner is rolling along and
doing really well, getting alittle bit behind on his pacing,
but he's doing fine.
He gets to Brighton Lodge, hegoes in.

(44:00):
We are like, ok, just tell theguy that you're here, tell him
your bib number, we're going togo back outside.
He goes in, he looks around andhe's I got to go to the
bathroom.
So he goes over and he goes tothe bathroom and he's in there
for a long time you know atleast a long time for 100 miles.
He comes out and he looks overat where they're cooking stuff

(44:21):
and they have quesadillas andgrilled cheese and I'm just
going to get a little bit ofsomething to eat and I'm just
going to get a little bit ofsomething to eat.
And so he goes over and he getsa plate of food and then he
sits down and he's eating.
And the crew and I are justwatching this happen and you
know, we see him getting warmerand he's eating more food.
He turns around and getsanother plate of food and he's

(44:45):
eating food.
He says to his crew I'm gettingcold.
She's well, you got to put ajacket on, you got to get it.
He's like can you just get methat sleeping bag over there?
Well, you know where this goesAt Brighton Lodge there's also
this second room over in theback where people are literally
lying down.
And he goes I'm just going togo over here in the dark and lie

(45:06):
down for a little while.
Just let me lie down for a fewminutes.
Lies down.
We finally wake him up.
It's about a half an hour laterhe gets another plate of food
Again.
The whole plan was not even togo into Brighton Lodge and
there's still tons of time lefton the clock.
He was probably in a 36-hourcutoff.

(45:26):
At Wasatch he was.
You know, it was the middle ofthe night, he had plenty of time
.
Eventually he decides yeah,he's going to call it a day.
Another famous thing aboutBrighton Lodge is this table.
At the front when you just gointo the aid station there's one

(45:48):
of these wonderful Utahcurmudgeons that seem to be
everywhere at Wasatch and he'ssitting at the table and he's
got a clipboard and he isrecording the DNFs and it's the
AIDS, the bib number, the nameand the reason.
There's a column for reason,okay, and there's a whole bunch
of stuff on there.
This would be a wonderful studyto get a hold of that clipboard
sometime.
My runner goes up there.
He's yeah, I'm going to have todrive.

(46:09):
The guy goes, bib number 674.
Name Reason, and he pauses for amoment and he looks up at the
ceiling and he goes loss of will.
That guy wrote it down.
The guy wrote down loss of will.
He's never heard that onebefore and mean and that was it.
So I mean, there's a lot there,of course, but as the plan was,

(46:31):
don't go into brighton lodge,one thing led to another.
He's under the sleeping bag.
Pretty much.
At that point we knew his daywas done, and it was, you know,
and he regretted it, you guys.
He regretted it before he evendrove back left Utah.
You know it was like why onearth did I do that?
And so I'm sure he still thinksof it.

(46:52):
I should probably give him aheads up about this podcast, but
that was something.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Okay, I'm going to.
I'm going to bring in somethingthat is analogous to the study
that you want, ajw.
I was reminded of this cause.
I was designing a presentationfor the upcoming USCA conference
which will come out.
That conference will be in acouple of weeks after this
podcast actually comes out, butanyway, one of the presentations
I was designing for it usesthis.

(47:20):
It's an older study it's about10 years old now that a former
Western States medical director,marty Hoffman, actually did at
Western States and they hadathletes.
After the race was completed,they asked them two questions.
One, what impacted your raceperformance?
And they could choose kind ofanything.

(47:41):
They could choose everything.
They could choose one thing.
They could choose five things.
It was really choose your ownadventure, and they divided that
into finishers andnon-finishers.
And the second question is whatwas the one thing that made you
DNF and the results of whichare kind of interesting to kind
of first off compare andcontrast between the finishers
and the non-finishers but thenalso look at the rank order of

(48:04):
things that either impactedtheir race performance and or
made them DNF as a coach, theone thing that strikes out.
I'll give two things, but thething that strikes out to me the
most in these studies isamongst the people who DNF'd.
They had their standard nauseaand or vomiting is at the top of

(48:24):
the list, with 23% of thepeople indicating that was the
one thing that made him DNF.
Unable to make cutoff times18.7%.
Other not categorized 12.12.2.
So it's third.
So there's something in thisthing, right, the not
categorized piece, which isprobably the filter of all of
these things that you justmentioned, a W J W, loss of will

(48:45):
, refuse to continue.
I'd lost my you know mojo orwhatever, but at the very bottom
this is my coaching point hereLiterally at the very bottom
0.7%.
Less than 1%.
Less than 1% of the people whodropped out, of the Western
States 100, and I think theyused 2010 as the year less than

(49:07):
1% cited the main reason thatthey dropped out as inadequately
trained, to which I would say,as a coach, all of these aspects
are trainable.
So if you're nauseous, if youcannot make the cutoff times, if
you have, even if you haveblisters and or hotspots on your
feet, you have missed somethingin training.
Going back to my very firstpoint, it's something that I did

(49:30):
as a coach designing thetraining program and doing the
coaching piece of it that was acomponent of them actually
dropping out.
What that actually told me as acoach is a lot of people don't
99% of people don't realize thatthose elements are trainable
because otherwise that's itNumber one and everything else
is is is below that.
The second thing that that thatI really take, that I take from

(49:53):
this, is that when you comparethe finishers and the non
finishers, there's adisproportionate number almost
two and a half times the amountof people have this like other
or not categorized component ofwhat impacted their race
performance.
And I think this goes to thecomplexity of how an ultra

(50:15):
marathon performance actuallyunfolds, because you see it
magnified in the non-finisher,some of them.
I don't know what happened, Ican't articulate.
Was it this, was it that?
Was it another thing?
Was it something that's not onthis list, that I can't speak.
It's more pronounced in thenon-finishers versus the
finishers in terms of whatactually negatively impacted

(50:37):
their race performance.
I'm going to link up, I'm goingto put a link in the show notes
to this study.
It's a really great one.
I use it from a coach educationstandpoint to illustrate how
athletes are still kind ofconfused, so to speak, about
what elements of ultra marathonare trainable versus not
trainable, and I think that thevast majority of them all are.

(50:59):
But it's a great window intothis lens of why are people
actually dropping out to ourpoint right here, and there have
been a few studies since thenthat have that have more or less
come to very to come to verysimilar conclusions.
So if you're looking to coursecorrect it, this is a really
good place to start, because youalready know what people like

(51:19):
you've.
These are the people that areactually telling you the answers
.
They're telling you the answersof why they dropped out.
Now you have a playbook infront of you to course correct
that, to preemptively coursecorrect that before it actually
happens.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Absolutely.
You know, the one word that wascoming to my mind as he was
describing that is momentum.
You know, and somehow thisgentleman who you know, who
stopped at Wasatch, is losingmomentum.
And I think, you know, if Ilook back at my own DNFs, or
DNFs of athletes that I'veworked with, there's momentum

(51:52):
drop, it's mental momentum andit's somehow tapping into.
How do we continue with thatmomentum, that excitement that
you experienced in that first,when the gun goes off, how is
that going to continue?
It's not going to stay stablethroughout the race, but how can
we implement that?
You know, through training andthrough this race.
So they know, hey, I need tokeep momentum here.

(52:14):
I can't just, oh, look at thatshiny object.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
And it's easy to do when you're super tired.
Absolutely Okay, so AJW, ourlast category is R there are
multiple Categories.
Yeah, exactly what are the nowin ones?
Where either one feels like aterrible, like either decision,

(52:39):
I either continue and try tofinish, and that doesn't sit
very well, or I drop out, andthat doesn't sit very well.
And these are the ones that,like, I don't know, in some ways
they're easy to resolve becauseyou're like, ah well, there's
no perfect decision, so I canjust flip a coin or whatever.
Right, but once again, thething that I want to go back to
is not just to provide banter,to provide some sort of like

(53:01):
useful, some useful commentaryfor people to actually sit
through and think with wheneverthey're inevitably faced with
this, either as an athlete or acoach who's working with
athletes.
I know you've had some of theseno-win ones where you've
actually kind of you as anathlete, you as a coach, kind of
combining both of those use.
Can you give an example orarticulate what some of the no

(53:23):
win ones would be, where eitherdecision is just a math?
I wish I didn't have to makethis in the first place.
I wish I could just pressrewind and not have to deal with
the problem that's in front ofme.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
Yeah, I got to go with a personal one, actually,
because I have a hard rock storyalso, freaking hard rock man.
Yeah, it was, and it wasinvolved, man.
It was in 2016.
And so the second time I wasdoing hard rock, I had done it
in 2009.
So, as you said earlier, I wasgoing to become a true hard

(53:55):
rocker, right, because it wasgoing the other direction and
the wheels started to reallycome off about halfway through
the race and I kind of knew itand I felt it In retrospect.
I was experiencing all kinds oflife stress.
Going into the event.
There were life changes.
My oldest son was graduatingfrom high school.

(54:16):
We were getting ready to move.
There was a lot of stuff thatimpacted me going into the race
that I wasn't thinking about,but one thing led to another and
I got to Cunningham at mile 90and I was done.
I was absolutely done.
My whole family was there.
I was about eight hours laterthan they were expecting me.
It was terrible.

(54:36):
Of course, like you, I stillhad tons of time left on the
clock.
Right I was.
I had probably been going formaybe 33 hours or 34 hours that
cut off as 48.
So my crew convinced me to laydown, go to sleep, take, you
know, I took about a three hoursleep.
I got back up, got all my warmclothes on and got together with

(54:57):
my and it was like, okay, we'regoing to do this.
And you know, my son, my oldestson, carson, was the one who
was sort of chosen by the familyto take me to finish, cause
he's got the best sense of humorand he was going to, you know,
and it was an absolutelymiserable slog.
If you go and look at thesplits from 2016 hard rock,
there was one person who had theslowest split for that section

(55:19):
and boggles my mind to this day.
It took me six hours to go ninemiles.
Six hours to go nine miles.
Ultimately, I did cross thefinish line 41 hours and 50
something minutes, I think.
For two-time hard rock finishers, I probably have the biggest
delta between fastest time andslowest time, because it's about

(55:40):
it was about 13 and a halfhours difference the time I ran
in 2009 versus 2016 and I didn'tregret it at the moment, like
at the moment it didn'tnecessarily seem like a no win
because it was like, oh, afinish is a finish, right, but
it was like, ah, you know what I, I could have dropped at
Cunningham and that would havebeen okay and I finished in 41,

(56:02):
50 and it's kind of okay.
But you know, and it's done,I'm not going to run hard rock
again.
There's so many people who wantto get in.
I've done it both directions.
I go that that ship has sailed,but it's yeah, you know what
that was.
You know that was sort of Icould stay here and sleep and
not win and I could drop out orI could finish, and it just left
this taste of you know.

(56:22):
Fortunately I've run otherhundreds since then and it's
been OK.
But yeah, that was a rough one.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
Well, because, going back to one of our earlier
points, right, you don't want todo anything that compromises
your longevity, and it's hard tosay if an action is going to do
that in the moment, because youdon't ever get the proof point
on that until you get to thepoint of longevity which is a
decade down the line, twodecades down the line, something

(56:50):
that that we inevitably can'treally forecast.
So, yeah, I mean, it's like Ilook at things like that and I
don't I struggle with the rightadvice to give people or the
right advice that I would have.
Like I put myself in a coachingperspective, like what would I
have told AJW at that point?
Cause I remember when you didthat, what like what would I

(57:10):
would have said?
What would I have said if I wereon his crew and I coached him
for this and I don't know if I,once I would I could flip a coin
and it would be just asaccurate of a decision as if I
gave you something and kind oflike logically walked through it
.
So I don't know if no win isthe right way to put that, but

(57:32):
it's hard to come up withsomething that's better than the
other one, right?
Maybe that's the better likeencapsulation of a decision like
that.
It's hard to say that thisdecision is better than that one
or this one has theseadvantages over this one,
because it's just so inevitablycomplex.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
And when I look back on it I guess I am glad I did do
, I did finish, you know,because if nothing else, now
looking back on it, eight yearslater it's you know, at least
the hard rock is in is like afinished chapter in my life
right right I think if I hadonly run 90 miles, it would
probably still be an unfinishedchapter in my life and that
might feel, that might give mesome feeling of of, of not

(58:10):
having, of not completingsomething right.
And I think we, as ultra runners, even if we end up dnfing at
races, we how many times haveyou talked to an athlete I know?
I have dozens of times wherethey've DNF to race and they
want nothing more than to getback to that race and you know,
take it's almost cliche right Totake care of that unfinished
business that they have there.

(58:31):
It's that's just human natureand, frankly, those are some of
the most satisfying experienceswhen they actually happen.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
Yeah, I.
So the example that I came upwith, this kind of no win.
I've got to come up with abetter way to articulate this
because I don't think thathaving that neither choice being
a quote unquote win, or eitherchoice being a quote unquote win
or sorry, yeah, neither choicebeing a quote unquote win, is
the right way to articulate it,because there are certainly
positives that come out or winsthat come about it.

(58:59):
You just mentioned closing thechapter, but the example that I
always come up with is kind ofone of the things we initially
alluded to and that's how theelite field, at least in recent
memory, has kind of gottendecimated at the Ultra Trail de
Mont Blanc.
And the reason it's hard for meto kind of come up with the

(59:20):
best scenario or to kind of comeup with a good framework as a
coach is because I understandfundamentally what the athletes
are balancing the theory of thelongevity of their career and
the longevity either beingsomething that they can do,

(59:44):
alternatively, in the next fourmonths right as a outcome of
them dropping out, or thelongevity, when we look at it,
over a decade, because I dobelieve that with most athletes
and Ludo's bucking the trendhere shout out to Ludwig Pomeroy
, who keeps defying logic.
But I do think as an eliteathlete, you only get so many

(01:00:04):
shots and you only get so muchtime.
It's not unlimited.
The time that you can be at thetop end of the sport if that is
your goal, to be at the top endof the sport is finite.
For some it's more finite thanothers, but for everybody it is
finite.
And if you can get back some ofthat finite nature somehow, or

(01:00:25):
maximize that finite nature, Iget that component of it.
That's the reason to DNF, right, or a big part of the reasons
to DNF, but at the same time notthat this is the only kind of
counterpoint to it, but I dothink that this is a big one At
the same time.
Not that this is the only kindof counterpoint to it, but I do
think that this is a big one Atthe same time.
Your, their job as eliteathletes is hard, like what you

(01:00:47):
were doing, and this is what I'musing it from the elite
perspective.
But I'm eventually going todrill it down to what everybody
can learn from this.
Their job as a professionalathlete is is inevitably hard.
It's almost to suffer.
It's a consequence of it, it'sgoing to be very difficult.
Nobody else gets to quit attheir job when it's hard, not

(01:01:09):
that racing is the only part oftheir job.
I want to be very clear aboutthis.
But let's not get it twisted.
It's a big component of mostelite athletes is racing and
performing and that's inevitablydifficult.
It's very rare that you get toquit when your job is for my
job's freaking hard.
Sure, it's not physically.
You know physically hard like anultra marathon is, but AJW,

(01:01:31):
you've seen me like suffer atcamps.
And then you know when we'retrying to put work product out
or my colleagues will, you know,attest to this and we're doing
different projects and thingslike that, like it's exceedingly
challenging and difficult and Idon't pull the rip cord or DNF
when that.
You know when that happens.
And so I think that from anevery person's perspective, you

(01:01:51):
know this aspect that a lot ofpeople wrestle with.
That I think it's okay towrestle with is this component
that ultra marathons areinevitably really hard and it's
hard to determine when you'repulling the plug from a
longevity perspective or evenfrom an injury perspective that
we just mentioned and knowthat's the right decision when

(01:02:11):
there are so many othercomponents kind of kind of going
into it.
So when I try to even though Ilook at this predominantly
through a lead athlete lens I dothink that there's something
that, like everybody can kind oflike can take away from this,
and it's just that it's thateverybody is trying to balance
this to a certain extent.
It's just their values are alittle bit different.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
I want to comment on the hard because I agree, you
know, most of us can't just quitour, can't just quit our jobs
or go home early.
You know when it's hard.
But I also am reminded Coop andI wrote an article in Iron Far
years ago about this.
One of my all-time favoritesports movies is A League of
their Own, which is a baseballmovie.
That was about a women'sbaseball league that was

(01:02:56):
established during World War II.
You know, because Major LeagueBaseball was suspended due to
the war, but there was a women'sbaseball league that was
established during World War II.
You know, because Major LeagueBaseball was suspended due to
the war, but there was a women'sbaseball league that was
established.
They made a movie out of it andTom Hanks played the baseball
manager and the lead characterwas played by Gina Davis.
And at one point late in themovie, late in the season, gina
Davis is overwhelmed withwhatever's going on and she just

(01:03:18):
says to Tom Hanks oh but coach,but coach, it's just so hard
and he goes hard.
It's the hard that makes itgreat and it's one of those.
It's one of those lines.
I mean, it's not necessarilyrelated, but it is one of those
things you might want to remindsomebody of if they're thinking
of quitting because it's hard ordropping out because it's hard.

(01:03:38):
Sure, every we know everybodyhas their reasons for DNFing.
I was curious.
By the way, I live in Arizonaand our big race coming up next
month is the Javelina 100, whichhas, over the last several
years, kind of been able toassemble a pretty competitive
field.
And the first thing I thoughtwhen I saw so many people
dropping out of UTMB is, oh,that's going to be great for the

(01:03:59):
Haleah entrance list Because,like you said, people might drop
out, you know, might drop outof Cormier, so they've only gone
, you know, 80k or so, and theymight be like, hey, I might have
time for one more race in myseason.
I do think too and I know we'vetalked about this in other
circumstances the tank gets alittle empty.
In the, you know, in ourcalendar, in the North American

(01:04:20):
Northern Hemisphere calendar,the tank starts to empty out in
late August, september, october,and unless you've completely
directed your year towards arace at that time of year, it
tends to be a time where there'sa little bit less gas in the
tank and it might be a littlebit easier for folks to DNF.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
I do.
So here's another thing that'sactually like pragmatically
happening, at least amongst theelite fields, since we're just
talking about this, is manyathletes are coming into some of
these races as a makeup race.
I dropped out, just like youmentioned.
I dropped out of utmb.
I'm going to go to havelina.
I dropped out of this, I'mgoing to go to that, whatever
other athletes are apexing atthose races and just like.

(01:05:04):
It's exceedingly difficult, butobviously not impossible, to do
very well at western states andvery well then at utmb, utmb
being the harder piece of thatbecause it comes second because
of that dynamic that people areapexing for for UT, just UTMB,
and they're not running WesternStates, and you're having to

(01:05:26):
compete against those peoplewhen you're doing the double.
That's exceedingly difficult todo from a competitive
standpoint.
It's the same thing when we seethis dropout, go make up race.
You have some athletes that areapexing for Javelina, for what,
like, whatever else is on thecalendar, and you have other
athletes that are using it askind of like they are not
apexing for it, and here we'reusing the dnf as the reason that

(01:05:49):
they're not apexing for it.
That's exceedingly difficult tocompete against because
everybody is so good.
So I think we'll just leavepeople with that right.
We've gone through all thesedifferent scenarios and the one
thing I'll give you the last 30seconds on this AJW, the one
thing that I want people to kindof remember as they're trying

(01:06:12):
to internally process this iswe're just very bad at
forecasting.
And because we're very bad atforecasting, come up with a plan
, come up with a value set inadvance.
You can't scenario out everysingle thing, but at least have
some sort of framework so thatwhen it comes into real time and
you do unfortunately have tomake some of these decisions

(01:06:32):
heaven forbid, you have to makethem, but they're kind of
inevitable.
If you're in the game for longenough you at least have some
armor, some framework toactually make those decisions
yeah, absolutely, and havingthat laying out that ground.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
I mean I told him the story of my friend who we had a
clear plan that he was notgoing to go into brighton lodge
and you know it just didn'thappen that way um, but I agree
and I think I would take whatI'm gonna.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
I'm gonna jump off this podcast right now to get on
a call with one of my athleteswho is it is absolutely her apex
race to do Javelina, which isfive weeks from now when we're
recording this Right, and sowe're literally going to get on
the phone right now to talkthrough these next five weeks
and how we want them to look andwhat we want to do, and I think
it's really important for us ascoaches to to sort of realize

(01:07:15):
that and embrace that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Absolutely All right, we'll leave it there.
Thanks for coming on thepodcast and thanks to Neil.
He had to jump off a second agoto get on another athlete call.
We're always appreciative ofyou guys' time.
Yeah, thanks, guys.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
You got it.
Bye-bye All right folks.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
There you have it, there you go.
Much thanks to coaches AJW andNeil for coming on the podcast
today, being a little bit humbleand kind of taking us through
some of the mistakes they havemade as athletes and as coaches.
I hope that came across throughthe dialogue that many times we
don't have perfect answers tothis, but we try to give our

(01:07:52):
best shot at getting a betteranswer by processing some of
these things in advance so thatwe're not left to making the
entirety of the decision in theheat of battle when it is just
oh so difficult to do that.
So I'm much appreciative of thecoaches for coming on and kind
of going over some of themistakes that we've made, some

(01:08:12):
of the mistakes that I've madeas an athlete and as a coach, so
that everybody in the listeningaudience can learn a little bit
from that.
If you like this podcast, youthink that one of your friends
or training partners can benefitfrom hearing this dialogue with
our three coaches.
Please share this podcast withthem.
That is the best way that youcan help this podcast out.

(01:08:33):
As always, from the verybeginning I've chose not to
monetize this podcast withadvertisement or sponsorships or
anything.
Chose not to monetize thispodcast with advertisement or
sponsorships or anything other.
So the best way that you canhelp out is just to help a
fellow runner out that isprobably going to encounter this
decision of to continue or toquit a race at some point in
time in their career.

(01:08:53):
Share the dialogue with them.
I'm sure it will be muchappreciative or much appreciated
, and I appreciate it as thehost of this podcast.
All right, folks, that is itfor today and, as always, we
will see you out on the trails.