What bothers us most before a race isn’t the distance, the course, or the cutoffs—it’s the uncertainty.

“Have I trained enough? Will I be ready? Can I handle it? Will I make the right choice when I want to quit?”

And the ultimate question: “Will I finish?”

There are so many things that could ruin your race.

But what if the worst actually happens?

Imagine this: You invest months of training, effort, and money into a race that means the world to you. Everything is going smoothly—until the day before the race. You wake up with your head pounding, body aching, throat on fire, and nose completely clogged. Even breathing too deeply sets off a coughing fit that leaves you exhausted.

The Assumption: “I feel awful—I can’t finish like this. My race is ruined.”

As a mindset and strategy coach, I often work with runners who feel immense pressure around their “A” race.

An “A” race is the one that’s incredibly important. It’s often the only big race that year - like the only 100-mile race of the year or a lottery race. They structure other races around it, spend months training for it and often have crew and pacers lined up for the event, adding to the weight of its significant.

There’s nothing wrong with having an A race. In fact, narrowing your focus to a single race—even if it’s not an A race but simply the next race ahead—can be incredibly beneficial. I highly recommend it.

Are you doing ok in ultrarunning—training, racing—but feeling unfulfilled and not sure why?

Wondering if this is just how it is, that losing your love for the sport is inevitable? Or whether it’s something you can fix?

I’ve been there, and fixing this was a game-changer for my success. It can be for yours, too.

When I started ultrarunning in the late 1990s, I was lucky to have a small group of friends to train and race with. We were the only ultrarunners in our state.

One year, a bunch of us decided to run Leadville 100. We traveled together, shared a house—and all DNF’d.

Last week, I had a session with a client preparing for a big, exciting race—one that’s outside his usual routine. The goal he’s set for himself is ambitious and deeply personal. It’s going to take a lot of work, but he’s committed to making it happen.

Or at least, he was.

In our session, he voiced something I’d already noticed in other runners—it’s hard right now to stay motivated about race goals.

With so much chaos and bad news coming at us nonstop, fresh worries seem to appear daily, and the uncertainty ahead feels overwhelming. It’s hard to know which threat to focus on before another takes its place.

After five grueling laps at Long Haul 100, I limped into the start/finish aid station, exhausted and frustrated. The first two laps (32 miles) felt great. On the fourth loop (50 miles) at night, I slowed more than expected, but Lap 5 in the deepest night took it out of me. I was falling asleep, barely moving, convinced it had taken twice as long as the others.

The race has a 32-hour cutoff, but my goal was a sub-30 finish. I’d been running better than I had in years and had a nice 70 mile training run a few weeks earlier at Across the Years. But I’d also spent too much time at aid stations, planning to make it up later—and hadn’t. Now, stiff, hurting, chafing, and likely dealing with blisters, I knew I wouldn’t be running a fast-enough final lap to make up for all the slowness. Just the thought being out for hours on yet another lap was daunting. Dropping would have been a reasonable option.

But here is where I used the Mindshift Process I teach my clients to turn my thinking into a powerhouse. I thought about the decision to do the last lap.

Training in winter can be tough, even when you have a spring race ahead.

Despite your best intentions, getting out the door in cold, dark, wet weather for hours of running isn’t easy. Motivation is lacking.

Many runners, when struggling to stay on track, make a common mistake: using self-criticism to force themselves to train.

Last week, two separate clients faced wanting to race a race…but not wanting to.

One was burned out and the other was worried about getting there.

Two different runners, two different races, two different race schedules, same assumption: you have to race races.

Success in a race starts with setting the goal—and how you set it can make all the difference.

It sounds simple enough, but this is often where things go wrong, especially with something I call Goal Creep.

No, it’s not a monster hiding under the bed—it’s like scope creep in a construction project. What starts as replacing a kitchen countertop somehow turns into a full kitchen remodel.

Goal Creep looks like this: you start with a manageable goal. Let’s say it’s hitting the 30-hour cutoff for a 100-mile race. When people ask about your goal, you confidently say, “30 hours—I just want to finish.”

At Across the Years, I ran a few miles with a friend and asked about his recent races. To my surprise, he raved about the honor of watching an elite runner cross the finish line in first place.

Curious, I asked why this moment stood out. It wasn’t his race, and he didn’t seem to have a personal connection to the runner.

As if it were obvious, he replied, “I got to witness greatness.”

In this time of celebration, this MVP post below is worth revisiting.

If you pooh-pooh celebrating yourself, tell yourself you will when you achieve the next thing, or think it's delusional because you're mid- or back-of-the-pack, this is for you.

Celebrating yourself - and really meaning it - is smart strategy.