Overcoming Cutoff Stress: A New Approach

We all know cutoff stress.

Making cutoff is the most basic thing you need to do to finish most ultras, and being anywhere near it can be stressful.

Miss one cutoff and your race is over.

So you focus on the numbers. Are you ahead of cutoff? By how much? What’s the next cutoff? Are you slowing down? Will you make it? How close will it be? Can you keep this up?

You chase cutoff. You run as fast as you can, constantly check your watch, panic when you lose cushion, imagine not finishing, try to speed up and gain on it….

You spend the race so stressed you don’t enjoy it or run anywhere close to your best. If you cross the finish line, your main feeling is relief, not joy.

But what can you do? You have to pay attention to it.

Except you don’t.

Ignore cutoff.

The best you can possibly do in a race is run your best. That’s your max.

Cutoff has nothing to do with that. Zero.

Obsessing about cutoff can’t make you run faster than your best. In fact, it will make you run worse because it distracts you from all the things you need to do to run your best.

If you’re doing your best, cutoff simply doesn’t matter. So run your best and forget about it.

I did that at Massanutten 100 this year. I had a ton on the line - a long-awaited 20th finish there and a needed finish after a DNF.

I wasn’t at all sure I could make cutoff.

But I decided not to check how I was doing on cutoff for the first half of the race. In the last half, I only checked a couple of times to confirm I was ahead - not by how much.

Knowing how I was doing against cutoff wasn’t going to make me run one second faster. I was already doing my absolute best.

The only thing knowing that number would do is freak me out.

So I simply let go of knowing. Didn’t even wonder about it.

I was probably close to cutoff but it was irrelevant.

Either I was going to make it through aid stations or someone would pull me. It was their job to think about cutoff, not mine.

As a result, I had the most peaceful race I’ve had in a very long time. It was so much quieter in my head - like being out of cell phone range, except with cutoff. The absence of that stress freed up mental space to enjoy the race.

There’s one important caveat to this. When I say ignore cutoff, I mean ignore it in the race. Don’t look at it. Don’t ask about it. Don’t even think about it. You’re doing your best.

But definitely ahead of the race, look at cutoff and what it does. Does it speed up, slow down, or stay steady the whole race? Use that to plan your race.

Once you’re in the race, run according to your plan and forget cutoff. If you’ve got a solid plan and you’re doing your best, that’s all you need.

You can enjoy the race for a change.

You can focus on nutrition, hydration, and all the things you actually need to do to finish.

You can pay attention to how you’re running and what you can do to run faster.

And instead of relieved the stress is over, you get to finish excited about running your best.