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.

A runner returning for her first ultra in years asked my opinion for solving toe blisters.

She encountered her first ones on a long training run and her race was a week away.

She asked other runners for solutions and got great tips to try - various tapes and lubes - but was nervous because she didn’t have time to try any of it, so she asked me for a strategy.

Here’s how I answered…

In the dark at Massanutten 100, I rolled into the Camp Roosevelt aid station highly aware I was later than I’d ever been but happy to be there at 63.9 miles with a long section safely behind me.

I focused on business. This year’s race was taking a lot out of me and I needed to sit for a moment with my drop bag to get gels and a spare headlamp for the 5.8-mile section ahead to the Gap Creek aid station. My headlamp was already dim and wouldn’t make it through the next section.

This is your one big chance.

You got in the lottery for a big race and you’re determined to make the most of it.

Everything has to be perfect.

You’ve got to train right, eat right, race exactly right…do everything right.

But that’s where it goes wrong - needing to be perfect.

Finishing an ultra - enduring a crazy number of hours and miles over a challenging course most people wouldn’t believe - is hard enough without adding intense mental and emotional difficulty to the race.

Negative thinking can turn a peak experience into a miserable slog you just want to end.

For example, this weekend, I got a terribly late start for a 20 mile long run in the mountains.

How do you tell?

“Training hard or burned out…which am I?”

You’re putting in a lot of hard miles but getting a little tired and cranky.

You want to train hard so you’re ready for your race but not so hard you get burned out.

The stakes are high. Your race is on the line, so you don’t want to get it wrong.

How do you tell?

A client recently asked, “I have an intimidating goal race this time next year. Registration is open and there’s a cap on the number of spots. Should I sign up now or wait a bit?

“Can I train for a big event and sign up at the last minute?”

Sure, but what’s more interesting is why?

Imagine you’re alone in the middle of a dark, windowless room.

You’re essentially blind.

You don’t know how big the room is, but walking into a wall would hurt.

How often have you heard some version of, “I run ultras to suffer?”




It gets tossed around so much that I wasn’t surprised it came up in two client sessions last week.




The new ultrarunner liked the dramatic bravado of it.


If you’re not working on your mindset, you’re probably making a lot of things harder than they have to be.

Take hills for example.

Mindset affects everything you think about in a race. Big things like not dropping, and small ones like a climbing a hill.

And you probably don’t even realize it.

Want more mental strength?

If you’re like most ultrarunners, you do.

Because you want to run more challenging races.

Safe races are ok and challenging in their own way, but they’re getting stale. You miss the excitement you used to feel about races.

You’ve got no more effort to give.

You’re 60 miles into a 100 and more drained than you knew possible.

You could lay down on the trail right now and fall asleep. You want more than anything to stop and rest.

“How am I going to do 40 more miles of this?”

You’ve got no more effort to give.

You’re 60 miles into a 100 and more drained than you knew possible.

You could lay down on the trail right now and fall asleep. You want more than anything to stop and rest.

“How am I going to do 40 more miles of this?”

You entered an ultra to do something hard (remember?).

But halfway through the race, you’re tired, defeated and barely plodding along.

This isn’t how you wanted it to be.

The miles still left to go will be long, miserable, and exhausting. Your all might not be enough.

In the deep of night, I finally make it to the light, noise and bustle of the Crosby Manitou aid station 62 miles into Superior 100.

I retrieve my drop bag and grab an empty chair by the fire to get out a heavier pair of gloves, fresh headlamp, and more gels. Maybe a hat.

Even with the fire, I have to be quick. Only a few minutes and I’ll get too cold to go back out.

A fellow runner sits bundled up motionless in the next chair, quietly listening to the others around the circle talk…

If you’re a female ultrarunner, you face an extra barrier between you and your full capability - what society expects of you.

How you as a woman are expected to think, behave, and look.

Unspoken beliefs like:

Your worth is based on what others think of your achievements and since you’re not an elite runner, thinking well of yourself is embarrassing.

When you’re preparing for a challenging race, you face two big questions.

“Can I finish?”

“How hard will it be?”

Together, they create a load of uncomfortable anxiety.

You spent months and trained harder than ever to make this your best race ever.

Your mind has to be on point. No negative thinking this time.

You’re excited about the race and training has been great.

Until one day you hear that negative voice in your head say “you’re too slow,” “you don’t know what you’re doing,” or “you aren’t training enough.’

No one at the starting line of a 100 mile race knows for sure they can finish.

There are so many variables outside our control, like weather.

But runners with the best chance of finishing have at least one thing in common.