How to overcome any obstacle: learning from the example of ultramarathon runners

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The human soul is tempered in the fire of pain. ?

American Scott Jurek is one of the most titled ultramarathon runners in the world. He has won grueling marathons more than once, and has also written several books on running.

But in 2015, he had a particularly hard time when he tried to break the record for walking the Appalachian Trail. This is a tourist route with a length of about 3, 5 thousand kilometers. It stretches across 14 American states and the Appalachian Mountains. There are no signs of civilization along the way, but you can meet bears and poisonous snakes.

It was the 38th day of Jurek's attempt to break the record. He suffered several injuries to his legs, endured the wettest June in Vermont history in the last century, and climbed the most difficult part of the journey - the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

Half-delirious after two hours of sleep and a 26-hour hike, Dzhurek faced an insurmountable obstacle - a tree root on the road. According to him, then he simply could not figure out what to do: bypass the root or step over. He was so tired that he forgot how to raise his legs and run like a normal person. As a result, he stepped on this root and fell.

Scott Jurek has traveled ultra-long distances before, but the Appalachian Trail has squeezed everything out of him. In the fifth week, he lost more than five kilograms, his eyes became wild and defocused. The mind couldn't handle the load. One night Djurek was puzzled by a strange fire on the top of the mountain. It turned out it was the Moon.

Jurek described this arduous journey in the book North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail. According to him, pushing yourself to the limit, you purify yourself and experience spiritual transformation. “The human soul finds solace in the beauty of nature, but is tempered in the fire of pain,” he writes.

Jurek is not the only athlete who talks about the amazing characteristics of human endurance. Diana Nyad, long distance swimmer, has written Find a Way: The Inspiring Story of One Woman's Pursuit of a Lifelong Dream. In it, she tells how, at 64, she made her dream come true - she sailed from Cuba to Florida. She became the first swimmer in the world to cover this distance without a shark cage. Nyad swam 180 kilometers in 53 hours.

Such books help to understand how and why the most resilient people on earth show stubbornness when others in their place would have given up long ago. The reader wonders how far he can go himself. And more importantly, is it worth doing. Ultramarathon athletes are not the most reliable source of wisdom, but this is what makes their experience so interesting for others.

However, striving to overcome yourself is not the best slogan for motivational posters. It often ends tragically. For example, climber Aaron Ralston was forced to amputate his arm in order to get out from under a boulder that fell on him. Jurek's friend Dean Potter, who was engaged in base jumping, died during the jump.

I have known ultramarathon runners who finish a race with kidney failure or die of brain aneurysm after a 160km marathon.

Scott Jurek

He and other athletes have mastered how to push themselves to their limits. And the secret of such endurance is not in experiments with veganism or the samurai code, which Jurek is fond of. For most of his career, he simply did not think about what makes him engage in such a hard sport. “When you win a race, you rarely ask yourself why,” he writes in his book. For athletes of his level, endurance is an excuse for itself. The main thing for them is not to give up.

Science confirms that ultramarathon runners need unwavering drive as much as talent. “The psychological and physiological aspects of endurance are inextricably linked,” writes journalist and former marathon runner Alex Hutchinson in Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance."Any task that lasts more than 10-12 seconds requires the brain to decide how to persist."

The brain regularly checks the reserve of physical strength and asks the body how long it will last. Physiologists agree that the brain influences the sense of its own limits. It interprets the signals of the body. It depends on how much effort you can put in at a particular moment. If you tweak your way of thinking a little, you can also change your perception of your physical limits.

Hutchinson advises quite traditional methods for this: and visualization. But there are also less familiar methods. For example, endurance brain training. You have to do boring tasks on your computer for several weeks. Such a program teaches you to fight psychological fatigue.

The main incentive to overcome your own barriers is good old faith in yourself.

Nevertheless, motivation alone will not go far. But unshakable faith in their abilities helps athletes to "turn on" additional speed. “Training is cake and self-confidence is the icing,” says Hutchinson. "But sometimes even a thin layer of glaze plays a decisive role."

Such self-confidence is formed in unexpected ways. It turned out that the main thing is not to dig yourself. Hutchinson spent a lot of time sorting through his victories and defeats. But this did nothing for his career. But Jurek, judging by his book, before the Appalachian Trail did not even think of doubting himself. But this marathon was given to him more difficult than others.

In 2015, Jureku was 41, a year earlier he was going to end his running career. But due to family difficulties, he decided to take part in one of the most severe races. He hoped to look inside himself, but this introspection only made it difficult to walk the path. On the seventh day, Djurek was seized with doubts. He tore apart one quadriceps and his knee was severely inflamed. In this state, for the first time, he began to wonder why he got involved in all this at all. He was helped by a mantra repeated by one of his fellow marathon runners: “This is me. This is what I do."

No need to think about why you need to endure and move on. It is overcoming our own barriers that makes us ourselves.

This helped Jurek not to surrender. He wrapped adhesive tape around his sore legs and limped onward.

Jennifer Farr Davis, the previous record holder for the Appalachian Trail, confirms the importance of such compulsive determination. She described her experience in The Pursuit of Endurance: Harnessing the Record-Breaking Power of Strength and Resilience. In it, the athlete shares the secrets and good habits that have helped her succeed in hiking and cross-country running.

Davis climbed the Appalachian Trail twice and set the fastest travel time among women. “Endurance is not just a human quality. This is the main human quality, she writes. "We only exist as long as we persist."

Davis wanted to prove that she could do this route. Usually men show the best results at all running distances. But when it comes to extreme distances, like the Appalachian Trail, bigger lungs and stronger muscles don't give men an advantage. Women can counter this with a more suitable physique and the body's ability to burn fat faster. And also the desire to prove what they are capable of. It was this that helped Davis set the record.

However, having achieved what she wanted, she gave up running. According to her, after the birth of a child, she can no longer run ultramarathon distances. But the obstacle is not the body after childbirth. Motherhood affected her not so much physically as emotionally. Now she cannot think only about herself and her interests for 46 days.

Although Davis has lost her competitive spirit, she agrees with Jurek that extreme endurance is more of a calling than a choice. She still appreciates that kind of endurance. And he even admits that he is a little jealous of those who have not given up such a lifestyle. But Davis realizes that extreme physical activity requires sacrifice. Most people find something different in life that is worth stopping for.

But not Scott Jurek. Stumbling over the ill-fated root, he got back on his feet and a week later broke Jennifer Farr Davis's record.

He walked the Appalachian Trail in 46 days, 8 hours and 7 minutes. Endurance helped him overcome all obstacles, including himself.