The Ultramarathon Mindset: Trail Talk

Monday Mindset: Important message: This won’t last! If you're happy or sad, it doesn’t matter. Emotions change. Whatever you are feeling right now . . . it won’t last.

Lindsay Dare Shoop says that she's lucky she lacked confidence when she graduated high school. She was a star athlete in high school and played all the sports. But when she looked at the competition she'd face as a college athlete, she convinced herself that she'd never be good enough. But without sports, she struggled with motivation in college, and her grades suffered. Then, one day, she ran int...

You can be in your comfort zone and still be uncomfortable. Yes! You can be going crazy and completely stressed out with too much to do. Yes, this is the life of a business owner. The chaos feels uncomfortable, but that very chaos can be your comfort zone.

What does it take to run 40,075 kilometers as a self-supported run around the earth? Tomasz Drybala is my guest this week, and he is going to start his around the world run in September of 2022. Starting in New York, he will run to Florida, and then across the southern US. Then he will travel to Asia and eventually finish in Europe. Tomasz started his self-supported running journey by running 5-mi...

According to Jesus, the second greatest commandment in the Bible is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. I’ve been going to church all my life, and I’ve never heard a preacher talk about this like what I’m about to say. I don’t know if I really want other people to love me like they love themselves.

When Tom Foreman was young, he was a competitive runner in all the races he entered. And he barely trained for these races. But he stopped running for years. Then his daughter asked him to help her train for a marathon. He went on from that to run four half-marathons, three full marathons, and a 50 mile ultramarathon in the space of a year. He documented his experience with a book titled, My Year...

How can anyone be afraid of winning . . . be afraid of success? If you Google “fear of success” you’ll get about 430 million results. There are a lot of us out in the world who struggle with the idea of winning and being successful. And there are a lot of different reasons people develop a fear of success. Mine came from growing up in church.

Get a good education and find a career that will give you success and security! This is the advice we get for how to make our way in the world. Some of us, however,  aren't satisfied with with the status-quo. Sarah Williams decided that she wanted something different for herself. She decided to launch out and create a life full of adventure and challenge. Sarah is on a mission to increase attentio...

It’s easier to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled. This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain. The irony is that there are no references showing Mark Twain saying these words. And yet the uninformed continue to credit him with this proverb. How do you know whether the truth you believe to be true is actually the truth? Most people work hard to defend what they think is...

My friend, Dallas Amsden, returns for another conversation. He was my second guest on the podcast, back when my audience was in the single digits. Dallas is a coach for professionals who want to become outstanding communicators. We talk about how breaking down tasks into a series of sprints can bring about ultramarathon results in running and business. 

Today is July 4, Independence Day in the US. Today you’ll see posts and memes about freedom and independence. And it’s good to celebrate. Freedom is better than living under socialism or communism. Fire up the grill, crack open a beer, watch the fireworks. And take a minute to think about what freedom means to you. For me, it was the freedom to look at my life and decide I wanted something differe...

Chase Hammond is a man with vision. As an ultramarathon runner he saw an opportunity to create a race series at the trail he runs in central Kansas. The Hell Creek race series is both challenging and beautiful. And for those who think Kansas is flat, the elevation profile for the 100 mile is over 10,000 feet of gain.  Chase also saw an opportunity to use his training in nutrition to start a supple...

The worst movie my wife and I ever saw was Seven Six-Gunners. Ten minutes in, we commented on how bad it was. We watched the entire 90 minutes. Why? Sunk costs Sunk costs is the feeling that you need to keep going because you’ve already invested time and/or money and made a decision.

I always thought the Spartan obstacle course races were pretty much like other OCR events. But Cliff Moitt came on the show to talk to me about the Spartan Death Race. The shorter Spartan races don't rise to the level of difficulty you face in the Death Race.  The Spartan Death Race is designed with mental challenges as well as physical. There are odd items, difficult to obtain, that you have to b...

What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail? Life coaches & motivational speakers often ask this hypothetical question. The idea is to get you to look at your life and discover those epic dreams you have for yourself that you’re afraid to go after. You’ve probably heard this question before.  Have you thought about an answer yet? What challenge would you take on if you knew you couldn’t...

How do you fuel your body to train for and finish an Irornman race?  Dana Eshelman  is an Ironman athlete and nutrition coach and she shares her knowledge and experience from her personal training and competition as well as coaching other endurance athletes. Dana wants athletes to not be afraid to eat carbs. But getting the right kind of carbs in the right amounts and at the right time is importan...

When I was 27 years old, I was a runner. I’d been married for a few years and started putting on weight. I decided I could become a runner and still eat whatever I wanted. It worked. I lost weight. Then I decided that since I was a runner I should set a goal to run a marathon. But after I reached my goal, I quit running. For 30 years, I quit.  I learned a lesson about success! Don’t quit.

We hear about fires in the western United States every year. And the news reports give stats on how well those fires have been contained. What is left unsaid is that those fires are contained by men and women trekking through the forest with tools and gear.  My guest this week is Martha Schoppe. She is one of those who go into the wilderness to fight the fires. She also has the distinction of bein...

Once you decide what you want and you decide that you’re going to do what it takes to get what you want, you need to take the next step immediately! Most people think the next step is to make a plan for how you’re going to get what you want! This is WRONG! Oh, don’t misunderstand! You need a plan. But now is not the time for planning. Planning at this point will slow you down at best. At worst, it...

Iveta Zaklasnikova knew at age 16 what kind of life she didn't want. She didn't want to be stuck in a job that slowly drained her life energy. So she studied business and got a job in sales when she left school.  It took a few years of working a "regular" job for her to discover what kind of life she did want. She wanted the freedom to travel and to work from anywhere in the world--the life of a d...

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day. It’s a day of remembrance for those who have died serving in the US military. Memorial Day was borne out of the Civil War (which ended in 1865) and a desire to honor our dead. On the 5th of May in 1868, General John Logan who was the national commander of the Grand Army of the republic, officially proclaimed it in his General Order No. 11 .  “The...

Imagine what it would be like to plan a big goal for your 60th birthday. It should be something epic and noteworthy. After all, turning sixty is a milestone. Will Turner decided that the year he turned sixty he would do sixty Ironman triathlons. A full Ironman is 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles on a bike, and running 26.2 miles. Sixty of these in a year is more than one a week! After he finished...

What is the number one most important thing you have to do if you want to have an amazing life?  You have to do this if you want to have even a good life. You have to do this even to get a mediocre life. The better you are at this one thing, the better your life will be. And if you have epic skills at this one thing, you can have an epic life. So what is the one thing you have to do in order to ha...

Diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as a child, Mike Burke's life expectancy was supposedly only a handful of years. But he beat the odds, even playing sports in high school. But when he began his career, his hectic lifestyle took a toll on his health. But he decided to change his mindset, and he began running and cycling. He ran multiple marathons and eventually became an Ironman. Mike wrote a book, W...

You will face three roadblocks when you set out to be the best version of yourself and go after an epic life. These aren’t the only roadblocks, but these are the ones waiting for you right out of the gait. If you are feeling stuck, it’s probably one of these three mental blocks you’re dealing with.