Pushing The Limits
Ep 126: Become bulletproof in your mental game - Vin Framularo ultra runner
2019-11-21
In this episode, Lisa interviews one of the athletes she and Neil coach through Running Hot who has just completed his first 100 milers but Vin is not just one of their athletes but the head of the technical department in the business. In this race debrief they go deep into the mindset of what it takes to overcome injuries (a broken back) and temporary setbacks to ultimately succeed. About Vin Framularo Vin Framularo is from Trumbull, CT, USA, and has been a member of the Running Hot Coaching family for over a year. Vin is coached as an athlete through the Running Hot Coaching program, and also excitingly helps ...
In this episode, Lisa interviews one of the athletes she and Neil coach through Running Hot who has just completed his first 100 milers but Vin is not just one of their athletes but the head of the technical department in the business.
In this race debrief they go deep into the mindset of what it takes to overcome injuries (a broken back) and temporary setbacks to ultimately succeed.
About Vin Framularo
Vin Framularo is from Trumbull, CT, USA, and has been a member of the Running Hot Coaching family for over a year. Vin is coached as an athlete through the Running Hot Coaching program, and also excitingly helps the Running Hot Coaching team lead digital marketing initiatives.
He has been a competitive runner since high school and has been ultrarunning for over 2 years.
Vin recently completed his first 100-mile race at the New Hampshire Hamsterwheel Ultra Race in November of 2019. His journey as an ultra runner and overcoming a broken back was recently featured in UltraRunning Magazine online in November 2019.
Vin is the CMO & Co-Founder of The Framularo Group. He has been in the marketing and interactive media sector for over 15 years. Vin is an entrepreneurship graduate of Babson College and has his MBA in Management and MS in Interactive Media from Quinnipiac University.
When not leading fun marketing initiatives or running, Vin is an avid skier, snowboarder, and coach at EPIC Interval Training in Connecticut. In 2019 Vin raised $3,976 for Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports to benefit adaptive athletes, as part of the Vermont 100 Mile Endurance Race and Team Run 2 Empower.
He is a member of his local trail running group the CT Trailmixers, a Freemason, a member of the Sons of the American Legion in his community, and a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon alumni board.
Connect with Vin at:
vin@framularo.com
http://instagram.com/vinframularo
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincent-framularo-1690505/
https://www.facebook.com/vinframularo
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Transcript of Interview
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com.
Hi everyone. This is Lisa Tamati here. I'm pushing the limits. Thank you very, very much for joining me once again on our podcast. We lo
ve to have you join us. And today I have a special guest all the way from Connecticut and the USA and this is a guy who has been a part of our world now for about a year and a half I think. And is actually works with us at running hot and is our VP of everything I called them. Get involved with the head of the technical department if you like. And he's the one that makes everything run smoothly in the background because Neil and I definitely don't know what the hell we're doing. So welcome to the show Vin Framularo. Vin How you going?
Oh, thanks Lisa. Great, good morning. Thanks for having me and always loved talking with you every week and yeah, it's, wow. It's, you're right. Almost a little more than a year. I've been part of the running hot family and pretty excited and have been following you for a little time before that. And I'm sure we can get into that a little bit. So I'm excited to be on. I love your podcast and you know me, I'm huge on the personal development and stuff. So excited for your answer.
One of the reasons I wanted to bring Vin on the show, we had a, one of our other athletes and we're going to do a few athletes over the next few months. One of our other athletes met, scrapped and from New Zealand who just did his first 100 K we, we might've been a case study out of ed of him and we did a bit of a coaching session. So we're going to do something similar today. We're going to, she it VIN story and his background and how he's just got to complete some very, very big races. So Ben came to us, well he found us on the needs as you're doing joined us, joined up, and then we actually connected over all the technical staff and we ended up getting him on board with our company. But then his has got an incredible mindset and this is what I really want to delve into today because he has, he has a relentlessly positive editor that I just cannot lay sometimes. And his mindset really, really shines through. So I want to dig in today a little bit into Vin's history and his running successes that he's head, but also how he's got the, because he's had a couple of massive obstacles to overcome on the way. So then I want you to start by telling us a little bit about you, your family, where you're from and how you got into running and what you've been doing.
Sure. Thanks Lisa. Yeah, so I'm from Trumbull, Connecticut, born and raised and I've lived a lot of different places, but that's always been home base. And right now I'm talking to you in my house, which is about a mile away from my parents and where I grew up. So we have our entire family in our neck of the woods here. And I have, I'm one of five siblings, so I have an older sister and older brother and two younger twin sisters. And I think you know, I, I'm the only runner in the family and I always tease people about that cause every family needs one of us crazy endurance athletes or renters. And kind of interestingly, I got into running when I was about nine or 10 years old because basketball was my first love and big sport at the time. And I remember telling my dad, we used to go vacation up in the purchasers and I really want to improve my speed and my vertical jump for basketball.
Now I'm not the tallest person, but man, I could jump jump like a kangaroo. And when I was like a young kid, I was like, okay, I want to be even better. So I, I forget how I came up with the idea. I think I saw it in a movie and I was like, dad, I need to get ankle weights and strap them to my, my feet and then I can run up and down the mountain when we go on vacation. And most parents would tell you you're crazy, you know, and especially to a nine or 10 year old, I wanted to do this and my dad was like, sure, no problem and I'll follow you in the car. So I would do this two two mile loop around the mountain with ankle Wade strapped my feet and my dad would follow me in the car and took his day.
He still takes credit of not just the genetics as an athlete, but that he's strapped ankle weights on my feet and I'll tell you, that worked excellent. I got good at basketball. It helped my overall fitness and just as a young kid to take that initiative, now that I think about it, I'm like, wow, what kind of nine year old wants to be like, yeah, I want to go run two miles up the mountain with ankle weights on my feet. Especially nowadays, it's like, no, I'll probably just play video games or hang out with my friends. Right. But yeah, so that really led into, I really started to get serious about running in my high school career. I was still playing basketball and then I needed a sport to do in the fall. So I first played soccer and then spring ran track and the track coach was like, Hey, congratulations, you're going to run year round.
And I'm sure a lot of runners have probably been through that and they were a Multisport athlete and I was like, wait, you mean like run for fun? Like distance and what the hell? And you know, just like most runners, I fell in love with it. And it was really at that time I learned, unlike most sports where it's like you fight for playing time or you fight for to be on a team. This was the first sport I was part of. Not only if you weren't as good, you got more playing time. So to say that it really had a direct correlation to the hard work that you put in, you get out. And I was always a really hard worker and I was, you know, went on to captain, all of my teams in high school as well as ran in college and grad school. So that was really the base of running. And then fast forward, you know, till about a year and a half ago when I found running high, I started getting into ultra running, which is ironic because I remember in college reading runner's world and having your senior buddy Dean carne ASAs on the cover of a magazine. And I'm like, man, this guy's nuts. Why would anybody want to do that?
And I think at the time I had just run my first marathon and I was probably 18 years old and ran the, ran the Boston marathon just for fun and for training. And I was like, gosh, sounds terrible. Why would I be? And at the time I was so, so it's funny how life, you know, he kind of point you in certain directions and I'm very grateful. I found you guys and ultra running for a lot of reasons, but that's kind of a brief background to my story there.
Yeah, right. That, that, that sort of, I can't believe you did a marathon at 18 years old. Okay. You have definitely got a nutty gene and yet that's definitely come out of late. So, and then last couple of years, so I think it was like two and a half years ago. Then you had a really bad accident that you were currently in training. Can you check, go into a, into the story a little bit?
Yeah. So I've told myself after college, but after college I'm like, gosh, I'm never going to run a marathon ever again. I'll just be a weekend warrior and have fun doing some five K's and half marathons and stuff. And then it all kind of ebbs and flows. So I eventually recapped marathon and thought it'd be a great idea to sign up again for a marathon. So I signed up for the bend, Oregon marathon, and that was right around my birthday, which was in April. So I was pretty excited and I was like, I'm getting started training for it and started really get back into running shape because I went for about a year or two where, you know, my career took precedence over. I was still running but not, you know, training as much as I should be. And you know, those rest days would turn into week long rest days and stuff instead of hitting the gym when he should be.
So I was snowboarding in February and I went off a mogul and landed really hard. It was super ICL. I'll never forget it was presence day weekend. It was a Monday, which was our holiday and I didn't realize at the time, but when I fell back on my back, I'm a mogul. I could barely get up and couldn't move my right leg at all. So I got, went to the mountain doctor in ER, and then when I got home, went to the ER and it turns out I broke my back. And of course, like a typical runner, I don't know. I said, you know, I just want to know, well doc, how, how long is my recovery time? Cause I have a race in nine weeks. So if my marathon was nine weeks away and he looked at me like, you don't understand, you probably won't be walking right through about a year or two and you'll, you might not ever run again.
Wow. And my response to the list, I remember kind of just looking at them and go, well what if I dropped to the half marathon marathon? And the doctor just looked at me like I had two heads and says, that's not going to happen. And so I left the doctor that day and I was like, no, that's going to happen. I'm, I'm going to that race compromise. I'll do a half, but I'll be there. So I went and got a second opinion. Of course that doctor kind of said something similar and that I decided to take it into my own hands and say, no, I can heal myself. I'll do lots of stretching, lots of rehab for my back. Lots of exercises and a lot of mindsets. So I started to look into alternative therapies and it's kind of like if you want different results, you have to do something extra ordinary.
I heard about this book called self-mastery through conscious autosuggestion by you know, it's from the 1920s lease and it was this author, a meal, a meal QA, and basically it's just all the power of your mind and the power of belief and saying every day in every way I'm getting better and better. And I listened to that book. I got the audio version at the time religiously for like two hours at night when I went to bed and two hours in the morning. And I did that for weeks between the rehab that I was doing, just stretching, strength training and as well as constantly feeding that belief system and my mind through that book, I was able to not just be walking back to normal, but the pain was totally gone and I was, we're not to run that half-marathon nine weeks after hurting my back.
Granted it was the slowest half marathon I had ever run in my life. But it was also the most fun cause I was just so grateful to be running. And and there was also a lot of fun for me cause it was made me be really grateful for the running and my body that I always kind of took for granted. And my running career up to that point was always just about trying to hit PRS, you know? So this was really eyeopening just to be grateful to my slow time. Yeah. Was a PR for someone else and just to be able to be out there and to have something. I love that. I've been doing my pretty much my whole life be kind of almost ripped away.
You Beck was damaged or wasn't so your spinal cord was obviously intact or like your, your right knee looking properly.
I broke my sacrum and my L L four and L five and so those just leading all the way, it felt like all the way from my buttocks up through my, my lower back. So that was
A lot of rehab as well as the mindset stuff. So you are really focused on both of those aspects for that nine weeks to get back to that.
Sure, yeah. Yeah. And and now, you know, I still take that as a priority. I'd never go to my chiropractor regular really to keep taking care of that back and I'm fully heal now and you know, thankfully. But really that also taught me that,
Yeah, you, you really believe that. I mean, and I, and I certainly believe this too. And that's funny that that book that you mentioned, self mastering, what does it, self-mastery,
Yeah. Conscious auto suggestion or auto suggestion through self-mastery, through conscious autosuggestion science, say that self-mastery through conscious auto suggestion.
Now this is really important because this was written in the 1920s, and like the science is now catching up to what was then probably very woo and not, not validated, but it was obviously a great book already. And now science is really validating. Like wait was Dr. Joe Spencer and Bruce Lipton, who I talk about constantly on the show, talking about the power of what you believe and what you put in your head. It's not just you know, you, you, when you are, you're willing something to happen and you actually influence yourselves and your, your body to heal itself. And I do think that this is a very, and this is not an easy thing to do, it's not like, well, I've just decided today to believe in this. It's going to have to really reprogram that subconscious mind, don't you? And this has helped you like moving forward from this where you like, you're really interpersonal development. It's like you're always reading everything.
Yeah. I'm even rereading your book right now. Yeah. We're running hot, which is a great one. I would recommend that to anyone listening. So,
And we're re-publishing that guys soon. So running hot does Stacey you know, I are editing a whole lot through that book and re re what do you call it? You're republishing it. Putting out a second edition, hopefully in time for the release of my other book, relate those which comes out in March as well. So bit of a plug there for myself. So what chapter? That one, but next to the personal development. It's really, really so important that you do the work before you need it. You actually, you've got the tools when you, when you hit a crisis side.
Yeah. And you know, great example that we still, I was thinking of it recently and I just encountered right before we got on the call, I was talking about this woman I met at my, I just finished my first a hundred miler as you know, and thanks to your Neil's awesome coaching through running hot and you know, I could talk for hours about that. And yeah. And cause woman that was at my race, she was pacing a friend of mine who was an adaptive athlete visually impaired. And it was my first encounter with her and I got to see her again this weekend and she was like, man, you're so positive. And the whole time. I remember at one point you were, we're sitting around the campfire, I wasn't sitting by, just came in quick, said hi and then went back out cause it was a loop course and she goes, man, you look like you were, you could be asleep walking up, but you're still smiling and you are still, Nope, I gotta just keep moving forward and that, you know, and I, she asked me if I'm always like that and I'm like, yeah, generally I am, but you know, I take a lot of deliberate practice to work on my mindset.
I'm constantly reading books. I'm constantly listening to podcasts such as yours. I remember the start of that race, someone was complaining about the weather, you know, it was 30 degrees Fahrenheit and then it got down to like 26 degrees
Fahrenheit zero here. Yup.
Yeah. At all. I just remember thinking, well I got to get, get away from this guy because they're not going to last. You can't go into a race like that with that kind of mindset. And sure enough, that person only lasted for about five hours in a 30 hour race because you can't look at it.
You got to surround yourself with people who are positive and who believe that you can get there and, and, and avoid like the plague. Like anybody who's going to tell you you can't do something or it's all complain about everything, every five minutes because that is going to set all of your energy. So you had the, the, the way it was all at that race to go, I'm going to remove myself from here to keep myself. And it's protecting yourself, you know, that's protecting your mindset. And we need to all do this. And our daily lives protect their mindset from people who will run us through a nice size, who are negative, who tell us we can't do things like the doctor who said that you won't, you know, you know, you'd probably run it run again and you certainly won't. You're running a marathon, you know, a half marathon and I'm weak.
So, so this, and this is what I've noticed with you is you have, I mean, you and I both do a hell of a lot of personal development stuff. We find a bitter out stuff. In fact, I think I'm a development junkie. But I, I still have a ways to go I think in comparison to you as far as the positivity that you bring on an absolute daily basis. Yeah. A couple of months ago, VIN was doing I think 400 monitor at the malt 100 mile race over the now I want, because this is a rice that didn't go according to plan and you'd spend a freaking long time gone hard out training, sacrificing a hell of a lot to be at this race. Can you walk us through that, that race in what happened?
Sure. How you approach that. Yeah, that was exciting and I was, I was super pumped for that race. That was my first a hundred mile attempt. And going into that, you know, I'd run a handful of 50 milers and 50 Ks and I'm still a very much newbie ultra runner. But thanks to you and, and Neil, I got on that starting line. My fitness was on pointed, my mindset was on point, but it was a lease as you know, it was one of the hottest days of the year and about a decade here, back home. So in Vermont, the average temperature including in the morning and at night was about 98 degrees Fahrenheit, which I don't know the conversion of Celsius on your end, but then it got up to 115 degrees during the day. And again, and you know, and I was like, I trained for that. I, you know, based on your recommendations and made sure I trained in the sun and the heat and my family was there, so I was really excited and I was fundraising for Vermont adaptive.
So I was pumped. I got bib number seven through fundraising, which is my lucky number. So I was like, approach that starting line. And I, I always make a joke, I'm like, the hardest part of a race is over once you show up for the starting line. Right. And on the hardware people. Some people look at me like I'm crazy and some people laugh, but the race is supposed to be fun for me. As long as you're like, you put in all the hard work and if you can wake up and not hit that snooze button and you know, some of these ultras start at like weird hours and once you get rid of all that pre-race anxiety, it's like boom, okay, let's go. And it was so hot that day. I experienced something I would never even expect to be a race, obstacle size, starting at really bad trench foot just from sweating into my shoes so much.
And I changed my socks multiple times. I changed my shoes. You know, I put all the stuff that you're supposed to put on your feet, but it was just so hot. And I remember I got to mile 50 which was the first point I saw my family and my mom's a nurse and going into the race, I told them, Hey guys, make sure, just no matter what, tell me to keep going and you're doing great. So no negativity and my family's not negative, so I didn't have to tell them, but they're also the type. If I was like, Oh, I'm a little tired, they'd be like, Oh, we're proud. Yeah, you can sit down. Like, so I, I got to mile 50, and at that point that had been the furthest I'd ever run. And I felt great and I was holding back a lot cause it was really hot.
But I knew my, my foot was getting aggravated. So I took my shoe off and I knew I needed to bandage up my foot and my mom's face just went white. She just looks, cause my foot looks so bad from the trench foot. And she was such a good sport. She didn't say anything and she was like, sweetie, I'm so proud of you and what do you want to eat? And she just, but I could tell by the look on her face as a mom and a nurse, she was like, Oh gosh. So my family bandaged me up. I had a little snack and I kept going. And you know, I felt great. The fitness was still there and everyone was like, Hey, it's your first hundred milers, especially on this course. If you could still run at mile 70 you're in good shape.
Very good shape. So I got to mile 70 and I still had plenty of time for cutoffs and I was like, yeah, okay, let's see if I could still run comfortably and I could. But then the next two miles it went downhill at parts where it should have been runnable at least that was basically the mile. Before that I was like, okay, I can still run like a nine 30 mile. Which honestly I wasn't doing the whole race but I can still comfortably run that pace. Then my gate got so messed up from the trench foot and my shin got so swollen like a golf ball that I then limped a mile that should've been runnable in about 25 minutes and then the next mile took me about 34 minutes. This last one can grow, which, which is so frustrating cause all I could think was like, wow, you spent all this time and I, you know, I spent all year training and just visualizing the finish line of that race. And I started to do the math in my head. I go, okay, worst case scenario, if I just lived for the rest of the race in 25 minutes per mile or 30 minutes per mile. And that put me farther than the cutoff, which was like, you know, I did the runner math in my head, which normally I can't do math. But then it became all of a sudden you're like a math genius and you're like, that puts me out like 35 hours in 12 seconds, you know?
And I remember dropping out and I told one of the volunteers and he said, man, but you still got, you've got plenty of time for the cutoffs. And I go, well that last two miles basically took me an hour. And he was like, Oh yeah. And I knew at that point it just, and if there wasn't a time cut off me, I probably would've kept calling. But I just knew I had eventually would miss some of those cutoffs. So that was hard. But I was still very proud of myself cause that was the further side ever go and run.
And this is the, the the thing that got me about that story cause I mean any, you know, things can go wrong in, in a race and yes you could have carried on and just got to the the time limit and then, and then being shut down by the rice people organizers and there was a hell of a fallout on that race. So many, many people didn't finish that race would normally fell. And there's always reasons and there's always things that can happen and we can't, we cannot control all the variables. What we can control is the preparation we do, which you had done, you're done the work, done the mindset sit stuff you've done, the visualization and the it should happen. Basically you got through, what was it, 88 mile 81 or something. And then you hit, you had to pull it out of the rice.
Yeah. So most people that I've worked with that would have just st them into the doldrums, like they would have been hitting the net carb once they actually got over the pain and the physical thing then comes in the a I find out I didn't make it. I sit this huge goal and the disappointment is huge cause you, you've given your heart and soul and all the time that you could have been spending with your friends and your family and or has gone to nothing apparently nothing. But you and I know that they, it's not the case with you. And I was expecting like we've got a couple of days later we go to on the, on the phone or on the, on the call and I was expecting to have to give you a really good pit talk. Call me pulling you out of the doldrums.
A nice coach. Yeah.
But how I did it late too, I was like, you got on the plane. Yeah, this happened. That happened. But I was still great and it was all SEM and I, and I was just like, Holy hell
Yeah. You know, and I think I described it when people are like, then how's the race? And I made it to mile 72 that day and I go, Oh my gosh, it was such an Epic day. And even though I didn't hit my goal, I knew like I know going in that race for next year, like my fitness was there and I felt awesome and you know, base thanks to our training program and just mindset was there. And then I understood it and I kind of laughed a little cause I'm like, Oh, this is why all these ultra runners describe the races and like, Oh, I've had this many starts and this many finishes. And I was just laughing about just, you meet all these interesting people during the day that you're just cheering on and supporting and you might run with some people for half a mile or you might just pass them at an aid station or, you know, I shared with some, even some folks like 10 or 15 miles or even more throughout the course of the day.
And it was just so emotional, like taking your whole lifetime of emotions and compressing those into one day, like all the ups and downs in the laughs and you know, and the friendships in the family. And so I think that's why I came out of it really positively. Cause I even though didn't hit my mileage goal to the finish, I still had all these awesome experiences and and a lot of us failed and we failed hard, you know, and it's like I left it all out there and really happy. It's not like I was, I finished, but like half, you know, you hadn't given it a go. They didn't give him my all. I'd definitely give them my all. And I definitely was you know, out there when I, I remember coming to the decision to stop. And I, at first I was like, Aw man, I is, cause I'm not like that.
I'm not a quitter at all. But I was like, Nope, I'm good with this. I made it this and, and, and that's hard to do. You know, he's, and I was huge and the next day I took it as a sign, as the proper decision cause we were in line for lunch and I met this nice woman who had had trench foot and like kept pushing through it. And to this day she says she still has like nerve damage from it. And I just took that as a sign from like a higher being, you know? Yeah. Ava and you made the right decision so you can still come back stronger.
You know, though, we gotta think about this like we're not, we're not in a war and we don't need to do permanent damage to ourselves. If we, if you were a soldier and you got three to four, you had to carry on in any option, you'll never die. We have the luxury of not being in a silly situation like that. And it's your question like Dave. And so there is no point in an ultra marathon in my opinion now as a mature person to depend on a damage and I've done permanent damage to my body. It's like paying the price or not pulling out when it should have pulled out of races and so are really convenient with like, you know, it's not about being lazy, it's not about giving yourself excuses to pull out. It's about really when it's time to pull out.
And I'll tell the story from a friend of mine, Mecca who he and I were in the New Zealand thing together and we're doing 24 hour ricing and we were over in England and we worked so hard, both of us for eight years to qualify as being the national team to go with me for our champs and stuff and the Commonwealth games. And we were over in England and we were racing in two hours into the run. His leg broke like wrist fracture and a broke and he was trying to run with a broken leg, you know, because this is how strong you Monte can get to a point where you can nearly like and he actually had to be dragged off like kicking and screaming. He was not taking off and we had to really calm him down and he was so badly disappointed and he, we'd make the next five years in, in knocked it out of the ballpark and at the age of 50 was 55 when he did his best time ever of 217 Kaizen in 24 hours.
Wow. He came back, you know what I mean? But the thing is he was, he was going to be running in doing real massive damage. You know, you shouldn't [inaudible]. And so the moral of the story is yet, remember this is a sport and that we don't have to do, this is not a life on the line and we shouldn't be pushing fit degree. Now when you did do this and you worked through this in your mind and you keep yourself positive, so a lot of people lose their confidence and then they're down on themselves and then everything starts to spiral downwards. And of course you've, you've absolutely naked your body. Like you've used a hole or reserves cause you've just run 72 miles. We're emotionally in a, in a, in a whirlwind anyway cause your body's naked and with you, I just didn't see any of that. I've never not seen that. I've usually seen people go down and really depressed and then it might take two weeks or it might take a year for people to sort of come back out of it. And you like, right. I remember saying to you it was the next week or something that you were like, right, we'll find another race.
What's up? And I'm going, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Just let you better come up close and, and, and, and so on. You're like, I haven't done with thing. I want. Oh, another one. Yeah. You did some other rices. The theme just was last weekend. It was the weekend before.
Yeah, two, two weeks ago, it seems like months ago.
Did you go to us and say, right, I'm gonna do 30 hour rice and I want to hit a hundred mama. Yeah. She wanted that a hundred Mahler. And this is, so this was a course that went around around, so you pick up the story of the event.
Yeah. So this was exciting. So I was excited for this one. It was again, local, this was in New Hampshire and they call it the hamster wheel race, but race directors were awesome and I was looking at different ones to pick out and I, you know, to your point, importantly, I did take my much needed rest days. I took almost like that month off and I think I have the mindset after the Vermont, I made sure I signed up for another race, but I made sure I took those rest days and caught up with friends and family and enjoyed social time and just enjoyed, you know, going to the movies. And I think that really helps you rebound too from what I went through in Vermont, at least from me because it gives you something else to look forward to. And then I also knew, I was like, okay, I don't need to go out and crush it this week cause I, I know I'm resting cause I had this other big challenge coming up. But I was excited about New Hampshire cause it was a much more runnable course and remodel, you know, obviously a lot of pills and I, I do not like power hiking. These, I am like the worst power Hager, which I've been trying to work on as an [inaudible].
So I was like, yes, I'm going to go. And the weather temperature was totally the opposite of Vermont. So that was exciting. I went out this race fell feeling really good all day. I was probably like leading the race up until about mile 70 and thanks to your great advice coach you said, you know, careful the cold weather can just suck the life out of you. Man. Did it ever, especially the New Hampshire called and, but again, going back to my mindset, people are like, Oh my gosh, it's so cold. And this one had a very high dropout rate because of the cold. But instead of focusing on how cold it was, I was just running and I had just got like a, a new cheap jacket and some new gear from Amazon essentials and instead of focusing on how cold it was, I was just like, Oh man, this gear's great. I'm so glad. You know,
It's hard to get a ton of gear and have everything I own.
Yeah. I was like, I gotta send that Jeff Bizo as a thank you now cause this stuff is keeping me warm, you know, so, so it was really picking out those things. And you know, I went through the first 50 miles way too quick. I think I went through and about, but I felt good. I went through about eight 40 paces and I had some friends yelling at me like slow down, slow down. And I was teasing them. I go, you're not the boss of me. Like let me run my race. And sure enough, my second half of the race was much slower, but I just told myself, Nope, just keep going. It doesn't matter how fast you go. And I remember when it got made in my body tightened up really bad and really started to slow down and I always say like I, I have a quote from, it's from you, from one of your podcasts. And I, I remember telling myself, Hey, it's okay to be the tractor and not the Ferrari as, as long as I'm just moving forward one step at a time. And that, that definitely got me through with my time at that race. And then once the sun came back out, it was almost like gives you a second life and you have a little breakfast snack or something pushing through that night.
There's a couple of points I wanted to bring out the so you pet your, you're still new to the, out to running game on us. So pacing is is still something that you are learning and it's, it's really hard to know like when you're feeling really great and you've done 50 miles and you're still feeling great but your pace is actually, you know, is too high, then you are going to pay the price and you can't imagine it and feel it until you've done maybe half a dozen races. And the me guy, I know, I know what's coming at more lady, so I'm gonna really take it, consumed it. And of course your tendency at the beginning, and I still did this, I just told a is to want to, I'll just get as much behind me as I possibly can and then if the wheels fall off, you know, but you actually causing the wheels to fall off, you know, but it's a, it's a really fine balancing it because even just naturally over the day you start to lose energy like we all do just in daily life. So your, your thoughts are get the most done as fast as possible in the first six hours. When it's more about the consistency and the planning of the, of the speed that you're going in. And then when it comes to cold, absolutely called I written told is way harder than heat to deal with for me personally, at least
I think it is for me too. Yeah.
Yeah. Cole just takes you will to live because
I'll take the suntan.
Yeah, it's the suction dry and makes you want to stop just moving and you just want to go to sleep. And that's, that's something that's really, really hard. So we had another couple of athletes doing a 24 hour rides here around one of the lakes here and it was freezing cold, not quite as cold as you, but was cold. And when you've been running all day, you have no glycogen left in your body and basically you're living on fat fuel and protein. Hopefully not breaking down too much muscle of your own muscle, but usually you are. So you've got no glycogens. They actually heat the body. All your reserves are gone. So even when it's hot, you can be freezing and shaking. So when it's really cold, you can be very Simic very, very quickly in a net sets. And we'll do that. So what happened then? You got through the night and then the does some, when the sunrise comes up, isn't it like a new Brie reborn?
Oh yeah. And I kept telling myself to the food 0.2 weeks like what you and Neil have taught me. I just made sure I knew because it was cold or my body was burning more calories and I could tell I was much hungrier than, you know, you would be in the heat. And I just kept being like, it's okay, just keep snacking, keep snacking, keep eating, you know, follow my nutrition plan. And I had my nutrition plan laid out, but I was also supplementing that with a lot of aid station food and like real food and soups and stuff. And then I remember the last loop before the sun came up and I was almost falling asleep, like, like running, falling over. And, and I just remember going, Nope, just keep going. And my family had gone home and gone to the the hotel and I, I remember just saw myself, no, you're here to do work, just keep going. And once the daylight comes and we'll be back in the afternoon and you get to see them. So it's like I just told myself, keep going. It doesn't matter how fast keep eating and one foot in front of the other. And that really got me through and then I just kept being like thankful for packing the proper gear in the cold because I was like, Oh man, this is as people. Some people were running by me and, and like singlets and I'm like, how do you aren't a single it right.
But yeah, it was,
Yeah, you got to the a hundred mile.
Yeah, I was pace most of the day for like, you know, at least 120 miles and I made it to the a hundred mile Mark and I still have time left in the race director said, Hey Ben, you got to keep growing. And I felt good up until I got kind of like a second wind at mile 88 and was running strong again. And but then around mile mighty six was a struggle. I think just mentally I knew I was hitting my hundred mile goal goal cause I had one minute to go and I knew it was going to happen and even if I crawled for the next four miles. So once I got to that hundred mile Mark I was like, no, I'm, I'm happy with that. Cause that was
What was the goal that was, and this is an interesting point, what do you mean you put in your head is your goal. You will stop it there. So even if you like you could have carried on because you had time to carry on and go over. But in your mind you would actually sit a sit lemon of a hundred and even though, like you'd said, talked about possibly going on and doing maybe 110 or something like that, when you have that backup, go back to come to Priceline. So you have to be really, really careful about what you do as your, as your affects goal because that will be where you get to and not appealing more sort of like,
And you're rightly say it absolutely was. My baseline goal was that a hundred mile and my big, I always try and set a big scary goal too. So my big scary goal was like, you know, 120 miles. But then I, my baseline was a hundred miles. But if I, if I had a baseline of a hundred K I would've stopped at a hundred K absolutely. Cause it was so cold and you're just like, but I told myself, Nope, I would, I'm here to do this and just keep it going. And I'm, I'm getting that a hundred miles ago and obviously I didn't have any serious health things like in Vermont. So I was able to continue and I felt good and honestly at points you feel you got to expect, you're going to feel like crap at multiple points in the race and not like a serious injury like your friend that broke his leg.
But just knowing that you're like, Oh wow, I'm out of energy. I feel like crap. And once you're, I kind of expect it. I can recognize it, internalize it and then realize that it's going to get better. And that's really important for me because then when it does happen, I tell myself like for mile 70 to like 88 was when I say a struggle bus, Lisa, it was like a complete, but I told myself, I was like, yeah, I came to run this race until the wheels fell off and I was there to, you know, I had been training all year as you know, and I was like, yep, I expected the wheels to fall off so I expected this. So just keep going.
You had prepared yourself so well and you'd sit, this next goal was a hundred mile. You wanted to join the a hundred miler club and I have to congratulate you because you know after, after that that problem that the mold that you experienced, it would be very easy to go, well, I'm not going to do anything for an exciting months. Yeah, maybe never come back again because I failed. And I know one of these sort of things that go through his mind and they're all legitimate. But the thing is, you had the resilience to get back up and just, just, what was it? I don't know, eight weeks later I would do another one was probably a little bit short for my liking or, you know, as a turn around time and I would, you know, you were ready for it. And, and I think you, you illustrate so many points that are so important then that's resilience.
That's what have you set your goal out to be. That's what it becomes. You just, you learn a lot about pacing. You learn in the first race in Vermont, you learned a lot about, you know, the shit can happen regarding, you know, and you've gotta think like people, even like people are like thinking S's have races where they fail it and don't make it. You know, every ultra marathon runner has times when things go pier shade. I mean I've definitely hit enough of those. And then never, not cause you're heartbroken because you've just speak, you know, I was doing a rice in the, it wasn't even a rice, it was expedition. I know Himalayan is trying to do the world's highest marathon ever recorded a world record. And I'd spent a year and a half in preparing and I'm not good at our student. I'm not good in the cold.
It's not my forte. I'm bitter and desserts. But I was with a guy who was a Mountaineer and done neighbor us and stuff and we were on entree and I get up there and after a year and a half or preparation, you know, over $50,000 of money raised from crows, the prime minister on African documentary, you know, like every, it was really big deal. And I get altitude sickness and I couldn't even start like the heartbreak and the disappointment. And this was getting towards the end of my career anyway. And it was just like freaking out, you know? And it ran off the crap out of me. But I had a couple of really good friends and my husband Haisley who just with a to pick up the pieces and it's really important that you have those people that they can channel. Come on, you've got this, we've got you. And we've got yet to blow you to pieces. When you sit big here he goes and then you fail at them. What I want you to understand is hurts, but you are someone who's pushing the limits. You're an ambitious person that's reaching for the stars and you cannot control all the variables.
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