The Tao of the 20-miler

The last long run is a rehearsal for the real thing.

Countdown to Catamount: With less than two weeks until the Catamount 50K, the newsletter is getting deep into the weeds on training and race prep. This week’s post is about the last long training run, and what it took to get there. 

It was the day before my 20-miler and I was tense and nervous. Couldn’t relax.

I was thinking about how my ankle would respond after taking several days off following a fall. I was thinking about how my knees and hips would respond after taking most of May off while I worked through those issues. Mostly, I was thinking about how I would respond, given that this has been the most eventful and uneven training cycle I’ve ever experienced. 

Back in March, I made the decision to hire a coach. It was the first time that I allowed anyone else to set the training terms and conditions since I ran cross country in high school, but I had a lot of faith in Avery Collins, an elite ultrarunner with years of experience and knowledge. 

The highs had been impossibly high. There were monster breakthroughs and solid evidence of real training adaptations that had eluded me for years. Yet, the lows were awfully low: injuries, self doubt, and frustration. To put it another way, I’ve spent as much time not running the last few weeks as I have putting in the miles. That’s a lot of extra time to think.

After much consideration, it seems likely that both my improvements and setbacks are correlated in some form or fashion. Perhaps if I hadn’t ventured out of my comfort zone, much of this could have been avoided. But I think that’s the wrong way to look at it.  

There’s a good chance I would have wound up injured even if I didn’t hire a coach. I already had hip issues when we started working together, and it’s not as if my injuries were new. They were the result of pre-existing conditions related to alignment, strength imbalance, and stability. 

There’s also nothing anyone can do about taking a tumble and bashing my ankle on a rock. That was on me. Whatever happened in training from an injury standpoint was going to happen, whether I pushed myself or not. 

I would also argue that in order to reach my potential, which was the whole point of hiring a coach, a certain amount of growing pains were inevitable. Over the last few months under Avery’s tutelage, I’ve taken a completely different approach to training. That meant breaking longstanding habits and patterns, while relearning essential fundamentals like effort and pacing. 

Of course there would be breakdowns, both physical and mental, when you take seven years of training and start over from scratch. This is only the beginning of that process, nowhere near the end. When training for endurance events, keeping the long view in mind is critical. There will always be setbacks. It’s the response that matters in the end. 

I’ve reminded myself many times over the last few months that there can be no progress without a challenge, and that this was the course of action I willingly chose for myself. Before working with Avery, my running had grown stale and stagnant. The gains with Avery have been undeniable. I’m a better runner than I was before. I’m smarter, stronger, more efficient, and faster. 

Anyway, I was thinking about all of this while lying prone on a table as my massage therapist went to work. I’ve been seeing Ammon for years and he knows my body better than I do. He’s been part miracle worker/part confidante ever since he got me back on my feet after my back went out several years ago.  

Ideally, Ammon would have been working through various knots and tension points following the 20-miler, but the run was delayed by several days while I dealt with a severely bruised ankle. Given that I would be doing the run the morning after our session, we decided to focus on alignment as much as release. 

My time with Ammon is as much mental therapy as it is physical, so when I asked him whether he thought I’d be up for knocking out the 20, I was expecting a general vote of confidence with some understandable equivocations. Instead, he surprised me with a direct answer. 

“I think that this is what you do, Paul Flannery, and this is who you are,” he said. “You have a lot of knowledge in that body that you’ve earned over time.” 

I had never thought about it like that. For the first time in weeks, I felt a great sense of clarity and confidence that I carried with me to the trail the following morning. 

There’s nothing magical about running 20 miles. It’s just a big round number. I’ve seen training plans that call for 18.6 (30 KM) to be the final long run, and others that stretch it out to 22 miles. For whatever reason, 20 miles is usually the last long run before a race of marathon distance or greater. 

It’s a chance to test yourself physically and tune up your approach with what amounts to a race-day dress rehearsal. No matter what your training plan calls for, this is the big one. The last long run before the taper. Nail it, and you can go into your race feeling confident. Struggle, and it’s a long two weeks until race day. 

I’ve run 20 miles several times over the years, but I’ve never really felt good about it afterward. This was the first time that I set out for this kind of distance with an actual strategy instead of merely trying to survive. The plan, as Avery laid out, was to do the first five miles easy, with the next five a bit harder. Then return to the easier effort for miles 11-15, before knocking out a pair of hill repeats at tempo effort for the final five. 

Those hills are ski hills, by the way. They go straight up for about a quarter mile with roughly 300 feet of climbing or descending, depending on which end of the hill you’re facing. I take no pleasure in reporting that, nor do I say it to make myself sound tougher than I am. Truth be told, I was terrified about pulling this off. 

To combat my anxiety, I focused on controlling the things I could control. Namely: hydration, food, gear, and navigation.

The goal was to take in 200-300 calories per hour. That breaks down to one Muir Energy gel every hour, plus two 20 oz bottles of Infinit hydration mix that would be consumed over 3-4 hours. I didn’t want to carry that much at one time, so I turned my car into an aid station and stashed the second water bottle along with extra gels in the trunk.

For gear, I went with my tried and true racing kit: a pair of shorts, plus an old singlet that just seems to get the job done. I was starting early, so I packed arm sleeves for the chillier morning hours, topped off with my favorite running hat and sunglasses. Nothing fancy. Minimal as possible. 

As for navigation, I had run these trails hundreds of times. I knew every turn and how much distance I needed to cover within each loop. I plotted out my course in the days beforehand so I wouldn’t need to make decisions out in the woods. All I had to do was run 20 miles. 

People often ask me what I think about when I’m running and the answer varies depending on the run. Sometimes, I let my mind wander and get lost in whatever thought process happens to arise. Dissociation can be a powerful ally during training, but a run like this requires an associative approach. 

I wanted to be tuned into how my body was feeling, much like I would during a race. Maintaining a consistent level of focus over several hours when you’re fatigued demands some kind of framework so that it doesn’t become overwhelming. You can’t just go out at one pace and hope to hold on for as long as possible. Trust me, I’ve tried. It ends badly. 

That’s where the Three C’s come into play: composure, confidence, compete. 

Composure: Block out external stimuli, don’t get caught up in the distance, one step at a time. Take care of the things that need taking care of so they don’t become bigger problems. Early on in the run I noticed that one of my shoes was tied too tight. Rather than let it linger, I addressed the issue right away and never thought about it again. When things start to feel overwhelming, simply say the word to yourself: Composure. 

Confidence: The first part of the run is over and the initial angst is gone. There’s no room for negative thoughts or distractions. They are not only irrelevant, they’re harmful. Whenever the run gets difficult, say the word, ‘confidence’ to yourself, and do it with a smile. You can -- and will -- do this.

Compete: It can be tempting to shift into this mode too early, but you want to save it for when you truly need it. In this case, knowing those final hill repeats were on my agenda helped keep the horses at bay until it was time to let them out of the barn. When I got to the top of that hill after three hours of running and the temperature rising, I knew it was time to compete. 

Knowing those hills were waiting for me helped keep my composure.

Once the hills were done, I picked up the trail at its widest point and began to consider everything that had brought me to this moment. When I was injured and at my lowest emotional ebb, all I wanted was to be able to find a way to make it to the starting line of the Catamount in one piece knowing that I had put in the work. To get to that place of contentment, I knew that I needed to run the 20-miler. 

I thought about all the people who helped me get to this point. My coach, Avery, who crafted a plan that pushed my limits and showed me a new way to train. My massage therapist, Ammon, who worked with my body and gave me confidence that it had more to give. My family, who provided endless amounts of emotional support and most importantly, time to work for my goals because they knew how much they meant to me. 

I thought about all of you who have read this newsletter and encouraged me along the way. Your belief in what I’m trying to accomplish and interest in what I’m trying to say means more to me than I can properly express. 

My heart swelled with gratitude as I finished with an easy mile back on flat ground. I ran past hikers and families setting up picnics as my watch beeped the time -- 9:30 -- the fastest split of the day. None of them knew what I had done and I doubt any of them would have cared. But I did.

This is who I am, and this is what I do.

(Ed note: I’m calling for a rest day this Friday, but Running, Probably will be back next Tuesday with a post about mental prep. All of next week’s content will be made available to everyone in the days leading up to the Catamount 50K on June 27. Thanks for all your support.)