All about the ultramarathon

This week was spent mostly resting up before the ultra. TBH I felt like it was almost too much rest, and I suspect I am right.

I felt like eating dry mashed potatoes was difficult so I thought of hitting two birds with one stone and tried making some potato soup to hit my carb and hydration goals. Honestly I'm happy for having this recipe because it's an excellent soup I intend to make more often. It's kind of the highlight of this week if I am being honest.

Potato Soup

Ingredients:

1. 1 kg of washed, boiled and peelee potatoes cut into quarters

2. 2 medium sized onions diced according to your preference

3. 1 small garlic bulb, peeled, and diced according to your preference

4. Salt to your preference I used 1.5 tablespoons since it's a lot of potatoes.

5. Pepper to your preference I used 2 tablespoons because I wanted it peppery.

6. Dried Shiitake Mushrooms as many as you like. I used one handful.

7. Kashmiri chilli powder for color.

8. Ghee and Oil as per your preference.

9. Optional spices and herbs. You can experiment with your preferences.

Boil the dried shiitake mushrooms to make a flavorful stock.

Take half of the boiled potatoes and blend them with the mushroom stock to make a potato puree.

Fry up the diced onions and garlic until it smells good.

Add the remaining boiled potatoes, mushroom stock, rehydrated mushroom and potato puree into a crock pot.

Add salt, pepper and any other spices as per your preferences, taste to adjust.

Just let it simmer for a bit.

It's a pretty hearty and thick soup, you will make enough for 3 people to enjoy.

Ultrafail

Unfortunately this story doesn't have a happy ending. But I will be sharing my failures so that someone else won't be making these mistakes.

1. Do not compromise on good quality sleep. I was supposed to wake up at 2:30 am because it was the optimal eating window. This meant setting an alarm, and as such I had sleep anxiety. I didn't get as much good rest as I needed and it affected my performance.

2. Stretching your muscles is necessary and i didn't do it enough. I did some basic stretches, but I didn't strech my calves enough and i paid for it in the 5km mark. My muscles felt lethargic and it was a mistake.

3. I lost the mental game. I made the mistake of asking someone which round they were on. For context the race was a series of 4 rounds 12.5 kms long. I was on round 2 and I felt like I was lagging and I asked people around me which round they were on. These were the people who were faster and as such I got psyched out, as soon as that happened I had lost.

4. Invest in better shoes, your ankles will thank you.

I am personally very disappointed with my unsuccessful attempt at an ultra after DNFing at 33/50 kms.

In a previous post i had mentioned how running such long distances makes you confront or discover a few things about yourself. This time after hearing that a guy was on his last round while I was on my second I felt sorry that I was too slow, and I was bothering other people who were more serious or people who were volunteering their time to help people by supplying them with hydration salts. This thought led me to realise that I have a tendency of apologising for occupying space. I feel like I inconvenience people by just existing.

Obviously this is my depression speaking and it'll be something I'll spend time working on in therapist but it is food for thought because now I am wondering how many other times I shrank myself because of this.

My running shoes were not the right equipment for this ultra, my ankles were killing me 10 kilometres in and by 30 I could barely walk.

Before the run I had decided that even if I had to crawl on all fours I would still finish but because of the psychic damage I suffered and the physical till I did some calculations and realised that it would be better to abort this endeavor before I seriously injured my ankles.

When I was reading up online about ultramarathons and the mindset some people have to complete them I came across something called "post marathon blues" it was this idea that after deducting so much time to something for so long and finally finishing it, some people experience a kind of depression. Fortunately for me, I am wrestling with the garden variety depression and I would feel sad regardless.

Bright side

I think the silver lining is that I am grateful to be able to move my body and build up my stamina to at least run a little bit more than a half marathon. Especially after having a very small gas tank.

I am grateful that I found a hobby and I hope to meet more people and make friends.

Conclusion

"I want to burn brighter than the sun, if only for one moment. Until ashes remain."

Sometimes I think about this quote when I do something difficult. I am chasing an idea of self destructive perfection. I will finish 50K by the end of the year to prove to myself that I can, because I let someone else's pace influence my own. Building a more resilient mindset is a long term project, so I'll invest in it for a long time.

I think the next mountain I want to climb is getting a title belt in MMA. That'll be a fun ride.