Where Imagination Is Your Only Limit

A Look at Pain, Suffering and Success at One of the World’s Most Gruelling Races.
By Steve Hay

When I first signed up for the 2009 UltimateXC, a 56km trail run in the rolling hills of Mont Tremblant, Québec, I thought to myself “great…another long happy trail run.” Nothing could have been further from the truth. The race ended up being an utter, and complete slog from beginning to end and challenged me to reconsider how I view racing.

Taking part in adventure racing for the past ten years, I believed I was an athlete who had become accustomed to the pain and suffering that comes along with the sport. If I could get myself through a sleep-deprived, 1000km expedition race such as Primal Quest, then surely I would be able to handle a mere 56km “trail run.” With the race start and finish at the base of the Mont Tremblant ski village, the setting is serene, beautiful, and it lulls racers into a false sense of security. Being able to run a comfortable marathon in 3 hours, the UltimateXC should have taken me no longer than 5 hours to complete.

But, after crossing the finish line in over 9.5 hours I was humiliated, and defeated. After a couple of days of pouting, I vowed to return the following year to recover my pride. In order to do
so, I would have to learn to love pain and make it my best friend.

When 2010 rolled around, the UltimateXC itself had changed. Not only was there a 56km trail section, but it began with a 67km down-river paddle, and ended with an arduous 110km mountain bike ride. Now this was more like it. Long distance, hard conditions, and challenging terrain. Again, I believed that my race experience had prepared me for this type of race. After all, expedition adventure races were my thing. Wrong again.

Although I largely dominated the kayak section, I managed only 31km of the trail run before bowing out of the race after falling several times on my recently recovered fractured wrist. The pain in my hand was too much to handle the next days mountain bike ride. I would have to deal with those dreaded feelings that come from seeing DNF (did not finish) beside my name. It had no longer become a question of wanting to win, but merely finishing. Again, I was going to have to find a way to deal with pain. If I was going to defeat this race, I needed to focus all my energy on pain management.

The race director, Dan des Rosiers, put it in other terms for me “don’t be such a sissy.”

Dan is one of those special race directors. He doesn’t put the success of his race on the number of people entering but rather the number that finish. And, don’t intend on registering and participating as a tourist. He simply won’t allow you to enter and he requires a documented race CV just to get into the race. I had to squeeze every last bit of my race experience just to complete the 56km the first time, and rightfully so. In the 2011 race, it will become even more difficult as Dan intends on placing multiple time cut-offs for every stage of the race. You have to reach a certain point in the race by a certain time or you are out. This is a race director who understands the mechanics of pain, and how to get it out of his racers. He doesn’t just want you to suffer, he wants you to earn your pain.

In preparation for the 2011 race, I have begun to prepare myself by understanding pain, and how to push through it. I studied it, examined it, prodded it and refused to let it get the best of me.
It is human nature to treat pain as something to avoid. The pain that comes in a race is perceived with dread and fear by most racers. This is not really difficult to understand. Pain is unpleasant. Pain in long distance racing revolves around the supply of oxygen for energy production. The faster you go, the more energy you need. It takes oxygen to produce this energy. When your body cannot keep up with your demand for oxygen – aerobic energy production, it switches to anaerobic energy production which produces the byproduct lactic acid. When this happens, you better be close to the finish, because it won’t be long before you have to slow down. The pain in a race starts mild, goes to moderate, to severe and eventually reaches unendurable. The more you hold your pace while feeling severe and unendurable pain, the better you become at tolerating it for future races.

I knew that the 2011 UltimateXC would bring those predictable feelings. I was going to have to do more than just manage my suffering. I would have to change the way I thought about racing with pain. A great friend once told me 90% of racing is mental, and the other 10% is also mental. At first I thought his math was terrible. After careful consideration I realized that it is 100% mental. I concluded that I was too focused on pain and its inevitability rather than focusing on the reasons I was racing in the first place. I wanted to race. Period.

I started to visualize the race in its entirety. The first day greets all racers with a 67km down-river paddle. Okay, so that is not so bad in my head. How would I train? What was my strategy? The issue with the paddle is not so much the length, but the effect it will have on your body on the third day. For me, I have to go all out on the kayak. Holding back is simply not an option. I consider myself a strong paddler, but a weak runner. I would need to paddle fast and efficiently to gain time on the runners who will take it back the following day.

Dan just laughs at me and reminds me over and over again that the race is always won on the mountain bike. Before I even get to the mountain bike I will need to get through the 56km “trail run.”

There is nothing easy about the run section of the race. If you are not running through water, then you are climbing, or pushing through what hardly could be called a trail. I can see the coy little smile on Dan’s face as he explains to racers that the race really begins at the 34km mark. In 2009, when I reached this mark I realized that most of the elevation gain and loss was still to come. As if the first 34km didn’t have enough.

However, once you plod onward, and upward reaching the summit for the 4th time in the course, you realize it is all downhill and you finish running through the village of Mont Tremblant with spectators cheering on your weary soul. You have done it. Congrats. But wait, there is still the 110km mountain bike section to go on the third day. Okay Dan. It might be won on the mountain bike. However, it takes the right mental attitude at the end of the run just to get yourself to the start of the mountain bike section.

I had a chance to ride part of the mountain bike section of the race in early May 2010, a full two months before the race. Beginning at the lovely farmhouse of Patrick Lussier, we proceeded quickly into the mudladen, uphill start to the course. Ouch. It took about one hour to get through the first 5km. All of this pre-race training was done without the paddle or run on the previous days. Although I never got to ride the complete course in 2010, I saw the pure angst of racers who crossed the finish line and realized that it took everything they had to keep moving on the
bike. The paddle and run had caught up to them on this third and final day.The winner, Bob Miller, a long time successful adventure racer, was heard to comment several months after the
race that it took about eight weeks to recover mentally and physically from the UltimateXC.

The number one way to deal with what is going to eventually happen is to totally revamp your attitude and thinking concerning racing pain. At UltimateXC, you will experience it. Get over it. If
you want to race, the pain won’t matter. For me, I will sweat in practice so I don’t bleed in battle.

When I return to UltimateXC in 2011, it will be my mind that determines how I will accept the pain of this beast. And in the words of the race director who so completely understands the pain
that all the racers will be going through…“it’s all good.”

For those cranked up for this race consult www.ultimatexc.com for race details and registration. Good luck.