"The problem is choice".....well, you're almost right..

“..IF A PERSON GAVE AWAY YOUR BODY TO A PASSERBY YOU’D BE FURIOUS, YET YOU HAND OVER YOUR MIND TO ANYONE THAT COMES ALONG SO THAT THEY MAY ABUSE YOU, LEAVING YOUR TROUBLED AND DISTURBED - HAVE YOU NO SHAME IN THAT….” - EPICTETUS

I remember vividly the exact moment when the booming voice of Jocko Willink came thundering from the clouds above, drove itself like a bolt of lightening launched by Zeus himself, deep into my cranium - his words filling every corner of my fatigued and frozen brain pan. The problem was simple and as with so many simple problems, the solution was just as eloquent.

I was dragging a sled on the frozen Peel River, heading into Inuvik. I had been racing non stop for over 120 hours, five days, battered by katabatic winds, plummeting temperatures and crippling sleep deprivation. But Inuvik was a shining light - the second last checkpoint in a 614km race, the only checkpoint that was indoors with a functioning shower no less. It would be my one and only shower in what would be almost 200 consecutive hours of exposure to the Arctic elements. The problem was this - I thought I was getting close, really close, this stage was 120km long, over 30 hours of grinding through ice and snow since the last checkpoint, and as the I saw the race photographers’ car approach I knew that it could only be a measly couple few kilometres away. Weronika, an Inuvik local, slowed as she drove past and I asked her the one question I shouldn’t have,

“How far to the checkpoint?”

“Ten kilometres.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, as my heart sunk through my feet and the frozen ice and finally settled into the silt at the bottom of the Peel River. Are you sure? Like she might be wrong, because she lives here…and covers this land over and over. And had an odometer in her car, you know, like she had no idea about her own backyard.

Ten kilometres doesn’t sound like much, but when you’ve been dragging that damn sled for almost 450km already and ten kilometres means hours of more work, not minutes, when you are desperate to stop and sleep, if only for an hour, a glorious hour, then ten kilometres may as well be fifty.

That’s when Jocko arrived. If you haven’t heard Jockos’ voice imagine Charlton Heston and Sam Elliot had a love child, and that child grew up on a strict diet of whiskey, Fred Flintstone sized tomahawk steaks and the tears of vanquished foes. You get the drift.

“You know what I do when I have a task or job that I hate and am desperate to avoid……I do it harder”

Truth delivered like a hammer blow on the anvil of my self pity, he rapidly departed. And I realised that I had a choice.

Do the kilometres and complain, trudging along like the weight of the world had arrived to personally ruin my day. Or…I could laugh and slap those ten kilometres so hard they wouldn’t wake up until next week. (which ironically sounded great, sleeping for a week that is, not so much the slap..) So I took a moment, breathed, stretched and then started power walking like a crazed Olympian on the home stretch, without fear of disqualification if the odd step looks a bit more like a jog than a walk. Oddly enough the fatigue lifted just slightly, the sun seemed a little warmer and as I marched and chased down those last kilometres to the checkpoint I found myself in a good mood. That mood would serve me well long after that moment had passed, it was really a mental turning point for me, although I didn’t know it at the time.

A few days ago I was on the 9fiveadventures podcast chatting about the importance of mental training. It was in the context of mountaineering and ultra-running but it rapidly became evident that we were talking about a tool kit that is available 24/7 - so why do so many of us not use it?

So what am I talking about? Mental training for racing - let’s start there.

The good news - you can develop mental discipline (and resilience) without needing to attend an expensive course, without travelling to Thengboche high in the Himalayas to sit with the monks in robes and deep contemplation. You don’t even need a new kit of exercise gear (sorry Lululemon). You need two things - a mirror and honesty. The mirror can be as cheap as you like but the honesty must be of a very particular brand, a special blend if you will. It must be brutal, unrelenting, unwavering and eyeball searing. David Goggins talks about the ‘accountability mirror’ and I love the concept, but in reality you just need a tool that allows you to be called on your BS. Looking yourself in the eye in a mirror every single day will work wonders, I’ve found looking into your kids eyes will do exactly the same thing if you’re brave enough. They see straight through you, every time.

The process looks like this - figure out what you need to do. A kind of ‘find the problem, fix the problem’. In my case I looked at my unsuccessful attempt at the 6633 Arctic Ultra in 2017 and was brutally honest about the parts where the wheels fell off. This is a race that runs 24 hours a day for over a week, and the nights were a torment for me that year. Bone chillingly cold, -30C to -40C, total exposure, seemingly never ending dark, the slow and relentless crawl of the kilometres ticking by, your entire world reduced to the circumference of the circle of light feebly thrown out by your ice-encrusted head torch. We fought, they won, through efficient and ruthless attrition. So job one - make nights your happy place.

The second issue was the discipline to ‘do the right thing’ regardless of how you might feel about the whole deal. Case in point, in 2017 I didn’t eat anywhere near enough food during the race. I knew that was a poor decision but lethargy and laziness and degree of difficulty won over. So you get tired, so you get slow, so you can’t afford to stop and sleep because you’re too slow, so you don’t sleep, so you make poor choices like not being bothered to stop and eat, so you get tired, so you get slow…you get the drift.

Training for my 2019 attempt - there would be no quarter. That meant we trained at night - a lot. Tire drags, sled drags, rucks, runs. And I’m not talking about we get up early and get some work done and then see the sun rise as we come home, no, no, no. We have a full day and then, when the kids are in bed and wife has a cup of tea and is settled in watching whatever season of The Bachelor we are up to now (what version are we up to? seriously, like this season we have the second cousins of all past failed contestants and they are in a desert and can only develop a relationship thru the art of mime? Which would elevate the conversation, let’s be honest…ok rant over, sorry) Anyway, where was I…yep, everyone at home is sorted, it’s probably nine pm, let’s go. And we head out, and work into the little hours - 3 or 4am. Get home and yep a shower would be nice, but instead, roll out the bivvy and sleep in the paddock (just not the one with the cows) for a few hours then come inside in time for breakfast with the kids. Through repeated behaviour those dark hours became my friend, a place that I had decided to be comfortable, even happy, in. I would head back to that race and stare those dark and dreaded nights in the eye, and smile.

The moral of the story was you just had to do it. Don’t discuss it, don’t run through alternatives in your head, don’t consider deals about how much you will do tomorrow instead. Just do what needs to be done. You know what you should do, so do it.

Cool story but…what if I don’t think like that? What if I don’t have ‘that’ in me? What if that’s not ‘me’. Go to the mirror, look yourself in the eye and honestly ask yourself…why not? At it’s very core it is simply a decision to do. Nothing more. And the do doesn’t have to be go run 50km in the bush overnight, it might be get up and go to that gym class, or go for that walk, or get that task that you’ve been avoiding forever finally done. Call yourself out on your own BS. BUT then tell yourself what happens next - you are going to do. You will execute. Then, tomorrow, look yourself in the mirror and acknowledge that you did just that. Tick. Don’t celebrate with a day off that then becomes two days, or a week. Don’t hit the fridge to celebrate. You didn’t bring peace to the Middle East, you just did what you needed to. Good job, now go do it again.

And guess what happens - next time it gets a little easier. Not a lot but a little. So you do it again, and again and then it’s just like compound interest. Value on value on value.

“To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” - Henry David Thoreau

In my mind it is no different to physical training - you have to put in the work. There are no short cuts or side deals. But just like physical training - it carries over into everything you do. Everything. You train to run a 5km or a half marathon or whatever - that fitness doesn’t just show up when it’s time to train or on race day, you are fitter 24/7, chasing the kids is a little easier, climbing the stairs is easier, working hard all day is a little easier. The benefits are inescapable. Mental training is no different.

But just like physical training - the reverse is also true - the opportunity to hijack that training is everywhere. In some ways the opportunities to derail your mental training are even more present as those thoughts are on and live every waking second. The donuts and the couch and cheeky snack are often less prevalent - but your inner dialogue is a non-stop show.

So - now you get the picture on how I solved the first problem, that mental discipline to crack the physical and psychological barrier that was racing in the Arctic nights. So how did I solve the second problem - the fortitude to make that right decision and act every time regardless of how I felt. It’s one thing to make the right call when you’re home training, and comfort is not far away and whilst you might be tired or sore, it’s not epic in scale. How the hell do I make sure I retain that same degree of discipline under extreme circumstances? The problem here is that when you’re racing as I was, or under immense pressure, or stressed to your eyeballs, the emotions take over, the fatigue takes charge - you feel like you are no longer in control. Then we have a new problem.

“the problem is choice” - Neo

Well, almost - the problem isn’t so much choice, as our ability to consciously make a choice. When the blood is pumping, or the mind is clouded or the emotions are raging, the ability of conscious choice is swiftly stolen from us and literally biochemistry chooses for you. That decision you made in anger and regret, the poor choice for lunch, the emotional lash out at your loved ones that you see fly out of your mouth and wish you could grasp with both hands and furiously stuff back in. That’s your emotions driving the bus. So how do we take back control? Here’s a hint;

“The body whispers before it screams. If you can learn to listen to the whispers you can save yourself a lot of screaming. “ - Proverb.

It’s an excellent question - let’s talk about how we deal with that part next time. :)

(nb - pic credits @weronikamurray, except for the last one :) )