The mindset to keep going
Shannon Mick is a returning guest. She was hear back in Episode 63 talking about her FKT that she calls “To Hell and Back.” She ran an out and back to a place called Hell’s Hollow. She encountered a cougar in the dark a few miles from her finish.
Shannon started running in 2010 as her husband inspired her to start running when they started dating. He was already a marathon runner, and once they started dating they discovered ultramarathons. She started ultramarathon running after they were married. It took her a few years to make the typical mistakes of the novice ultramarathon runner. For example, she had a stress fracture in her foot from overuse. She did plenty of research and ran her first 50-mile race in 2016.
Her first 100 mile race did not go well. The organization was poor. Some of the aid stations ran out of water, and the little food they had was left in the sun for hours and either melted or spoiled.
In her recent challenge, the Oil Creek 100, she faced tough conditions. There was rain before the race, and it was raining at the 5am start. The trails were slick with mud and had places with water standing on the trail. Because of the tough conditions there was a 69% drop rate, people who decided to call it quits.
Shannon did her best to cope with the weather. She had layers, a winter jacket, and a North Face waterproof jacket. But she still came close to hypothermia when the temperature dropped in the night. The cold was a challenge to her mindset as well as the places where mud and water were almost knee-deep.
It was a tough road for her. What helped her was that she found a partner who was going at her pace so they were joking around and motivating each other. Shannon commented that she’s never dropped out of a race before. Her running partner said he hadn’t either. They decided they would keep going until they missed the cutoff and were pulled from the race.
Shannon says it’s good to have someone help pull you through when running an ultramarathon. The conversation and shared suffering gives you the mental distraction to keep going. She also prepares her mental strategies for every race. She breaks the race up into sections and focuses on each as she comes to it. Ultramarathon runners refer to this as “running the mile you’re in.” If you start thinking about how far you have to go it saps your mental energy. She also uses positive self-talk. You need to be like your own cheerleader giving yourself encouragement and support.
All of her running adventures opened doors for her to provide mental coaching for athletes, and she also counsels people in Mental Health. Just as she works with mindset coaching she also works with people who struggle with anxiety, trauma and eating disorders. She says she believes that gives her a big advantage over other mindset coaches because she has that counseling experience.
And she does a lot of mindfulness with athletes and teaches them strategies and breathing techniques so they can connect better with their body and they can transfer that to racing. She gives her clients mental strategies that they can use at home but also that they can transfer to their careers.
Shannon has index cards ,and every time she thinks of something helpful that she knows works as a mindset tool she writes it on an index card. She uses these strategies for herself in her life and in running. So when she coaches athletes and ultra runners, she knows that she’s giving them solid strategies. Just like she trains her body for nutrition or hydration during her runs, in the same way she practices what she tells herself and what she thinks too.
Bridge questions:
What is your must-have gear? Her phone.
Weirdest thing she saw running: a toolbox and an axe.
Word or phrase that sums up her life philosophy: ”Finish stronger”.
[…] My friend, Eric Deeter, invited me back onto his podcast to have a conversation about all sorts of things, from what to do of you encounter a cougar to the advantages of swearing. What a fun episode! […]