When The Goggins Videos No Longer Work
My ACTUAL Worst Run Ever
For the last 4 months, I’ve struggled to find the motivation to run consistently.
What happens when the Goggins videos no longer cut it?
When a jacked-up Ex-Navy Seal screaming at you, calling you a bitch, no longer gets you fired up to run through walls. Am I broken?
My Worst Run Ever not only bludgeoned me physically but it also stole my mojo.
In February, I DNF’d at Tarawera 100 mile. It happened fast, and it hit like a tonne of bricks.
I had listened to the Goggins. I had all the mantras. I had my cookie jar🍪.
“Stay in the fight.”
“I CAN. I WILL. I MUST”
Unfortunately, I didn’t stay in the fight. All my cookies tasted like sh💩t, and I didn't feel I must continue.
I ran into the 102KM transition exactly where I wanted to be. When I had envisioned my race, I was at the pointy end of my splits. I felt pretty good and ready to push into the unknown.
It was tough to get running again from the lakefront to Te Puia. I did a lot of walk, jog shuffling to get the legs firing again, but at this pace, I was still going to finish well under the 24-hour goal.
When I arrived at Te Puia aid station, I used the portaloo - right at the end of my whaz, I got an intense burning sensation, and my pee was slightly discoloured —nothing to worry about. I’ve experienced this before and have listened to enough running podcasts that I didn’t panic, as it was likely just ‘runners bladder’.
Pacer in tow, we set off on the mission - roughly 50 km and all night and day to do it. I went from moving okay to barely moving in what felt like minutes.
When we reached the top of the climb out of Te Puia, I realised my quads were starting to seize. There hadn’t been much downhill in the race, but because of a hip injury in training, I had avoided a lot of downhill as this flared the hip.
We slowly worked our way down the climb and found a rhythm between hiking and putting in some solid run, jog shuffles. Josh was being super patient with me. I kept needing to stop to pee, and it was getting worse. Because it was getting dark, it was hard to see the colour.
The darkness set in, and my mindset started to crumble. The last thing my wife Brooke said to me was,
“I don’t care if you hurt yourself, just don’t muck around if it’s an organ thing.”
This rang around in my head like a backyard ultra - is this just bad runners bladder … or is this the start of Rhabdo?
We limped into the Puarenga aid station. I had pretty much checked out at this stage. I didn't want to take the risk if there was a 5% chance this was serious. The medic was under the pump. I sat on a chair waiting to be seen for well over 40 minutes.
We had time, but the longer I waited, the more I resigned myself to my fate. He got all my details, got the back story, and then gave me a cup and told me to pee in it when I could.
Eventually, I hobbled over to the portaloo, but I had been sitting by a gas fire. Even though it was Feb, there was a chill in the air. My body went into a bit of shock, and I started shaking uncontrollably. I could barely pee in the cup. I was shaking that badly.
I made it back to my pacer Josh. He took one look at it and said,
“Bro, you’re done. “
The medic took a look, then looked up at me, then jumped straight on the phone to base camp. And that was that. I emptied my pack, chucked on my thermals and jacket, and waited for a pickup.
What do I think went wrong? I think I pushed too hard for where my body was at. I just had not done enough running to handle what I was asking it to do. It’s not technically a tough course, it’s so runnable - but it is still 165 km.
Unfortunately, leading in, I had a hip injury that put me out for 7 weeks from November to just before Christmas.
My son Ziggy was born on the 2nd of December, which made recovery and further training interesting. I had all the motivation and inspiration I needed - unfortunately, I didn’t have the conditioning required to achieve what I wanted.
I think that’s what got me in the end. My body wasn’t conditioned to do that much running. It took a beating, and my muscles and feet broke down. Was it the start of Rhabdo? Without getting a test, it’s hard to know. The doctor at base camp wasn’t too worried as my vitals appeared fine.
Maybe I could have fought through it and finished. The physical pain was more of an annoyance than anything. Heading into the remote part of the course with the Rhabdo cloud hanging over me just wasn’t something I was prepared to do.
Suddenly being a tough Ultra runner no longer mattered. Family comes first. It’s just a race. No amount of Goggins videos will change that, and after 4 months, I’m okay with that.
But of course, a mentally weak softy who quit with only 43 km to go would find any way to justify not getting the job done😜🙈