939. Race day: thoughts, drop bags, checklist and DNF’ing

So race day is here eh? 

May the odds forever be in your favor. 

I love race day for a lot of reasons: 

• because it’s a chance to see where we are at
• if our training is working
• An unforgettable experience 
• Completing a misogi 
• Adventure 
• A great time 
• Suffering and growth 
• Something to reflect on 

And so many more. 

We’re going to cover:

• Race day mentality 
• 8 thoughts about racing 
• What to bring on race weekend 
• A note on Drop Bags 
• DID NOT FINISH 

Race Day Mentality 

Race day isn’t about winning, to me anyway. 

Because winning is an external factor, something we have no control over. 

Something we do have control over? 

Our effort. 

And that’s the point of race day for me. To give my best effort. 

That doesn’t mean just on race day either, it’s giving my best effort training, planning, problem solving, preparing, communicating, educating myself, staying injury free, and eating the right foods, IN ADDITION TO race day. 

There’s a difference between someone who does that and someone who just rolls on up to the starting line with no training and gives it their best shot. 

The outcomes are going to be different 

And it’s not about the outcome, it’s about all the other benefits that we get by going through this journey of giving our absolute best, it’s a transformation. 

Are we really showing up on race day?

What about showing up in our everyday lives? 

Race day is about exceeding our own expectations, our own efforts – if that’s first place or last place, it makes no difference because we are measuring our success by the effort we gave. 

That’s something that we can control. 

9 Thoughts About Racing. 

1. Racing is giving it our absolute best shot, everything we have. That doesn’t mean running as fast as we can either.
2. A fun game to play: Run a race to “set the bar” and then next year try to beat your time 
3. Racing is good for the mind and to get our primal juices flowing. 
4. To get better at running races, run races. 
5. Too much too soon can lead to injury and burnout. That can take us out of the game for the long haul. A balance. Race regularly and go hard, but not too hard to where you’ve never been before. 
6. Accept reality. If you’re beat up, sore, or tired just use this race as a long run, or don’t even run if injured. We don’t want to exponentially grow a problem. 
7. Race hard or train hard, it’s hard to do both. 
8. Long runs make or break a race for you. Run long weekly. I followed the 10% rule with great success (only bumping weekly mileage up 10% each week, usually this was just increasing my long run). Training your nutrition, liquids, and salt intake during these long runs makes it a two-for-one. 
9. Podium winners rarely get there without pain. Racing hurts. 

What to bring for race weekend? 

• Race day clothes
  • Shorts
  • Underwear 
  • Socks 
  • Shirt 
  • Shoes 
  • Bottles 
  • Pack 
  • Extra’s of everything 

• Just in cases
  • Long sleeve
  • Rain jacket / poncho 
  • Wind breaker 
  • Hat / bandana 
  • Light source and batteries 
  • Gear specific (super cold or hot) 
  • sunscreen/bug spray 
  • map/ directions 

• Nutrition
  • Liquids (water, coconut water, protein shakes, etc) 
  • Supplements (tailwind, skratch, LMNT, etc) 
  • Food (the more real, the better) ((before during and after)) 

• Misc
  • Baby wipes 
  • First aid 
  • scissors/ knife 
  • Tape 
  • Vaseline/body glide 
  • Baby powder 
  • Blister kit (second skin) 
  • Batteries/chargers 
  • sleeping/ camping gear 
  • Camera 
  • Drop bags 

A note on Drop bags 

Rule number one: if it’s in the drop bag (or even with the crew) don’t expect to get it back. 

That means always carrying the things you’ll most likely need throughout the entire race. It may weigh more but when it comes down to DNF’ing or not, who cares? 

A lot is going on for race day and a lot of bags are getting moved around, out of every 1,000 bags maybe 1% get lost or stolen… 

That’s 10 bags…

What if it was yours? 

We can do things to make our bags stand out though, hopefully reducing the chance that our bag would be the one misplaced. 

The 101 on drop bags:

• Don’t use taped shoe boxes, plastic shopping bags, or paper bags. Use something like a duffel bag – zips up, durable, a tote if allowed. They have waterproof drop bags for ultra running nowadays too. 
• Tie a handkerchief or get some crazy colors for easy ID’ing, spray paint, or something… 
• Don’t overfill it, scrummaging through a bag is no fun. 

• Get a couple different sized duffel drop bags. 
• Put all your things that are inside the drop bag in plastic baggies to waterproof them
• Make sure your bag is easily ID’ed 
• Use a waterproof marker when writing your name and number on anything like a drop bag, shoes, or gear. (use a long strip of duct tape and loop it around the handle and fold it back over on itself applying sticky side to sticky side to write this critical info on, even which aid station you want the bag to go to.)
• Have your crew pick up your drop bag when leaving the aid station if allowed to try and avoid getting the gear back at the end of the race, imagine what that hassle could look like? Especially sleep deprivation.  

DNF’ing 

This stands for Did not Finish 

So when is it a good time not to finish? 

That’s going to be different for everyone, 

For me, there is only one real reason for a DNF: Missing a cut off 

Another legitimate reason would be due to injury, but it’s a double edge sword. 

If we break an ankle, yeah don’t finish. I don’t think it’d be worth it.

An elbow? We could probably get through. 

But if we roll an ankle and we’re ahead of the cut off by 3 hours 

Too many people will call it quits and that’s too early in my opinion. Hell I almost did this exact same thing. Thankfully the RD didn’t let me drop and gave me the confidence to get back out there and keep it moving.  

Why not just wait 2.5 hours and give it a shot? What is there to lose? After calming down, relaxing, moving a little bit – the injury may not have been as bad as we thought and we can keep it moving. 

Same thing if we’re super tired, just grab some z’s and keep it moving… 

If you can’t move fast enough, you’ll miss a cut off and get pulled out of the race anyway… 

Yamean? 

I appreciate your attention! 

Go get your miles, and crush it on race day! 

Peace!!!