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For me the ultra runners mindset and the training of that mental edge are the most important aspects not only in our sport, but in life. In case of motivation, we can talk about the never giving up attitude, the doing of things that we don't like, the cold showers in the morning, the meditation and so on. But motivation is just a little part of drive. It is just a minuscule section of will. It can fade away, while the goals and objectives and obligations stay. I love motivation. However creating a habit of mental fortitude, imprinting the action of acting correctly when there is no motivation, controlling and using emotions to fuel and empower you, are all more crucial for the feeling of success. For the feeling of self satisfaction. Training Mental Fortitude The question is how to train mental fortitude. Also why to train it. There is the very first step. The most crucial step. The most important step. LOOKING FOR and FINDING YOUR PERSONAL WHY. If you do not have a major goal, a m

Here are the corrected paragraphs with orthographic and linguistic mistakes addressed: The only thing If you want to succeed without all the distractions, without all the unnecessary headaches, without the help of a coach, you must understand training methodology and physiology, at least a little. Progressive overload, rest, relax, repair, then repeat. Periodization Base training and specificity Tapering Volume, frequency, intensity This is how we ended our last article. Progressive Overload This is going to be the cornerstone of your development. There will be tough times, coming out from injury, sickness, having financial issues, getting hard periods at work, family problems. These seasons might take up even 1 or 2 years or more. You never know. Periodization and planning are out the window. You don't have plans, you don't have race goals at all, you don't have major objectives as you focus on your life. Training is part of it, but your focus is on the totality of your be

 The only thing If you want to succeed without all the distractions, without all the unnecessary headaches, without the help of a coach, you must understand training methodology and physiology, at least a little. Progressive overload, rest, relax, repair, then repeat.  Periodization Base training and specificity Tapering Volume, frequency, intensity This is how we ended our last article Periodization This is the godsend for athletes. The understanding of this is what creates champions. Not the 500 Euro VO2max test and a 15,000 Euro bike, not using the best energy gels, wearing the shiniest compression kit, or having the most up-to-date expensive carbon-plated shoe. There is tons of literature out there. One of the deepest and most comprehensive, and in my view, the best research is Tudor Bompa: Periodization - Theory and methodology of training. If you had one book to learn how to train, this is the only one you need! Then you personalize and develop from there. Periodization is the

I listened to a conversion and watched unfolding an act of a girl yesterday. I gave a couple of thoughts to her, but of course, she did not listen. I don't mean listen, like follow my advice, but listen like think about what I am saying. She has a new watch and she wanted to enter her interval training session to be able to follow it hands free. She had the habit of a certain platform, but on her new watch it seemed like complicated. After 40 minutes sitting front of her phone pushing the screen and trying hard, she finished by saying, well I am just gonna follow somebody who is around my strength, my speed. Well that is actually one of the best ways to improve and to better yourself. Not advisable for every training session, but still, having somebody who is just one or 2 seconds stronger than you in intervals, can really pull up your speed and your abilities. Another story. In my old club I had a guy, a genetically superior athlete. Firs of all, as a kid, after 3 month of trainin

Due to migration, mixing and matching in-between genetics and races, environmental changes during the lifetime of generations, we humans are not pure anymore. This is good and bad in the meantime. We can adapt to all sorts of dietary strategies, circumstances and localities. However, it is extremely hard to figure out, what is the perfect diet for us, to bring out our best physiology and human functioning.   Unless you live in a pristine environment and follow the way of your long living ancestors in case of food, like growing your own, eating it fresh, go hunting, drinking quality flowing, "living" water and so on, you can make sure, that you need supplements to complete your metabolic profile. Macro supplements  There are nutritional supplements adding in extra "food", like macro-nutrients. The sort of body building type of supplements. Protein, creatine, amino acids, bulking sugars like maltodextrine and vitargo, coconut powder, vegan hemp pro and so on. Don'

Specificity  That is one key to ultra endurance success. You cannot have two full cups. This is true in many cases of the human physiology. You cannot be a good fat burner and a good sugar burner in the meantime. You cannot be fast and powerful in the meantime. You cannot be extremely endurant and speedy in the meantime. There is a metabolic equilibrium, power to weight ratio equilibrium and time investment. If you want to be fast, we talk about speed. Speed is neuro-muscular. Nerves, neurons, nervous system, nerve tunnels, nerve endings, need time to recover. Unless you give them the necessary intervals, they won't fire as needed. Muscle firing, muscle recruitment will be out of control. Watch how sprinters train before an event. A big and efficacious warming up of 45 to 75 minutes, 6 x 75meters with 8 minutes of recovery, 20min cool off, merry Christmas. Then eat a lot, Sleep 2.5 hours in the afternoon and train again. That is easy to see and understand. Often when athletes come

Sustain Ultra running training itself should be low effort. It should feel like easy. It is easy. Why don't everybody do it ? Because it needs time to develop that easy skill. You look at some quality runners and they run only 3 times a week, giving you 5 hours in a 100km race. Why ? Because they have been exposing their body and mind to long events for over a decade or even more. Ultra running training is hard, when you compare your current results, your current reputation, your current place in the world of short course racing, then you apply it to the long events. This is when people start killing themselves in training, thinking that it can last. Thinking that they can apply the same utilities of short course racing to ultra running. It can happen that you have early successes, maybe even for 5 or 10 years. Then we see runners totally disappearing from running or even sports. However, my goal in teaching and on a personal level is not to disappear. The goal is longevity. We do

The human's dilemma. Time. The ultra distance athlete's dilemma also. The first thing is mastering your body, your mind, your emotions. Most of us don't get this yet, but once your attitude, your emotions, your behavior, your breathing are under control, you already save tremendous amount of time. This happens simply by expending less energy. Less emotional energy, less brain energy, less breaths, less heart rates.  EMOTIONS Don't think of emotions as something like a weakness, something like softness. Do not associate emotions with "being emotional". Emotions are intelligence. Emotions and feelings are energy and this energy can be either harnessed or wasted. If you have read books or listened to podcasts with Wim Hof, with Shi Heng Yi, Daniel Goleman and other thinkers, even Jordan Peterson and Tony Robbins, you would see how they are also believers and exploiters of Human Emotion. Emotions unfortunately also are controllers. Controllers of human biochemistr

In my old blog of boundless runner I expanded multiple times on the importance of being connected to the self. Without this, mastery is not possible. Actually I don’t think that mastery it-self should be the goal and I don’t dive too much into the question of “how could I be a perfect master of my art”. The goal simply is bettering myself daily. Expanding my abilities. That is mental, physical and emotional. Everyday, I just want to be one degree better. This is my goal. A better father, a better husband, being better at cleaning my apartment and keeping my stuff in order, working better, behaving better, being more understanding, less forgetting, more forgiving and so on. Once I am on a path like this, time will be freed up and I can turn towards my passion, but now with better concentration, better focus, better understanding, due to my regular daily actions.         When you take care of your family and your home, your bills, you go out to have some alone time, do a little bit of sp