Mastery of Ultra Endurance

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 sport, a little bit of exploration, then you can be immersed in a different world. You don’t think anymore about stuff that you left behind, unsolved. However, you can think about issues that can rise up and you need to solve. You can think about nothing, empty your mind and keep pushing the physical or on the contrary, have just one or just a couple of simple ideas and build some extra understanding around them. Either ways, that time will be useful for overall development for the body, for the mind.

 

To keep it simple: Wash your clothes always in advance, so you can always have fresh ones. This way you don’t leave dirty ones behind, waiting for washing. They take up space, time, stink and impact your home, you, your being. Wash them, dry them, fold them and put them into your cupboard.

 

The training itself

 

Philosophy, metaphors, religion, mindfulness, understanding, mental fortitude. All are important. However, we often cannot arrive to simplicity and understanding of simplicity if we never knew complex. Often when simplicity is practiced without proceeding practice and knowledge of complexity, it simply is dumb. When you carve a statue, you don’t start with a little branch that is just slightly bigger than your desired shape. You start from a big block of wood. This way, you can mold your will slowly, expand your ideas and dial your movements on the way, till you arrive to that pure statue. Simply meaning, that you need some knowledge put into experience before your can simplify in case of ultra running and ultra endurance.

 

I have multiple years of light sports counseling behind me. At the beginning I had some athletes, I took on some groups, I wanted to engage on a journey of coaching and not be rich at all, but just live from it. However, slowly I let it die off, because I felt that it was robbing my own energy, killing my own passion, taking time away from my family. For the last couple of years, I have been answering emails freely, I have been making some videos, I have been writing articles and it is enough. I am looking for self improvement, but on another level than before. I cannot help others, before I cannot help myself. I can now, really. Talking, advising, giving hope. Not on a coaching level, but on a personal level. I try supporting every human around me. I really do. I do not try to help. I think that makes people weak and just like anti-biotics, it causes problems further down the line. Just like a child falling and a father won’t help him standing up, but kneels beside and talk to him about how to stand up, stop crying, breathe and let it go.

 

I have learnt a lot from this past 5 months – maybe 15 years - of period of sickness, overcoming it and taking time to reflect. I observe my body and all the little signs of my body. Everything. This is why I stopped using strava, a heart rate monitor and a gps watch. I am watching my breathing, I am watching my muscles. I keep an eye out for my mood and mind state. I feel my heart pounding. I feel and control how my foot falls. I am present and one part of my mind is totally in tuned with the motion.

 

I continue to do this during life too and not only training. This way, I can achieve multiple things. First of all, a 100% totally dialed in recovery. I know the time, when I can push again. I know when I can push hard multiple times in a row. I know, when my mood caused by hard training wants to impact my family and life. I know when fatigue wants to impact my work. I do not let it. This way, my recovery is not perturbed by any sort of stress ever.

 

Of course, you need a little knowledge on training. If you have never knew and never learnt about volume, intensity, technique, periodisation, planning, micro and macro cycles, Tudor Bompa and Joe Friel and so on, how would you know ? When you don’t know what to observe, how would you observe it ? In Runner’s World you read, take it easy after hard runs, do a recovery run, eat well → what information this is giving ? So yes, for simplicity, you need complexity before.

 

Don’t worry, we will get into the nitty gritty of details on how to tune into your body, how to train and how to achieve a focused state. It will come. However, the mind has to really be at the right place. I want that you really eliminate all unnecessary obstructions. All not needed tools and physical, material gunks around you. Eliminate distraction. Focus on attraction. Keep feelings that good for you closely, but habits poisoning you far away.

 

You don’t need to be a Buddhist practicing Zen and Buddhism to act like one. You don’t have to talk about it to anyone. Just help, solve problems, don’t do anything useless, don’t waste time, honor your body, honor your family, honor your home, don’t get attached to materials, don’t get slave of any habits and so on. Then you can start training, then you can add in new conducts, then you can absorb new matters.

 

From being a simple worker and getting fired up to do an Ironman and saying to a coach, that you have 10 hours from now on weekly to train is not the way to go. You need per-requisites in your head. 

 

 

DOROGI LEVENTE