Rusty Coons wrote on 02/17/18 at 20:44:52:
Atollman wrote on 02/17/18 at 08:08:08:
There is powerful psychology around 'sunk cost'. If you are far enough down the river before your body says "I quit!", your brain will overrule it. The key to any ultra-marathon is to get far enough for the sunk cost to outweigh the remaining distance BEFORE your body wants to give up. This doesn't mean burn yourself out the first day, it means train hard enough to get to the 60% mark before your body rebels. Do at least 1 training run that is 30% of your expected finishing time and many that are 15%. That will get your back, butt, and core used to hours of paddling. If you can do 30% in training, you'll be able to double that in the race. Then rely on sunk cost and grit to get you home..
I agree with a lot of this. I think Jeff City is the spot to get to and then consider it to be all downhill from there. If you are not sick, injured, or in a boat so inefficient that you are barely in front of the reaper you should be able to make it from there.
I really have to agree with Brad on pushing a practice run to 60% being far too long. Most paddlers are going to be over 65 hrs and a single 32hr training run will probably wipe them out for the year. That is a very tough paddle to use as a training run.
Rusty Coons
Boat 3737
I didn't say do a training run of 60% of your projected finishing time, I said 30%. If you do a 30% training run, you will take your body and mind to a place you won't get to doing shorter runs. You will discover problems that don't surface in short runs, and you'll know if your nutrition plans are going to work. And you'll bank some confidence to draw on during the race. You might feel burned out after that 30% run. Maybe when you finish, you'll decide to drop out of the MR340. Give that feeling a day or two to fade, realize that you've paddled way further than you've ever paddled before, and apply the lessons learned.