BOSS, the ultimate cross-training, part 3 (mental)

It had been more than 24 hours since the 12 of us students, along with our three instructors, were dropped off that first night of the BOSS 7-Day Field Course on some road, under a clear and starry southern Utah sky. It was the end of Impact, the first phase of the course during which we had no food, except for whatever was found on the trail, and for which we began with one 1-liter bottle of water. Beyond that initial liter, we had to rely on water sources found along the way, including this pool of muddy water from a recent flash flood. Once properly treated, though, this water--fortified with clay minerals (!)--was quite drinkable. Just don't look. :)

It was probably around midnight, when we finally stopped at the end of what seemed like an endless uphill stretch of some (Bureau of Land Management?) road. A half second later, everyone was lying down, while the instructors went to check out the camp site off on one side of the road. All of us could have just gone to sleep right then and there, in the middle of ... no, actually, spread wide across the entire road. We were all deeply fatigued. And, yet, throughout that long day, we almost didn't feel the lack of food--which really goes to show how much the typical American overeats. I suppose, instead of the usual fast-energy burning cycle, we were all burning fat. (I'm currently experimenting with training the body to burn fat during long-distance running and will come back to this in a future post.) When we got to the camp site, there was tea with electrolyte waiting for us. It did wonders.

We were all totally exhausted but, at the same time, exhilarated, in a subdued way. We all had made it through an incredible adventure. All through that sunny first day of Impact, we were in the dark. We didn't know what was coming up next. It's as Christopher McDougall said, in a recent interview, "Adventure is ignorance. I live my life by stupidity." All 12 of us came to the BOSS course with sufficient physical fitness. Getting through Impact and getting through the course was mostly mental.

"The Marathon - It is 90 percent physical and 10 percent mental during training, but it is 90 percent mental and ten percent physical on race day." - Meb Keflezighi, the only runner to win the Boston Marathon (2014), New York City Marathon (2009), and an Olympic medal in the marathon (silver, 2004). Or, as Yogi Berra (RIP) might have said, “Running is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.”

There is physical fatigue during a race, of course; but, assuming the "90 percent physical" during training had gone well, the limiting fatigue during a race is mental. A dramatic illustration of the central nervous system apparently shutting the body down was what had happened to Brian Morrison at the 2006 Western States 100. Amby Burfoot's article in Runner's World, "Tim Noakes on fatigue, cowardice, winners and losers," reported on Tim Noakes' 2012 review paper in Frontiers in Physiology. In preparing for this post, I got so engrossed in Noakes' paper that I took a detour and wrote my own summary of his paper. One of the references that Noakes cited, Marcora et al. (2009), e.g., reported on a study that showed mental fatigue adversely affecting physical performance. In another study, Chambers et al. (2009) showed how rinsing the mouth with a carbohydrate solution without swallowing affected performance.

So, how does one train the brain to cope with discomfort in running? Or any endurance activity, such as fast hiking out of a canyon in southern Utah! By making that activity a priority in one's life; by making it part of one's daily routine, i.e., something one just does, without thinking about it; and by the same way one gets to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice--the correct way, of course! There are mental obstacles (negative thinking, too goal-oriented or too rigid goals, self-doubt, not internally focused). And, there are strategies for dealing with mental obstacles, e.g., Work Breakdown Structure and mantras. A great illustration of how to deal with a potential major mental crisis in a race is Scott Jurek's four-step checklist. My experience with the magic of mantras was at the 2014 Pocono Marathon (still my PR race), where "dumb it down!" apparently helped to lower my perception of fatigue. Mental training is as important--perhaps more so (?)--than physical training.

There were two times during the BOSS course when I had moments of doubt as to whether I could finish the week. The first was at the very beginning, during that first shivering night of Impact. I was not tired; we'd hiked in darkness only for a few miles, through terrain similar to what's seen in this photo (taken the next morning; my next-sage-brush neighbor, also my course "buddy," Matt, had also just gotten up).

I carried the minimal gear that was allowed for Impact, using the white, 4' x 4' "Versa" cloth. The latter, for the night, became both my ground cloth and cover. Lying there, I was initially just simply awed by the starriest night sky I'd ever seen. I didn't get a picture of it. But, here's a similar view of a night sky in southern Utah, from Natural Bridges National Monument, a view routinely seen by the ancestral Puebloans.

Then, as the night temperature steadily dropped, and the shivering bordered on being uncontrollable, those moments of doubt surfaced--though somewhat dispelled by a gorgeous moon that appeared later. The next morning, I found out that everyone had similarly been freezing through the night--though, some had figured out early the benefits of spooning. :) The stars were bright; the moon was brighter. Michael later recounted how he'd thought that bright moon was the sun, with warmth not far behind, only to disappointingly realize that it was the moon, with several more hours of shivering ahead! Humor: another strategy for dealing with mental obstacles!

The second time I had moments of doubt was towards the latter part of the week, shortly after my "solo" day began. Each of us was assigned to a piece of land, large enough to not see or hear the others, and left to do whatever each person wanted. I was collecting duff for my shelter (see photo), when, all of a sudden, I felt as I was glycogen depleted, a feeling very similar to hitting the marathon wall, generally around Mile 20. Fighting through those moments of doubt, nearing panic, I slowed down but continued to collect duff. Some minutes later, as suddenly as that depleted feeling arose, it disappeared. I still have no idea what had happened.

In both instances of doubt, I had to mentally push through the physical challenge. For that, I think my marathon training greatly helped. Btw, the solo night was also quite cold, even with shelter, duff, and blanket, but I found an effective way to generate heat periodically through the night--by doing reverse planks (one of my post-run core exercises), which requires only a small change from the sleep position.

There are other similarities in the mental aspects of a BOSS course and a marathon. There were 12 of us in the course, and the entire week was group oriented. Yet, even when together, each of us was separately dealing with challenges. In a marathon, there are many runners, hundreds to tens of thousands, but each is still alone in dealing with the discomfit of putting one foot in front of the other, especially towards the latter miles of the race. Just as, once the marathon begins, I have to trust my training, I also had to trust what I'd learned, once "solo" began.

The BOSS course was humbling. Yet, at the same time, it has given me more confidence towards future Mile 20's. I will have that week of BOSS mental cross-training to draw from.

A BOSS course and a marathon are journeys, both literal and metaphorical. In part 4 of this post, I'll touch on the spiritual journey of BOSS cross-training.