When Everything Should Have Gone Wrong ... But Didn't

So here's a strange thing. I had a great race at USA Marathon MTB National Championships in Arkadelphia, AR. I was supposed to be racing the TMBRA Big Ring Challenge in Coldspring, TX until it got cancelled last week so the decision to race Marathon Nationals came too late to do any distance-specific training. I'm already into my cx training program and I didn't really want to disrupt it too much. So I just did it for fun and an endurance fitness check-in. 50+ miles. 4000ft of climbing. My finish time of 4:39:23 was way better than the 5 hours or more I expected it might take.

Here are a few of my takeaways from the race:

Honesty: I made a race plan that recognized my TRUE training fitness not my HOPED training fitness that I might have mentally created if I'd been training specifically for this race distance.

Do what works for me: I adapted lessons from real life experiences of similar races and used what works for me. So I took my Ironman 70.3 (5.5-6hr races) nutrition, hydration and race day prep plan and adapted it, rather than trying to extend my cross-country MTB routine (1.5hr races) to a 5 hour race.

Ignore what everyone else is doing: They had trained, practiced and periodized for this race. I hadn't. What they were doing had no relevance to me.

Race my race, not their race: I put zero pressure on myself related to where I placed in my category. Sure, there were racers that I mentally had ideas of where I 'should' finish compared to them and I used them as motivation during the race but it wasn't part of my race approach. I can't affect how they race their races - only my own.

Leverage strengths, minimize weaknesses: Success was to complete the race in as fast a time as possible for ME. I'm a good climber and a strong finisher. I needed to maximize those aspects even in the longer race, while making sure I could attack sections where I often lose time (downhill fast sections). So I used my nutrition to give me extra focus and concentration on those downhill sections and relied on overall effort management and hydration to make sure I wasn't burned out, dehydrated or lacking electrolytes in the final quarter of the race. I found myself smiling on the last climbs (the infamous jeep trail) as I powered past plenty of fading racers although none turned out to be in my age group. I love that sensation of being relentless at the end of a race - having others looking over their shoulder and seeing me closing in fast. The race doesn't finish until the finish line. It's just as good to be fast at the end as fast at the start.