How Stress is Negatively Impacting Your Workouts

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

On New Year’s Day of 2022, I began an ultra race called Tuscobia in Northern Wisconsin. I was “only” signed up for the 80 mile distance, but the full race is a 160 mile out and back event. Temperatures were projected to be low all day, with a high temperature of only 2 degrees Fahrenheit. I wasn’t totally prepared for the cold conditions, and I wasn’t mentally ready to take on such an event. I was tired from a year of training and racing. I was in the middle of starting a new job for a poorly-run, chaotic tech company. I was mentally stressed and physically exhausted. Twenty miles in, my shirt was frozen to my wrists and my neck. I started shivering, and I didn’t have the emotionally bandwidth to problem solve. I was on the precipice of crying when my parents picked me up, turning up the heat in their SUV to thaw my frozen limbs.

I didn’t feel bad that I dropped out, but I did feel a bit regretful of starting. I had over-subscribed myself that fall/winter, and even into spring. I was racing too much, not sleeping enough, and living with constant job-related stress. I was burnt out, even if I didn’t like to admit it. But training for and running ultra marathons requires a great deal of physical and mental endurance, and the stress I was under was limiting my ability to endure.