Tuesday Feb 20, 2024

108. Acknowledge It and Move On | Don Reichelt

“I’m not a physically talented athlete but I’ve worked my ass off to become a mentally talented athlete.” says Don Reichelt, who despite starting at age 29 with very little running experience in his background, quickly established himself as a champion ultrarunner. One’s mindset, and willingness to outwork your competition, can be more important than physical ability, he explains, and ultrarunning rewards working smarter rather than harder.

Ultimately, though, the only person you are in competition with is yourself. Don discusses how he gauges his metrics, the importance of regular movement and various methods of passive conditioning. Most people overcomplicate nutrition, he and Dr. Fix agree, and explain what is most important to keep in mind (hint: it’s not counting macros). Tracking your progress goes beyond just hard data, of course, and Don discusses the journaling practice he commits to both before and after each run, and the questions he asks himself.

Ultrarunning rewards mental toughness, part of which is learning to draw on internal motivation versus external motivation and to control the controllables. Don and Dr. Fix offer some moving meditation tips to take the focus from external to internal. They also discuss the difference between the kind of pain you can train through and the kind of pain you shouldn’t ignore.

Quotes

• “I never set out to be good at this thing, I just wanted to go do cool things that I like doing and do something that I know is going to challenge me versus sticking to that thing that I know I can do really well.”(4:16 | Don Reichelt) SM Quote

• “My whole athletic career has been, ‘I will work harder than the next guy.’ I’m not physically gifted, I’m just willing to be in the gym until midnight and then wake up and do it again tomorrow.” (5:35 | Don Reichelt)

• “I don’t want to look back and say, ‘Damn, I wish I would have pushed just a little harder on one of those reps.’ Because the day will come when I can’t run anymore. It could be today, I could walk out and get hit by a car and never run again. I don’t want to look back and regret not giving my all on one rep. That motivates me every day.” (11:49 | Don Reichelt)

• “When you’re meditating, if stray thoughts come to your brain, you acknowledge them and then you move on. So, these long races where it’s just you and your thoughts, you think, ‘Yeah, you know what? It does suck that the sun is hot right now, and it’s 80 degrees and humid. Cool. What am I going to do about it? Nothing. Great. Now we move on.” (40:59 | Don Reichelt)

• “I tell people: if you want to run faster, run. If you want to run more and stay healthier, lift and run.” (50:17 | Don Reichelt)

Links

Connect with Don Reichelt:

Instagram: instagram.com/runwithdon

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