lessons from my ultra
50k, 60 obstacles
Finished my spartan ultra this weekend. As expected, it was challenging but fun.
It’s my 2nd spartan ultra, 4th or 5th spartan. I’m currently training for 100km. I did the spartan in my Vibrams Barefoot. These shoes reduce my risk of injury / fasten my recovery but bring quite high foot pain during the race.
A guy racing the ultra thought I was crazy as he can’t last 15k on these shoes, most won’t last 1km running barefoot. This made me think of my first Half-Ironman which I did with no clipping bike shoes.
First lesson off the bat: do stuff and don’t care what others do. I’m an odd bird in all areas of my life, quite the alien. I was also the only one running in long pants (to avoid poison ivy) and one of the only to not have care packages mid-race. Do not follow the stream. You’ll do well in your context. I’ve let go of being mainstream about 3-4 years ago. This has helped me in countless ways.
More context: I was supposed to do this ultra with other CEOs, but they all cancelled with excuses. My wife was the only one following me to the race. She’s a stud.
Now, a couple of lessons for you from my race (my wins and my losses):
I didn’t bring enough food. I burned 3k-5k calories and consumed around 1-1.5k calories throughout the race. This brought some good: i didn’t get debilitating stomach pain as I do during some races, but I did hit some major bunks: very low energy periods, like being really high/weak. I think the altitude of the mountains and the pollution of Mexico City contributed to this. Plus I ran sick, more on that later. I traded one pain for another I guess.
I didn’t drink enough liquids. Again, in the name of AB testing. Pros: I didn’t stop to piss 7 times as I usually do, but yeah, I was a tad dehydrated. I used to stop at every station in the 2nd half and drink 1 Gatorade, 1 water. I changed to 1 Gatorade, 2 waters when I started feeling the symptoms of dehydration. I can afford to AB test like this being a biohacker and a long time endurance athlete. Notes taken.
More solar cream. The sun started burning me mid-day, contributing to my dehydration. I’ll bring a mini-solar cream next time. I started seeking the cover of trees on the back half. “Run in the sun, walk in the dark” sort of device. Although every flat/downhill I’d try to run and every uphill walk.
go more competitive next race. I got passed by around 7 ish ppl. my mentality was still to finish injury-free, but felt I could have pushed a tad more:
finished 42 on 100ish. Not a lot of ppl showed up to the ultra, and many did not finish.
only canadian there, “oh canada”. This was a military edition and I didn’t know the mexican hymn, more luck next time. I’ll push a tad harder and take souls next time. Especially towards the end.
did well on the patience and positivity side of things. My main strength on these events is my mind. I’m a fucking stud and that’s probably my best attribute there as I’m not that fast of a runner. I always had a nice cardio but compared to these animals it’s no match. I also take obstacles faster than most contenders as I am stronger but these buggers always catch up. I’m very patient in these races, I don’t let the “are we there yet” kid surface. I meditate while running. When I hit breathing distress after climbing a mountain or doing a hard obstacle, I just breathe deep and remind myself “calm down, breathe”, and it helps. I think a lot of folks lose energy torturing themselves mentally. Also, I like pain, but some ppl make these events full “bad trips”, and the trauma is so hard that they never race again. Or give up before finishing. I want my body and mind to remember these events as fun, so I try to keep these relaxed/positive. It worked.
got sick and pushed through. I think mindset is the biggest difference between life and death, or failing or thriving in business. when we allow ourselves to relax and have self-pity, we die and we lose. the night before I started coughing in bed, trying to sleep 5 hours before my event. Instead of panicking and cancelling I just calmed my mind in bed and slept the 5 hours. And yeah, I got sick, which affected my race. I ate some chinese food after my race and felt pain in the upper part of my mouth, which is usually the defacto sign i’m getting sick. As I said, my mindset is my strength, this has always been my edge. It’s the real difference in business too. Ultras makes grinding in business enviable.
hiccups throughout but rhythm, breathing, chilling. sure there was some bullshit throughout the race. a muscle in my neck got stuck while crawling through an obstacle. a rock was hurting my foot throughout. fell a couple of times on roots and rocks. I failed some obstacles that I succeeded in before. hurt my toes a couple of times. But I stopped, breathed and calmed myself down while maintaining my rhythm. It’s the same recipe in business. Don’t get distracted by haters or low results. Breathe, calm down and come back to action (your rhythm). Before you know it, you’ll reach a peak/finish line.
there were inefficiencies in the pre-race, but shit happens, relax and go through them. the race starts wayyy before the starting line. We decided to take Blabla car to Mexico and it took us like 9hrs to get there, which is probably why I got sick. Wifey and I arrived frustrated at the Airbnb and it was like mission impossible to get in, like 4 locks and bullshit. the Airbnb smelled like paint, we had to prepare everything for the next day. But that was expected and always will be. Anytime you attempt something great challenges will show up. That’s part of the game.
My Recovery System is through the roof. As a biohacker, after the race I slept a solid 11hrs right after, even though I was feeling like shit. Sunburnt, dehydrated, calorie-depleted, sick, etc. I bought immune system stuff the next day and immediately started feeling better. Today, writing this, I feel perfect. Slept 12hrs last night and started engaging in recovery activities: mountain biking, boxing, treadmill walking. After my first 21km, I couldn’t walk normal for 2 weeks. Came in a long way.
It’s all about mindset. That’s been again my strongest lesson here. Mindset determines everything about you: if you’re gonna fight or be defeated. Lots of ppl die in the ICU because the pain is too much and they decide to outsource their faith to doctors. I’m always gonna fight and never outsource my health or my success to anyone. These events have you realize this. I also contemplated my death during the event, as one usually does. Makes me value life.
The medal is like blowing candles off a cake: lasts 2mins. I don’t give shits about medals or accomplishments. They sure prove my worth and my mindset, but these look good, like a ferrari, but they don’t mean much to me. Just another on the wall. I’m hungry for more, always. They’re plateaus to a mountain I’ll keep on climbing
other random considerations:
need to focus on the longevity stuff asap and go for that moonshot. I’m 30 years old and working on meaningless stuff mostly nowadays: getting richer and getting others richer. I’m urging myself to work on my next moonshot: living forever.
I have a great house. Compared it to various luxury airbnb and i’m grateful to be where I am. I don’t often stop and ponder my accomplishments.
I have a great life. The dogs, the mountains, the restaurants. Good job, Charles.
My wife is great. We both invested for 7 years in this relationship and the ROI is compounding day to day now. It pays off to be patient and invest in someone. She’s my #1 supporter for these races. She did her Sprint well too :), 5km and 20 obstacles. Even this is hard, i can tell you.
opportunities are everywhere, my brain just forgot. i remembered random stuff while sleeping; someone wants to acquire my business and have a bunch of 100k-1m projects lined up, I’m just forgetting about these. I’d need an AGI to help me remember this and act upon these.
Charlie Munger and Mental Models. read the book after coming back. Charlie’s mental models are great and we shared lots, we’re both megalobjectives, but he’s had the billies, I haven’t yet. He’s tech-illiterate and focused on stocks investments, I’m focused on building life-changing innovations, but yeah wealth’s important so lots of lessons taken on my way back. Poor Charlie’s Almanack and The Man Who Solved the Market were great reminders for me: objectivity, science and IQ always win in business.
Cameron Haine’s Endure audiobook also propelled me during the run (alongside music). Sort of looked at these guys with different ears, but still good motivation / timeless lessons in there.
Insight about cold email. As well as cold email works, ppl’s perception still view it as “illegal” and for that reason I need to diversify my offering.
My arrogance is costing me leads. I come up as egotistic lots of time and naturally disqualify a lot of ppl, maybe I should reconsider parts of my approach.
Lots of lessons here, but hope you can scratch down a couple and understand the power of very tough physical events to generate new ideas and neurons. I’m not sure how much business edge I’d have without these.