the beauty in chaos
my last 10 days were insane (100km race story)
In the last 10 days, I have done a 100km race, a temazcal and mushroom ceremony, went to see Tony Robbins, flown 6 times (20+ hours), and got quite sick. I have been on a roller coaster of emotions that need to be unravelled here on paper for you guys to see and digest some of my lessons. Let’s start.
So I booked this 100km race with a buddy of mine, the Hikuri 100km in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Much prep needed which monopolized at least 20% of my energies in the last 6 months. Prep went fine except I got sick right before the race as luck would have it.
So I arrived in Puerto Vallarta sick, with 10 hours of travelling with all my equipment: vest, gels, bars, poles, light, cap, heat gear, etc etc. The race was on the next day. Clock was ticking. We had the not-so-brilliant idea of renting a car and had to wait 1hr30 before they would give it to us, which would mean important sleep time loss.
It was already 7 pm by then and we still didn’t have any food in, nor did we pick up our racing bibs. After buying food at Costco, we stopped to get the racing bib; it was 8 pm by then and the race packets hadn’t been distributed since 7:30 pm, so we’d have to get them at the starting line tomorrow at 5:30 am at Mascota (the race started at 6:00am). First of many hiccups.
We arrive at the Airbnb and eat real quick. I came to Puerto Vallarta sick and my monster appetite is reduced to me eating half a plate of salmon and pasta. We get race-dressed up and order a taxi at around 9 pm to start the 2hr30 journey from Puerto Vallarta to Mascota where the race starts. We try to find a place to withdraw cash and even that is hard. We finally find it and head there. I double-called to confirm the humble hotel I had to book, as another hiccup happened 2 days before: my Airbnb cancelled us.
We travel from the low-altitude beach to the mountains: the climate change is enough to shift my bad state to a happy mood: the stars, the pine trees, the cold. It starts to get mythical.
After zig-zagging for a while we finally arrive at the town of Mascota by midnight where shit’s bout to go down. But we need to sleep first. Our hotelier welcomes us to our humble room. The bed isn’t really clean but fuck it: we’ve got a roof over our heads. We’ve got about 5 hours to sleep.
We end up sleeping a solid 4: which is something to be grateful for in the ultra-running world. We get dressed up and go through our full prep: electrolytes, anti-mosquito spray, solar cream, get all our gear ready and go to the race’s start where we get our number and all.
We look at other racers and feel the imposter syndrome: they all look fitter. There’s a shaman purifying racers and motivational songs playing. The race starts in the dark at 6:00 am, and we all have our headlamps on. It starts on about 5km of cobblestone, the rest of the race would be in the woods/mountains.
The race start is beautiful and upbeat. The first 20-40km always are. My partner and I are going at a nice pace until a calve injury prevents him from going fast on downhills at kilometre 21. This could have been a race-stopper for him but we were super dedicated to finish together so this was water on a duck’s back. BUT: this meant we’d race at least 25% slower, which would bring hordes of consequences (energy train wreck) later on in the race. My partner Phil would compensate for his speed on uphills for this. He was a total stud for limping for a full 80km.
We’re doing well and we’re on time for most of the race. The struggle starts for Phil at around kilometre 65, at the “zombie” section. The race has a total elevation gain of 3500 meters, and this stage has probably one of the highest elevations. Climbing this hard section, he stops flat on his back due to effort exhaustion, we’re out of water and energy for the first time in the race. It’s all cloudy and Halloween-looking, and we keep on walking to the next station that is thankfully 1-2km from where we are. Phil sits down at this station and considers quitting due to exhaustion, calve injury, and on top of this, his pole broke! yes, the expensive Black Diamond pole we bought broke. His broken pole would mess with him for the rest of the race. Unlucky bastard.
But with some convincing and refuelling we decided to continue. And for sure, the hardest would be in front of us.
The hardest moment would come when we’d be confused and disoriented around kilometre 80, thinking we’re at kilometre 95, totally dehydrated, and without any hydration for the next 8 kilometre.
By then it would be 10 pm, and we’d be alone in the mountain jungles, in total darkness, no signs of civilizations whatsoever, and Phil would fall out of exhaustion. We would think that the next station would be 1km away but no, in reality, it’d be 8km away, which is incredibly depressing. By then all steps would take us to double the effort.
And the race would again take us through mountainous jungles with steep drops. In the state we were in, we began to feel the danger and began to be pissed. This state would go on till we’d find the next station. We thought they’d close the hydration station on us, but that’s just how the race was designed (not smart): the last station would be 13km away from the last one.
We should have just stopped to hydrate more, and take in water in our bottles but at this time of night we were fuelling on Pepsi (yes, discussing Pepsi), for the caffeine it provided, as both of us were sleepwalking. Anyway, it was a torturous state. Spirits hadn’t been lower and on my side, I had to watch over Phil, as my hydration was fine / I could handle running dry, but Phil wasn’t feeling well. And then came Ivan.
Ivan’s this Mexican dude that resurfaced from behind us, in the Mountains of Torture, saying that his running partner “left him behind”. Ivan was in a similar state to Phil, probably worse: he would climb at the drop of exhaustion after some time. He told me he had low blood pressure and there was no way I would leave this guy behind alone, he too was in danger. The good thing is that Ivan came with water, which Phil graciously drank.
So here we were the 3 of us. I was still pissed and felt quite stressed to watch over the 2, there are so many variables and we still didn’t see any signs of light/life in the mountains: we were deep in the jungle-mountains, with no one to guide us/ hydrate us, just a pure pain cave. We couldn’t stop either, mosquitos were eating us alive. So on we marched in the never-ending mountains.
That is until our saviours came: 2 ladies. 1 the “race cleaner” whose goal is to bring the last ones to the finish line, and Ana, who was struggling like us to finish the race. They had water and would bring some pace to the race. Ivan would be taken care of. That was good news. We asked them how many more kilometres, and they estimated a couple more, “one or two” more bridges to cross, which didn’t mean anything to us. But still, this brought some willpower, some faith.
We finally began seeing some lights. There was now this huge bridge to cross. All dark. A long-ass bridge. 500 meters that felt like 1km to us (we were 2x slower in this state). We crossed the never-ending bridge. I was like “yeah shit, thanks for the final straw, walking across a shaky giant bridge in the middle of the night." But before we knew it this nightmare was done too and soon we started seeing signs of humanity, and soon, signs of the final station: only 7.2km left after this.
It’s cold by now and we are tired as fuck: sitting down for a break at the station is dangerous. The worst part at this stage is our feet: they’ve been wet for 22 hours now as we’ve crossed more than 30 rivers. Every step hurts. My partner is “done-done” this time: he wants to “call a uber” but there are no Ubers here, and the option is to wait for a shuttle that arrives in 2 hrs (it’s 3:30 am by now). I tell him that’s also a bad option, waiting 2 hrs in the cold in complete discomfort. Me and the race cleaner, who just became our pacer, Valeria, are now urging him to continue. She would also convince Ivan to continue.
Ana and I are the only 2 that are down to go. But here we are all 5 together standing up, 15 minutes later, marching the last 7.2km to the finish line. These are the most painful kilometres for me: most of the race has been great for me. My feet are soaked and look like Frankenstein. Phil’s too. But we both find the strength to walk quickly in the cobblestone streets of Vallarta.
We came in from deep, so I won’t start seeing recognizable parts of Vallarta till about 5km in. I am very sleepy and really need to force myself to maintain a rhythm to go find the finish line. We finally arrive there, credits go to our Pacer Valleria. She takes a photo of us, we get our medals and hats. We’re not even happy.
Go back to the Airbnb and slip under the security gates and bang on the door to have our boys let us in: the last challenge before we get sleep. We get to sleep a couple of hours, then eat, then sleep some more that day.
We recuperate quickly in the next few days and even get to enjoy what we did. The rest of the trip was quite nice.
It would get worse for me a couple of days later when I’d have to travel to Newark, NY, to go see Tony Robbins. I was already sick pre-race and this disease only worsened after the race (wet feet, 100% effort). The 10-hour flights to get there would just knock me out, and then I’d have to wait in line for the registration outside, in the cold, and that would worsen my state. Inside the arena, it is dead-cold too. I’d force myself to attend a couple of hours, as the content was quite basic for me, and I’m just not for these cult-like events, and just got in a shittier state. So Tony Robbins left me a couple of thousands back and sicker. I wouldn’t subscribe again to a TR event, but yeah I got to see the man bang his sticks.
What did I get out of all this torture?
I can already observe these effects on me:
more patient
calmer
less emotional turmoil (I attribute this to my mushroom ceremony)
better human being
and much more that my brain can’t compute for now
These events are hard resets. Going back to work I can see deep changes in me, and I’m grateful to reset my quadrants. This will help me take new and better directions in my personal and business life. I have never suffered as much in 10 days and now just sitting and writing this feels fun and easy.
I won’t stop ultra racing but I’ll be taking a long pause. I’ll be bodybuilding for the next year or so. I’m looking forward to the next year and adjusting stuff in my business, focusing on MRR/low churn businesses, and maybe deepening lead gen channels like SEO.
This “reset” brings reorganization in me and I can already feel its good effects.
Leave your comments below, I’m curious to know what you think.