Inside the Mindset - 4 Things we can Learn from Courtney Dauwalter

Courtney Dauwalter is one of the most prestigious endurance athletes in the world. She wins ultra-marathon after ultra-marathon, setting and breaking countless records as she does so.

Common events normally range between the shortest distance of 50 kilometers, upwards to ranges of 50 miles, 100 kilometers, and up to what can be considered the standard of 100 miles.

There are however races that go beyond this standard. It is here, in these outrageous running events, where the body and mind are pushed to places unfathomable to the mass majority, where Courtney thrives.

Let’s take a brief look some of her career defining events:

Her wins aside, what also often sets her apart is her laid-back attitude. Whilst most elite ultramarathoners are kitted out in all the latest high tech running gear, Courtney chooses to run in loose t-shirts and baggy basketball-style shorts.

Her diet? You’d expect someone of Courtney’s caliber to have a very carefully thought out, optimized nutrition plan. In reality, her diet simply consists of whatever she feels like eating. Be it nachos, cheese quesadillas, or pancakes with maple syrup.

It goes without saying that Courtney is a truly incredible human being. But how does she do it, how is she able to push the body and mind to such limits? 

Let us dive into her Mindset and see what we can learn. 

1. Find Comfort in Discomfort - Learn how to thrive inside the Pain Cave 

There comes a point during strenuous endurance activities where you can feel as though you’re at your uttermost limit, both physically and mentally.  A place where you feel like you can’t even put one foot in front of another. Pushing through this point can seem impossible at the time, and it is here that most of us would concede defeat and go no further. You may hear many referring to this point of physical and mental fatigue as ‘the pain cave’. 

Courtney has an admirable ability to thrive at and beyond this limit. How she goes about doing this is something we can learn a lot from. The following quote initial insight into how she combats the pain and fatigue during these activities.

“I find a lot of comfort in being uncomfortable. I call it the pain cave. It's not a place I'm scared to enter. It's a place I'm excited to find the entrance to.” 

A Representation of the Pain Cave

The pain cave is a place that many of us would do our best to avoid for as long as possible. After all, it’s not exactly an ideal place for us to be when we compare it to the relative comfort many of us experience in our day-to-day lives. 

Delaying the pain cave is something Courtney also used to do. she used to try and keep the pain cave as far away as possible. When she would inevitably arrive there, she would mentally just try and stick it out and in her own words ‘’.

As her ultra-career has progressed Courtney has reframed the Pain Cave concept entirely. Now, rather than trying to avoid the cave, she views it as a place she wants to get to. She frames it as a place where she gets to celebrate that she has made it there. For Courtney, this is where the work actually happens.

The lesson here is, we need to embrace the inevitability of the pain cave. Rather than fear it, try to delay it, or try to avoid it, we need to view it as a place we want to get to, because this is where the real work happens. This is where we gain strength, resilience, and durability. In mind, body, and spirit. Of course, it is easier said than done to reach a point of mental and physical exhaustion and manage to find the enjoyment in it. But the mind is an extraordinary thing with extraordinary abilities.

We can flip the script by using visualization; a technique adopted by Courtney to help her through. So far, we have talked about the pain cave as a loose mental concept. But when she is asked about how she deals with being there, Courtney actually refers to the cave as a three-dimensional place she enters in her head. Whilst running mile after mile, she visualizes chiselling away at the walls, tunnelling deeper and widening the cave.

This is such a powerful way of thinking, because by envisaging the pain cave as an actual place that can be made wider and chipped away at, we take away the element of fear. The act of making the pain cave wider is a representation of self-growth. Pain is gradually chipped away into progress as the cave gets bigger and bigger. This is going to help frame it as somewhere we want to be and not somewhere to be scared of.

“When you go there, I know that I am in it. I know that I am chiseling and my whole purpose of doing these ultras is to find that pain cave and make it bigger.”

2. Surround yourself with the right Support Team

Running over 100 miles through forests and mountains, across 20+ hours would be near impossible without the right team to support you.  A team is imperative. The support crew’s role involves positioning themselves at set checkpoints of the course, ready to ensure that the athlete is rehydrated, refueled and refocused as they head back out.

Courtney’s main crew consists of her Dad, her husband and a few of her close friends. This is not their day job, but as crew members, they act as first-aid providers, cooks, coaches, counselors, and motivational speakers, all for a person who is exhausted, dirty, smells, dehydrated, hungry, tired, blistered, and sunburnt. Throughout a race, whether she is riding the ultra-high, or grinding through rock bottom. Her support crew are there through it all, regardless of the circumstances.

Courtney with her Pacer Mike Wilkinson.

This is where we dig into our next key lesson that can be learnt from Courtney.

The importance of surrounding yourself with the right people. 

Courtney’s support crew aren’t staying up for 30 hours straight because they have to, as mentioned it’s not their job. They aren’t necessarily being paid to be there. They do it because they want to be there, because they want to see Courtney succeed in her passion and continue achieving what they know she is capable of.

Whilst this lesson is taken from ultra-events, it is something that should also be applied to daily life in general.  We all deserve and need supportive and trustworthy people like this in our lives. It’s key for us to grow as individuals and achieve our goals. Yes, going at things alone is possible. You may even be able to attain some fairly good results from that. But building that strong support network, finding people you can rely on and trust- that will get you a whole lot further.

When Courtney is 170+ miles into a race, she is never alone. She often has a pacer with her ready and willing to help her push through the lowest of the lows, with the rest of her crew waiting at the aid point. It goes without saying that this isn’t the sole and main reasoning behind her success story. As we have talked about, the mass majority of her mental grit and ability comes from within - as it should with all of us. But who she surrounds herself with is a contributing factor that cannot go amiss and needed to be explored here.

3. Understanding mantras and the effect of saying something out loud

What you project outwards, not just saying it in your head but actually going as far as saying it outloud, can make a huge difference. When we say something out loud that we have been thinking in our heads it brings it much closer to reality.

This is something Courtney has learned to use to her advantage. She asks her support crew to not ask her ‘how are you feeling’ during a race. Because if she is struggling, voicing it out loud makes it a larger problem to deal with. Instead, her crew will ask her ‘what do you need’.

Alongside this is the power of mantras, a statement or slogan repeated frequently, numerous times. Mantras provide something for the brain to focus on with intention. When asked about her mantra Courtney says:

 “My mantra when the going gets tough? You’re fine. This is fine. Everything is fine. Keep moving. On repeat. For as long as it takes”

Courtney Navigating Technical Desert Paths

There is an aspect of this that can often go unnoticed. The mantra uses the pronoun “you” as opposed to “I’m” as if Courtney is talking to someone else. There is a strong benefit associated with this.

Using “You” instead of “I” or using your own name when talking to yourself is an example of something known as distanced self-talk. There have been several studies carried out with the aim of understanding how distanced self-talk can benefit us in stressful, emotionally demanding situations.

One of these studies was conducted by psychologists at the University of Michigan. It found that a subtle shift in language - silently referring to oneself using one’s own name and non-first person-singular pronouns - promotes strong emotion regulation and reduces emotion reactivity - the extent to which your emotions control your response to a situation, compared to the rational part of your brain.

So to summarize, in simple terms, the technique involves reflecting on your stressful experience from an outside perspective. With her mantra of “you’re fine, everything is fine” we see Courtney do this over and over throughout the duration of a race. It may only be small but clearly it must have a big impact if it works for her. 

4. Prioritize happiness and enjoyment rather than optimization

The Moab 240 is one of America’s if not the World’s most challenging ultramarathons. This is 240 miles of rocky mountain climbs and seemingly endless dirt roads. During the day temperatures can hit upwards of 97°F (36°C) and during the night can get as low as 15°F (-10°C).

This is a race that takes the average competitor 90 hours to finish. For some added perspective, the race is so long that the distance between checkpoints can be more than the length of an entire marathon. A Moab 240 runner can experience sunburn, intense physical pain, soul shattering fatigue and even hallucinations. What is even more concerning is some runners having reported blindness.

Landscape visible during the Moab 240

In 2017 Courtney not only won the Moab 240 she finished ten whole hours ahead of the next runner setting the never-before-seen course record.

For such an intense, ground-breaking endurance achievement you would expect Courtney to have a fully optimized training strategy along with a strict nutritional diet. Yet this really isn’t the case. Courtney doesn’t necessarily have a specific, strict plan or training schedule, she doesn’t work with a full-time coach. She eats whatever she wants – pre-race, during race and post-race. Typical pre-race meals for instance include pizza, nachos and cheese quesadillas.

The lesson here isn’t eat what you want, train whenever and expect to run 240 miles. The lesson is to prioritize happiness and enjoyment over optimization. Optimization in the context of sports and fitness, whether that be your diet, training approach or routine, is highly beneficial. It produces effective results and is important when trying to get better at something. But when this comes at the cost of happiness and enjoyment then, across the long term, you are likely to start losing motivation.

It is therefore important to not necessarily neglect optimization but to instead ensure we prioritize the happiness and enjoyment aspect of what we do. As with anything, the key is always going to be about balance. We need to find that sweet spot where we can reap the rewards of optimization but not sacrifice too much of our happiness.

Summary

It goes without saying that Courtney Dauwalter is an exceptional human. Despite not using the fancy running gear or adopting a militant style regimen, she pulls off these athletic feats that only the smallest fraction of people could even think about attempting. And it is clear that she is able to do this because she has something that is critical for this type of endurance: unstoppable mental resilience. 

During her training and races, Courtney deploys a handful of mindset techniques that enable her to keep in full control of her mind and body for hundreds of miles.

But these techniques are also universally applicable. They don’t necessarily just apply to ultra-running. Whether you’re running an ultramarathon or running a business, you somehow must sustain your energy over long periods of time, deploy creative solutions to unexpected problems, and find a way to keep going when it all feels like too much. 

The same tools Courtney relies on to out-will the intense physical pain and crushing fatigue can also help you hold the line during a tough project, conversation, or workout.

So, use the insights discussed in this blog to your advantage and apply them to your day to day life.