Hacking Ultra – A Systems Approach to the Ultramarathon

Testing the hypothesis that one of humans’ primary, evolutionary advantages within the animal kingdom is our ability to, given enough time, travel further and faster than our competition, I apply a systems engineering approach in preparing myself for my first, 100-mile footrace. This story unfolds into an exploration of body, mind, and spirit, discovering a pathway to self-realization.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden

The Starting Line – 2023
I Went to the Woods – November 2021-July 2022
Estimated Prophet – 1980-2013
Chasing Daylight – 2013-2014
Discovering Ultra – 2014
The Hypothesis – 2014/2022
A Systems Approach – 2022
Becoming Ultra – July 2022-2023
Run For My Life – 2023

The Starting Line – 2023

If you are going to face a real challenge, it has to be a real challenge. You can’t accomplish anything without the possibility of failure.
Lazarus Lake, Founder of the Barkley Marathons

As I line up with this motley crew of self-explorers to start my first 100-mile footrace, the words of the Race Director echo in my mind, “You are all going to die.” This is the one, immutable fact of life. We are born into this world with a drive for survival from which all of our behaviors proceed. Early in our lives, we become aware of our existence in transience. We perceive our birth as a beginning, thereby requiring that we see our inevitable death as an ending. With our singular, fundamental drive being for survival and our singular, undeniable fact being that we will die, we find ourselves in curious place. Being aware of our own existence in these terms is the cause of, and solution to, every problem that we will face in our lifetime. Awareness of our reality in its most fundamental form is also the singular source of all sensations of joy and contentment that we will experience, whether we are aware of this awareness or not. Becoming aware of our own transience, or even becoming aware of our awareness of transience, is not sufficient to provide the joy and contentment that we all, by nature, desire. Desire itself is what prevents us from obtaining what we desire, especially when that desire is to experience a reality different from the one within which we find ourselves. Our survival instinct includes within it the capacity to imagine that survival is possible, which, of course, it is not. “You are all going to die.” This is the source of our confusion and internal conflicts. This is also our super-power, waiting to be unleashed.

I was driving in my car, on the way to pick up my youngest son, when it occurred to me: I’m going to die with a to-do list. I am going to die, and I will have a to-do list when I reach that day. I do not know when I will reach that end, but when I do, I will not only have a list of incomplete tasks, but I will have hopes and dreams for this lifetime that will never be realized. I had already rejected resignation and nihilism as being, not only unproductive, insufficient to account for all of my experiences. The fear and pain that often comes with awareness of transience, in addition to being unpleasant and unsatisfying, also seemed inadequate to capture the wholeness of this existence. When I embraced my death, having the actual experience of releasing my attachment to life, escaping the state of denial regarding death, it was like I was alive for the first time. It is in this moment that all things become possible.

Standing here, on this cold, November morning.. focus on breath…

Inventory preparations, let go
Review agenda, let go
acknowledge oneself, let go
be present, be breath

How did i get to being there

rock bottom

to the woods

I Went to the Woods – 2021-2022

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden

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Estimated Prophet – 1980-2013

My time coming, any day, don’t worry about me, no
It’s gonna be just like they say, them voices tell me so
Seems so long I felt this way and time sure passin’ slow
My time coming, any day, don’t worry about me, no
Robert Hunter, Estimated Prophet

Innocence to Experience / Enlightenment / Disassociation / Reincorporation / Reflection / Karma
The Episcopal Church / Ms Mason (Emerson and Thoreau) / Grateful Dead / Islam / Parenthood
The Failures of Aestheticism
No Man is an Island
2012-2013 – The Episode
- Bad Medicine / Adrenaline / Stress Hormones
- Sales Conference / Tom Danielson / Lance Armstrong / Floyd Landis
- Louisville –> Atlanta – The Break
- Too Much Too Fast
- The Rubble
- Return to Concord – The Recovery
Back to the woods – The Rebuilding

Chasing Daylight – 2013-2014

And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Pink Floyd, Time

The Appalachian National Scenic Trail

In the Fall of 2013, I embarked to section hike the Appalachian Trail in Georgia, taking the first step North from Springer Mountain on November 9th. Due to logistical factors, this evolved into experiencing the AT in GA in both directions over a 6 month period, reaching the GA-NC border on April 27th, 2014. By November of 2014, I would complete my first 50-kilometer footrace.

By the time I started my “A.T. in GA” project, it was already a surrogate for my true desire to thru-hike the entire Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. One of the objectives of the project was to develop strategies to hike the entire A.T. within the most narrow time window possible. As a father of four with a demanding professional life, the prospect of allocating 6-7 months for a thru-hike was difficult to imagine as a potential reality within the coming decades. I began to study the A.T. in GA with a mindset to sub-divide it into sections that I could traverse in 2-day increments (weekends). After having my family shuttle me back to Springer Mountain from Woody Gap (9-Oct-2013), and then from Neal Gap to Woody Gap on the next occasion (23-Nov-2013), it became apparent that our family lifestyle was not conducive to this approach. From this point forward, my hikes would be self-supported out-and-backs, hence ultimately experiencing the trail in both Northbound and Southbound directions.

The weekend of December 6th, 2013 was slated to cover the ~7 miles from Neal Gap to Hogpen Gap in each direction. With severely inclement weather and joining forces (in the interest of survival) with a traveller that I met on the trail, this developed into a 30-mile weekend, including a search for a Southbound thru-hiker thought to be in danger. Alas, it was 2 a.m. on a freezing summit of Blood Mountain, my bivy sack being pelted by driving rain, that the thru-hiker emerged to assure us that he was, in fact, alive and that he was pushing through (in his running shorts) to complete his thru-hike on Springer Mountain (~30 miles South, with another 10 miles down the approach trail to Amicalola Falls.) It was this weekend that the Boy Scouts at Whitley Gap shelter named me “Teavana”, due to my wood-gas stove fashioned from a tea canister being the exact tool that we needed to start a warming fire in the frigid downpour. My new survival partner was given the name “Ultra” by the shop manager of the Walasi-Yi when he stated plainly, “it is O.K. to be ultra-light, but you don’t want to be ultra-dead”, referring to Ultra’s marked lack of equipment, especially given the severity of the weather that weekend. Last I heard, Ultra had made it to the Trail Days celebration in Damascus, Virginia.

My next excursion (22 Dec 2013) was designed to be Hogpen Gap to Unicoi Gap and back to my vehicle at Hogpen in one day. The 30 miles round trip was to represent, among other things, my longest single day of hiking to-date. While I had embraced the “ultra-light” approach to long-distance hiking from the beginning, on this day, I carried even less. Specifically, I did not carry a sleep system (bedding and shelter). It was on the 1000 ft descent (over a mile and half) from Blue Mountain to Unicoi Gap, which I would shortly have to ascend on my route back to Hogpen Gap, that I realized that I would not make it back to my vehicle before dark. As I performed the calculations in my head, it became clear that the sun would set a full two hours before I could complete the roundtrip journey. Once I made it back to the summit of Blue Mountain to retrace my steps back to my car, it happened. I started running. It was spontaneous and joyful. Once again, I was a 13-year-old boy with boundless energy, gliding across the trail, a little worried that my Mom was going to yell at me for being out so late, only to realize that I don’t care. This is me, as I am and in my natural state.

I went on to complete my objective of experiencing the entirety of the A.T. in Georgia, and I came to understand that the possibilities are limitless.

http://blog.hackingultra.com/hacking-ultra/appalachian-trail/

Wake of the flood, laughing water, forty-nine,
Get out the pans, don’t just stand there dreamin’
Get out of the way, get out of the way,
Here comes sunshine, here comes sunshine.
Line up a long shot maybe try it two times, maybe more,
Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor,
Why hold out for more?
Here comes sunshine, here comes sunshine.
Askin’ you nice, now, keep the mother rollin’
One more time, been down before,
You just don’t have to go no more, no more.
Here comes sunshine, here comes sunshine.
Robert Hunter, Here Comes Sunshine

Discovering Ultra – 2014

Long Long distance runner what you standing there for?
Get up, get off, get out of the door
Robert Hunter, Fire on the Mountain

AT Speed Records
Run Bum’s AT Speed Attempt
Run Bum Tours (request Sean Blanton interview)
Yeti Trail Runners (request Jason Green interview)
Ultramarathon Stars
Barefoot Ken Bob / Barefoot Ted
Long distance runner, what are you standing there for?

The Four Noble Truths of Ultramarathons

You will experience pain, and you will suffer.
You will suffer because you refuse to embrace the pain.
Pain is required; Suffering is optional.
The trail is marked.

The Eight Trail Markers

Right view
Right intention
right speech
right action
right livelihood
right effort
right mindfulness
right concentration

Cupcake Road Race 15k – 3/1/2014

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/478355063

Rabun Georgia Half Marathon – 6/21/2014

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/525429349

Dirty Spokes Fisher Farm Park 10m – 8/30/2014

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/579504159

Georgia Sky to Summit 50k – 11/8/2014

http://blog.hackingultra.com/hacking-ultra/georgia-sky-to-summit-50k-100k/

Duncan Ridge Trail 30k – 11/22/2014

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/638029721

Cloudland Canyon 10M – 1/10/2015

46th birthday
Frost bite on all 10 toes

The Hypothesis – 2014/2022

What if we evolved as hunting pack animals? What if the only natural advantage we had in the world was the fact that we could get together, as a group, go out there on an African savannah, pick out an antelope, and go out there ..as a pack.. and run that thing to death?
Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run, : A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Born to Run
The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease
My Hypothesis

A Systems Approach – 2022

I not only think we will tamper with Mother nature, I think Mother wants us to.
Willard Gaylin

What is Systems Engineering

In the early days of computers, the act of writing software was called “programming.” When the concepts of systems engineering were applied to software development, this practice became “software engineering.” As practices evolved around the entire software lifecycle, this became known as “software development”.

In one of my professions, network engineering, our process can be outlined as Architecture (strategy)–> Design (tactics) –> Deployment (execution) –> Operation (operations)

Program/Product/Project Management

What is Biohacking

The Habit Loop
Keystone Habits
Behavior modification
Marcus Arrilius
Dave Asprey
Develop methodology
Project initiation

Becoming Ultra – July 2022-2023

There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night. And if you go, no one may follow. That path is for your steps alone.
Robert Hunter, Ripple

After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet. In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet, but as you keep walking you get wet little by little. If your mind has ideas of progress, you may say, “Oh, this pace is terrible!” But actually it is not. When you get wet in a fog it is very difficult to dry yourself. So there is no need to worry about progress. It is like studying a foreign language; you cannot do it all of a sudden, but by repeating it over and over you will master it. This is the Soto way of practice. We can say either that we make progress little by little, or that we do not even expect to make progress. Just to be sincere and make our full effort in each moment is enough. There is no Nirvana outside our practice.
Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

Fractal System of Systems

The Individual Human System
Sub-systems
- Correlations, intersections, interfaces
Complexity Theory / Chaos Theory
Simplified abstractions

Pathways System Optimization, Modification, and Operation

Mindset
Breathing Efficiency and Quality
Metabolism – Fat Adaptation / Metabolic Flexibility
- Anabolism / Catabolism
- Non-human components of our symbiotic system (microbiome)
- Gut-Brain Connection / Neurochemicals / Hormones
Cardiovascular Performance
Recovery and Repair

Methodology

Periodization of nutrition with activity phase.
Daily periodization of fasting and feeding.
Periodization of cardiovascular training.
Periodization of skills work and checks.

The nutrition topic is divided into two main categories:

Metabolic training (daily habits/periodization)
Event fueling (training and race).

The name of the game is fat adaptation and general metabolic flexibility. We want to use fat as our primary fuel source to satisfy the exceptional energy requirements of long events. In addition to maintaining our minimum glucose requirement, we want to maintain muscular glycogen as well as possible leading into and during significant efforts.

Daily Tracking

Sleep
Conscious Mind
Nutrition
Posture, Strength, and Movement
- Daily Practice
- Running Activity
- Events
Biological Data
Hacking Ultra Calendar

Material by Category

Run For My Life – 2023

Run, run, run for the roses
The quicker it opens, the sooner it closes
Man, oh, man, oh friend of mine
All good things in all good time
Robert Hunter, Run for the Roses

The race is on…
the race report ..
the finish ..
the findings
the next summit …. segway to Homestead – All Politics Are Local

About Post Author

michael

info@securitysmithrpc.com

http://www.hackingultra.com

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