"Have a Good Shitty Day"

Forty-eight miles into the Leadville 100 on a warm sunny day, for the first time ever, my stomach started to turn for the worse. One bite of the dry nutritional bar had me retching on the side of the trail that reminded me of some bad experiences in undergrad ions ago.

Refueling and getting the stomach settled in Winfield.

I was likely dehydrated, had too much salt and sugar in me and not enough water. To make matters worse I was at about 10000’ elevation and the altitude density was close to 12500.’ I stopped a moment, recalibrated sipped what water I could and moved on to the aid station in Winfield where I could take in more calories and plain water. When I reached the aid station I satiated myself with mashed potatoes, chicken broth and water like I would had I had the flu. Then I turned around and headed back the fifty miles to Leadville. I was still dizzy, and nauseated but I had a plan. Most of all I had the attitude that I would get through this - in fact there was never a moment of self doubt. I believed no matter what my stomach did I had the ability to resolve the issue and move forward. And I did…one step at a time, progressively resolving the issues that caused the nausea and vomiting. While I never got back to 100% nor was I close, I was moving forward and had a successful experience… I was having a ‘good shitty day.’ While it was a shitty day I was going to make the best of it - that part is a choice and comes within your attitude. As David Roche discusses in this article, make the most of it, assess, learn and grow from it. But even in the moment your attitude is key, it’s a choice that can make it a wonderful experience retching or not.

So, no matter the experience, as horrible as it can get out on the trail, Have a good shitty day!

“Have a good shitty day!” comes from a great mental performance coach and sport psychologist Ken Ravizza. Ken had probably done the most to bring mental performance coaching to baseball in recent years with a great deal of recent success with the Chicago Cubs (and many teams prior to this). His influence in performance psychology is wide, and while deeply influencing baseball, I strongly believe his words can impact how we approach endurance events.