August 31, 2023, edited by Francesco Rigodanza
Alessio decided to run UTMB at the 110th km of the last UTMB. He decided it while slowly walking towards the La Fouly aid station to communicate his withdrawal. There were 58 km left to the finish line. He cared so much about it, and instead, as in Cortina, at the LUT a few months earlier, his goals were converted into DNFs, broken dreams, and a few days of justified bad mood.
Alessio wants to return to Chamonix because he does not accept not learning something from his failures, especially the loudest ones, the ones he cared about the most, he must find a meaning, a reason, a solution to the problem that will lead him to conquer that finish line that means so much. It is not easy, such a long race has a thousand variables, it is a mathematical equation too complex to solve in a short time. You risk focusing on the small things, the “marginal gains”, neglecting what really matters.
Alessio's luck is that for years he has focused on the small things to give meaning to his failures without these preventing him from throwing stones in the torrents to vent the anger of a race gone wrong. Alessio's luck is that he has almost finished all these possible “marginal gains” and now he only has to change the really important ones: training well, anxiety, anxiety about training well.
Alessio trains a lot, he cares a lot about running and invests a lot of time in it. Sometimes too much. For too many years he made the mistake of getting tired instead of training, for too long he arrived at the end of the season fed up with running. In a sport based on doing a lot of hard work, being fed up with doing hard work is a bad sign. He could train better, he even had a coach specifically for that, but he liked to think he was able to understand on his own what was best for him, he said it with conviction, and after ten minutes there he is getting caught up in the anxiety of not training enough and leaving to go to the mountains for two hours just to feel less guilty. But guilt should not run races.
Alessio cares a lot about running. Sometimes too much. He has often used it as an outlet for something else, as compensation for his insecurities. “Running is my therapy”. But then he would find himself at the gates of those races that were so important to him and the little theater would fall apart. “No, but I am very calm!” and instead generic stomach ache. “I am not thinking so much about the race!” and instead scattered muscle cramps. “There is one little thing that is not going as I expected!” and off with a sad withdrawal style 110th km of UTMB. It was just anxiety that wanted to be heard. It is a beautiful scam to do a sport that makes you dig so deep that you cannot not listen to certain things.
Alessio in 2023 has a new coach that he decided to listen to and to leave a little control of his training to. Doing what is needed, training, sometimes even resting and stop letting guilt run instead of him. Alessio replaced “running is my therapy” with “therapy is my therapy”, he stopped drowning anxiety in lactic ferment and started listening to it, hearing what it tells him, starting by admitting to himself that certain things are important to him, and it is beautiful like this, and others instead are not really his responsibility, and it is such a relief.
Alessio this year put aside the small things and threw himself into the “big gains”, the difficult ones. He still trains badly sometimes, he still gets caught up in anxiety. They are big changes, they require time and refinement. But at least he is aware of it and this made him a better athlete than himself from last year.
Alessio in June finished the Lavaredo Ultratrail in 14h27, in 15th position and he was very happy.
In a few days he will run UTMB, the one that ended sadly last year 58 km before expected. He knows what awaits him, he knows what he is better at, he knows that it is a very important thing and he knows that he must not lie to himself about all these things.
Will he arrive? Will he not arrive? Will he be happy? Satisfied? How long will it take him?
It is a 170 km race and anything can happen. And if I answer honestly to these questions then Alessio reads them and gets anxious.
Alessio will be happy or he will learn something.
© photo: Francesco Zigliotto