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Kia ora e te whānau! On this episode of the AidStation podcast, Matt is joined by the brains trust of SQUADRUN, Ali Pottinger, and Kerry Suter to talk about how to plan the lead-up to your big event. We talk training, gear, logistics, nutrition, and distraction strategies, so your golden carriage doesn’t turn into a pumpkin when you’ve put so much effort to get to the ball. Enjoy! Dirt Church Radio - Best Enjoyed Running.
Merch Alert!
Rep your 3rd favourite trail and ultra marathon podcast whilst keeping cool and breezy in this technical trucker hat. Pleasing woodland vista, and one size fits most. Out now!
$NZ59.99 plus postage and packaging with a discount for DCR AidStation paid subscribers (who can scroll down for the code).
Available from the DCR website
Our mates at Squadrun have come up with a special four week training trial for listeners of DCR. Now as you’ll know from listening to DCR over the years, Squadrun is the baby of Kerry Suter and Ali Pottinger, and they have coached thousands of runners to success at a bunch of events we love and cherish and if you’ve been to any trail races on either side of the Tasman you’ll have seen the squadrun colours being represented strongly. So, if you want to give it a crack, here’s the link.
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Where We’re At:
Saturday 16 November- Ali will be at the Queenstown Marathon, she’ll be at the start of the half marathon and at the marathon finish on the mic, come say hi!
Wednesday 22 November- Ali and Andrew will be crewing and running (respectively) the mighty Coast To Kosci Ultramarathon
Thursday 27 to Sunday 30 November- Ali and Matt will be commentating at Ultra Trail Kosciuszko by UTMB. Hi fives and chats most welcome!!
Essay
Hurts So Good. Managing Discomfort Vs. Pain in Running- and Knowing The Difference.
For those of us who are heading towards Tarawera, we’re hitting some long weeks and/or consistently bigger loads around now. Bodies will be starting to tire and fatigue and pain may be rearing its head. I was clearing space on my drive the other day when I stumbled upon this piece I wrote a few years back.
It’s longer than what we usually put on here, but stick around, you might find some useful stuff, and, if I do say so myself, I used to be able to write good and stuff and it still stands up. Enjoy.
Any discussion around pain, especially that which is born through exertion is raft with several well-worn cliche’, such as “Pain is just weakness leaving the body” “Pain is mandatory, suffering is optional” “Pain is temporary, glory is forever” or the most common; “No pain, no gain”. Whilst everything worth doing indeed takes effort, the reality is that pain is not necessarily a mandatory component of success. If we are experiencing pain whilst we run, then this may indicate that we need to adapt or reconsider our training, form, or mindset.
Pain is the result of a complex pathway of chemical and electrical impulses traveling at incredible speed through our body, which are disseminated in our thalamus (our information hub) to different brain regions. The main function of pain is to alert us to distressing or harmful stimuli, thus enabling us to protect ourselves from it. Pain, as part of the body’s defense system, is composed of many different types, indeed the very subjective nature of pain that we can perceive and attribute meaning to is what makes pain management such a complex process.
If you were to consider us as a species and put us against most other predators you would find us wanting. We are not the fastest, nor the strongest, we don’t have the fangs, or claws or wings. Our success is driven by our big, beautiful, and immensely complex brains.
We are designed to make connections between things, be this socially or conceptually. With the development of our neocortex, or simply put our mammalian brain, we were afforded the privilege of amongst other things spatial reasoning, cognition, language, and sensory perception. Our limbic system, or our reptilian brain, which we share with fish and lizards, is responsible for feeding, fighting, fleeing, and well, you know..It’s where our emotions are from, and memory. It’s the part of our brain that allows us to stereotype our life so that essentially we can function without being overwhelmed by distress. The benefit of having both these parts of our brain is that we can conceptualize our emotional states, which is important when we consider pain.
There is a myth that “fish do not feel pain”, however, studies have shown that fish have an amygdala, as do we, which makes sense considering that we evolved from aquatic beings. The amygdala is part of the limbic system. These two almond-shaped bundles of nuclei located deep within our brains are chiefly concerned with memory, emotions, and decision-making. The amygdala is to thank for how you know not to put your hand on a red hot stove element. The fact that both us and fish can perceive the stimulus of pain and the emotion that this correlates to; distress, fear, anger (as defense), and a means to avoid further distressing stimuli, is significant. However where we differ from fish (and other beings with less complex brains)is that we can “Feel” pain, rather than simply perceive it. That is we are able to put an emotional response and judgment to the perception of the stimuli. This can both work in our favour and against us when it comes to managing pain.
