You can plan and train as much and long as you like and do everything in your power to set yourself up for a successful and enjoyable race but sometimes it just doesn’t work out like that. For the second time now, I had to cancel the Fullsteam Fortitude Ultra Trail Run that I was supposed to run in March. Reason being: I got sick one week before challenge day.

Exactly the same happened to me last year. I wrote this post about it and how I handled the frustration. It really hit me hard last year and I fell into a depressive phase, to be completely honest with you. My dear friend and fellow ultra trail runner knew exactly what to say in that moment and send me the following:

“Although everything looks bad and hopeless at the moment, I would like to remind you that this is just one race. Yes, one that you really, really wanted to be part of but still, it’s just a race. We will have plenty of opportunities to run together. […]

Priority right now is to look after yourself and get healthy. Breathe, let it go, love your body. Soon you’ll be running again. I promise ":) “

To this day, I still take her advice to heart and apply it. And that’s exactly what I did (again) this year. After months and months of training and feeling such an excitement to finally run the Fullsteam Fortitude Ultra (which is a 10 hour race), I got sick and needed to admit to myself that running the event in this condition would harm my body. So I decided not to show up at the start line and cancelled my place so another fellow ultra runner could take my place.

What did I do instead? I still went to the little cowshed in the forest close to the event course and used the time there to recuperate. With self-care and trying hard to have a positive mindset, I was able to cope with the disappointment much better this year.

It got me thinking though: Perhaps I should try out different kind of challenges. Adventures that are just as hard, exciting and challenging as an officially organized event but ones that offer more flexibility. I came across this website called The Conqueror. You can basically organize your own event virtually. Simply chose a distance, time and sport and track your achievement with an app, i.e. Strava. Once you’ve done your event and uploaded it, you’ll get a medal - and their medals look stunning!! You can even do it as a team.

I really like this idea because it means I’m more flexible when and where I want to run my ultras. In my specific case, as soon as I’m healthy again, I could run either the official race course or pick another route with the equivalent distance, track it and celebrate my achievement via The Conqueror.

Sure, it’s not the same as running an event with thousands of others but at the same time it doesn’t take away anything from my achievement and I get to do what I love most without needed to wait another year until the event day comes around: Trail Running.