The trail running (and road running) season is soon to be over. Here are five key lessons I’ve been reminded of this year.

1. STOP WRITING THE NARRATIVES

One harmful behaviour that I’ve often had in races (and that I’ve seen in other athletes!) is that I’m often writing the story of the race while the race is still unfolding.

Making a judgement call on your performance, evaluating how you’re doing, and making definitive statements about it either being good or bad is not helpful. The time for reflection can come after the race.

I see this often with professional athletes in other sports. They have a few bad moments early on, and suddenly (in they’re mind) – they’re not having a good game.

The trick is to save that evaluation process for later. Instead of evaluating, focus on doing in the present moment. Focus on working to change the narrative for the better, without writing it.

In all of my best races across my career, I can recall very few thoughts. Usually, there are next to no negative thoughts. The best ones, have almost no thoughts at all – existing in just a constant state of focusing on the task at hand and how much effort is required at different moments.

^{For more on this thought, see my Victoria Marathon Race Recap.}

In my recent marathon, I reached the halfway mark and told myself “You’re having a really good day.”

It was at that exact moment that I slowed down. When I started writing the positive narrative about how good of a job I was doing, I lost touch with the pace and the runners around me. As soon as I was able to refocus on the task at hand with others pushing me forward, I thought about nothing else except holding the pace alongside them.

In your next race, I encourage you to try thinking fewer thoughts, and just tell yourself to “go”. You will feel more focused on the task at hand, and more at peace with the stress around you.

2. REPEAT WHAT WORKS, UNTIL IT DOESN’T

Whenever I have a good race, I’m always reflecting upon the pre-race routines that may have helped to amplify the performance.

If possible, I want to replicate as much of those elements that made me successful from one race to the next. I wear the same socks (XACT Nutrition socks have never given me any blisters and have worked wonders for me the past year). I endeavour to use the same nutrition products, the same shoes (where it makes sense), and engage in as many of the same pre-race routines as possible.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! So if it’s working for you, continue to utilize it until it doesn’t work for you. The same can be said for…

3. STOP REPEATING WHAT DOESN’T WORK

This might sound so obvious and I can already see you scrolling past this one, ready to move on to number four. But I bet there’s something in your running life right now that you’ve persisted using because you spent the money on it, even though it doesn’t work for you.

I had this problem for almost two years with the Raide belt. Raide belts went through a flurry where everyone had them, and that level of social confirmation made me persist with it for far too long.

Truthfully, the belt always bounced, always needed adjusting, and it required far too much effort to balance the weight between both sides to avoid those issues. It didn’t have multiple pockets for separating different items, and the belt itself was big and bulky.

It took me until my latest marathon block to finally say “this isn’t working”, when I couldn’t stand the constant bouncing of the belt at faster speeds.

I did my due diligence in researching relentlessly, and purchased the Salomon S/LAB Belt. I now comfortably wear this on any run of any length. It has a great bottle pocket and requires much less effort to take it out. It has multiple pockets to separate items. It not only doesn’t bounce at all, but it doesn’t weigh a thing.

In one 80$ purchase, it fixed all my issues for not even a third of the price.

This goes for nutrition, shoes, gear, coaching… if something isn’t working for you, make a change.

If it’s gear, you can usually find a use for it in other areas of your life. Almost all of the shoes I wear on hikes or in my everyday life are shoes that didn’t make it through a first or second round of tests.

4. NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO GO RIGHT ON RACE DAY

The day of Run Ridge Run, I didn’t know if I would be able to race.

The morning of the Victoria Marathon, I randomly threw up.

I had back pain before the Sulphur Springs 50K, and a significant fall at the QMT 50K the next year.

At Javelina last year, I had to play around with my headlamp for 90% of the night trail 30K race before switching to my phone flashlight.

All five of these races would easily make my top ten best performances as an adult racer. Would they have been better performances if everything had been perfect? In most of the cases, probably not.

I played my cards really well at QMT 50K in 2024, holding a steady effort after my fall, and then ramping up my effort across the final 10K when I felt confident my injury would be okay. If I had felt good early on, I might have gone too hard and blown up instead (like I did in 2025!).

In other races, the pain or problem source had almost no effect on my performance (or decision making) whatsoever.

In fact, it was helpful in lowering expectations. When you go into a race worried about whether or not you can even start, you then start to realize how much worse things could be, rather than how much better it should be. Other worries become almost insignificant, and you focus on doing the best you can.

In the process of doing the best you can, you always walk away happy.

This isn’t to say that you should be sabotaging and sandbagging yourself before races. Instead, if something doesn’t go right, don’t write the narrative. Brush it off, and remember that it probably won’t matter as much as you think.

5. STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO YOURSELF

Over the past few years of working with the same coach, I’ve repeated a lot of the same workouts.

Whenever I do the same workout in the same location, it becomes really easy to compare paces and times.

Sometimes I’ll think “I’m not as fast as I used to be”. Sometimes I think “this feels way harder than it did last time.” And sometimes I think far less helpful thoughts.

But just because the workout is the same doesn’t mean the pace will be.

The last time I had this issue, I hadn’t taken a gel at the same time slots that I did the previous time, nor did I eat as big of a breakfast.

The problem wasn’t me. It was something completely fixable. I could correct my mistakes over the course of the workout and start running better in the second half again.

Comparing yourself to yourself (especially in a negative light) is almost never helpful. Circumstances change. Progress is rarely linear. So much goes into performance that can’t always be perfectly checked off.

If you’re noticing that something’s off and you’re not quite feeling as springy as you usually do, it’s almost always related to your diet. Nine times out of ten, you’re not eating enough and you’re probably not taking enough liquid carbs either (juice and milks are some of my favourites).

It’s usually not true that you’re actually slower or not as good as you used to be. Way more often, your performance is off because of your eating habits, or something else that is being neglected.

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So with that, these are the rules that I’ll be following in 2027. What are some of your rules for the next year? If you want a coach to help with that quest, simply reach out to me!