View From The Edge | Kilian Jornet’s 24-hour record attempt shows pushing your comfort zone can mean different not distance
- Trail runners have an obsession with distance but pushing your comfort zone can mean changing another variable
- Replace the desire to run farther with one to go faster, or to train for a different type of race
Trail and ultra running is all about pushing yourself, extending past your comfort zone and growing mentally.
But there is an obsession with going farther. Once you have finished your first 50km, the question is when will you tackle 100km? And then push yourself to a 100-miler (160km). But your comfort zone does not have to be farther, it can be faster or it can just mean different.
But it is different. Jornet’s effort shows that pushing yourself to new limits can mean pushing yourself in new ways, not just for longer. No one can deny the monotony of a 24-hour track race, a new and novel challenge for a runner used to the epic ridges of northern Norway.
And the pressure to stick to a specific split to hit a distance or time (in this case, the 24-hour world record) is different again, something mountain runners, with their many variables, rarely have to care about so precisely.
