Profile:
Fabrice Hardel
AKA ” The French Dude”
Job: Executive Chef
Hobby: Ultra Running
Lifetime Goal:
Best Performances
Most ultra running races range between 50 km to 100 miles. This is about discovering yourself, an adventure inside your soul that not many people experience. During such a long race you “hit the wall” several times and it becomes a mind game, however you can reset your mind to go further, you keep telling yourself: “just a few more miles” and as long as your highs are higher than your lows it makes the lows worth your while. If you put your mind into it you will be able to discover who you really are and what you are made of.
When you participate in a ultramarathon you have to overcome the race, the others runners are not competitors they are friends on the trail; the race is out to beat you, so you have to beat the race. No mater what, if something goes wrong during the race, when you make it to the finish line that feeling of accomplishment is great.
If you can see yourself doing something usually you will do it and the race will just flow. If you can’t see it, chances are that you won’t achieve it. In the sport of Ultra Running where everyone is suffering and going through the agony of finishing the race; you have to - there is no other way. In Ultra Running everybody wins, just cross the finish line and you have won.
“"You're better than you think you are and you can do more than you think you can!"
By Leadville 100 race director
Ultra Running
Ultra Running, to stop smoking
Been a smoker for twenty years I started running in 2007 believing that I would never be able to run a marathon and smoke a pack day. But I was wrong I kept running and smoking and even have a smoke break during my races:-). November 2009 I finally stop the little devil (nicotine) running helped me to quit. My main motivation was my wife, she is a non smoker and I was tired of coming up with excuses each she asked me to quit.
Now been a non smoker I will run all the races I have done so far so see how the cigarettes were affecting my races and my ultimate goal is to run a marathon below 2:45mn.
To all the smokers: YOU CAN DO IT!!! and you will fell so good about it. You will miss it for sure. After all it is the smoker best friend. But the felling of been a non smoker is greater!
Great book that helped me was “the easy way to quit smoking” by Allen Carr’s
An Ultra-marathon is one of the greatest experiences a runner can have. For some people this is a race but for most of us it is a personal accomplishment. Distance can become something more, there is no ending distance in an ultra-marathon as long as it’s past 26.2 miles. Further and further can be anywhere. Ultra running enables a runner to peel away the layers of conducing his/her existence by focusing one’s mind through the pain in a moving meditation. It is a way of communicating with your body and getting to know the person who you really are. This is a test of the mind and the body and ultimately the will.
“The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle, the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”- Pierre de Coubertin
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