Mastering miles, bit by bit

In my 20s, I ran a 50-mile race five times. Compared with today's ultra events, a 50-miler is puny. Back then, it was a feat that amazed.

"How can you run that far?" people asked.

"I break it down into smaller pieces," I replied.

This cognitive trick, which reduced a daunting, seemingly impossible challenge into manageable tasks, came to mind when I spoke to pro cyclist Tyler Wren, 29, before the TD Bank Philadelphia International Championship last month.

One way he copes during that 156-mile, six-hour race, and 10 trips up the Manayunk Wall, is by "chunking things down." He divides the race into a series of discrete challenges, persevering by making deals with himself - "I'll just focus on the next 100 meters; I'll sprint to the top of that hill; I'll pedal fast enough to pick off the guy in front of me; I'll hold on until I reach that streetlight."

Pat Croce, 55, the fitness sage and entrepreneur, is fond of citing an African proverb: "The best way to eat an elephant standing in your path is one bite at a time."

Croce has applied this principle not only in sports and fitness but in all aspects of life, including his various business ventures. He advocates a "vision breakdown." Begin with the end in mind - a vision or goal - then break it down into strategies, and the strategies into tasks.

In June 1999, when Croce nearly lost his leg in a motorcycle accident, he envisioned himself running again - a wildly optimistic goal at the time. But first he hatched an intermediate aim: By Jan. 1, he would walk without a cane. He equipped his garage for physical therapy and spent hours each day exercising. Sure enough, come the new year, he was walking.

Gradually, he began adding some jogging. On the track, he would walk the curves, jog the straights. By 2002, he was running.

Megan Williams, 40, of Mount Airy, a former Lower Merion High School cross-country and track coach, has run more than 20 marathons and competed in numerous triathlons, including an Ironman.

"When you're sitting in the water at the start of the Ironman, it's tough to wrap your mind around the fact that you're going to be exercising for 12 hours straight," she says. Conveniently, the triathlon is already broken down into three "chunks," but to survive and succeed requires further chunking down.

When Williams was coaching, she often urged her runners to think in terms of sustaining an effort, perhaps a burst of speed, from telephone pole to telephone pole.

"Running is self-inflicted pain," Williams says. "Sometimes you feel so bad, all you can do is concentrate on that feeling. In the marathon, it's common to feel bad at mile 18. If you acknowledge it and determine to make it to mile 20, surprising things can happen. I've had marathons where I felt absolutely miserable until mile 20. Then all of a sudden it turned around."

No one can relate better than ultra athlete Dean Karnazes. Among his feats: finishing 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days and running 350 miles straight (time: 81 hours, 44 minutes). Karnazes, 47, of San Francisco, has also won the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon across Death Valley and run a marathon to the South Pole.

"When I'm really hurting, I'll say to myself, Just get to that bush 10 feet up the trail," Karnazes told me. "When it's really bleak, just put one foot in front of the other. It gets that granular. I tell people to put their blinders on and be in the moment. Don't think about what's still ahead. How do you run 50 marathons in 50 days? One step at a time."