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Tag: mental toughness

Worlds End 100K – Quest for the Crown Race 2

Worlds End 100K – Quest for the Crown Race 2

Published by Patrick Durante on June 6, 2026

Race Recap

My goal going into this race was simple: be able to run at the end. That meant pacing the first half properly, matching my effort to what the weather and course allowed rather than chasing a preset number that’s almost impossible to estimate. I went out slow, staying aware of heart rate and temps, knowing the cooler conditions would work in my favor. The course was muddy in sections and very rocky. I kept waiting to see how the day played out before deciding when to push. I took a lot of time at aid stations because I could, and I don’t regret it. I ran my best 100K to date, below will be some of the tips and tricks that made that happen.

Preparation and Fitness

This was the most mileage I’d put in leading up to any race. I did double days when I could, I ran with my son Isaac on days he needed training for his race, went for quick climbs at lunch to build strength at the local park. I practiced power hiking on the treadmill through the winter months (walking), and it showed. I was catching people on climbs, and someone actually commented that I had an amazingly fast hiking (walking) pace going uphill. Climbing strength, nutrition, heat acclimation: there was nowhere I felt under prepared for this race.

My pace chart that I generated on UltraRunTools.com (in beta)

Nutrition

This was the high point of the race. Using larger bottles for concentrated gel was the right call (see tool here), and being able to eat consistently with just a quick sip is a game changer for running late into an ultra. I was eating far more than in any previous race: aid station food, concentrated gels, and bags of cookies and candy from my pack. Oreo’s and peanut butter M&Ms worked well early on, and even when I stopped wanting solid food late in the race, I could keep going on my gel. Real food was king: hot soups, protein, the egg and sausage burrito at the final aid station. Real food should always make an appearance late in ultras with adding in protein to avoid muscle breakdown. The constant high carb calories, with real food layered in, kept everything feeling great. Order of preference: gel first, then aid station food, then the bag of snacks as a backup.

Nutrition Guideline I generate on UltraRunTools.com, I was WAAAY over this.

Foot Care

It was a stunning course

I put an over emphasis on foot care and it paid off. I never let my feet get wet, changed socks constantly, and pushed my first shoe change back further than usual simply because my feet felt so good. Double socks are a complete game changer for rocky, high-friction courses, and there’s no better way to keep your feet healthy deep into a race. I was still running when others had slowed to a walk. The mud made me more cautious in spots, but staying conservative there was the right call. If my feet are in pain, I will slow to a crawl. I ended up using 3 pairs of shoes in this race, except I didn’t do the first change until 37 miles, which is farther than I normally let a pair of shoes go.

Gear and Execution

I decided not to use poles and it was the right call. They would have slowed me down, and I’d didn’t train with them for this race. The one gear miss was the pace chart, which got crumbled; next time I’ll print it cleaner and attach it somewhere accessible. A single earbud paired to my Garmin watch lasted twelve hours and was critical for navigation, keeping me on course throughout, I then had the 2nd ear bud in a later drop bag. The caffeine and pain management I saved for later in the race, and when I took them together it was massive jolt, and the feeling of fresh legs. I was suddenly running noticeably faster. One note: the caffeine kept me up after I got back to the room, which made the drive home rough the next day. Next time I’ll be more careful with timing caffeine late in a race.

Mental Game

The best feeling was when I left the final aid station, and I knew I had executed the race that I wanted, not the course dictating what should happen. I stayed focused on my own race, not what others around me were doing. That last 10K was genuinely runnable, and I felt amazing, as I passed over 10 different runners on the course. Using my camera to film kept me moving and present in the moment to always think to myself “would this make a good shot?” I shot over an hour of footage I compressed into 10 minutes, but this was only a brief glimpse of the 17 hour race I had that was amazing.

This race completes number 2 on the quest for the crown. This was actually the race that I most feared, the stories I kept hearing told me that I would be chasing cut offs. That was never the case, I was so lucky with the weather it was unbelievable. If you couldn’t get it done on a day like today, then either you just had some bad luck, or your training didn’t match what was needed for the course. I have never raced in such perfect weather conditions in my entire career. What a well run, and amazing race. I am having thoughts of heading back next year already…

The pace plan called for a 15:30 finish, and while I didn’t hit that (final moving time was 17:35:21), my main goal was to enjoy myself, and be able to run those last 6 miles. I did that, and shot a decent video in the process.

Ultra Brain

Ultra Brain

Published by Patrick Durante on February 13, 2026

Science has backed up what I have known about ultras:


Anterior midcingulate cortex (AMCC). Often referred to as the “willpower muscle,” its size and activity are driven by neurobiology rather than just a personality trait. The AMCC grows ONLY when you engage in tasks that are challenging. For instance, if someone loves cold water, an ice bath won’t change their AMCC, but if they hate the cold and force themselves to do it anyway, the area grows. This brain region is significantly larger in “super agers,” individuals who maintain high cognitive capacity and physical health well into their 80s and 90s. The AMCC shrinks or atrophies in individuals who live sedentary lives or consistently avoid challenges. The AMCC is the “seat of the will to live,” as its size and activity level are strong predictors of how well a person survives a major health setback or surgery. Doing “hard things,” such as pushing through difficult physical workouts or neural-activating drills, tells the brain it can overcome any obstacle, building a reserve for when life gets hard.

Failing to do hard things can lead to a breakdown of connectors and receptors in the brain, creating a cycle where the AMCC doesn’t grow, making it increasingly difficult to meet goals or resist sedentary behaviors. This discovery is critical because it moves the concept of willpower away from a moral failing and into the realm of trainable hardware in the brain.

This is something I have known for a while, but I love seeing that science now backs it up. After I completed my first difficult race I signed up for, it gave me a new perspective, the things I didn’t sign up for got easier. I used it as my measuring stick by which I determined if something was difficult. 5Ks became easy, similar to the 5lb weight that becomes easy to lift. That muscle became strong and able to lift greater and greater challenges. So I had to reach for the bigger goal, the bigger hurdle to overcome; the 5K became the 10K, the half marathon, and the rest is history. I used to think it was an addiction to running, but it’s more an addiction to growing these connections stronger to take on greater challenges. Seeking out these challenges year after year was a necessary part of growth.

Your hard looks different from mine, and that’s the beauty of this discovery. We all start off with a small, underdeveloped AMCC. With my kids, I can see how hard it is for them to take on new challenges, but we sign them up for sports. Sports force a hard on you that you don’t choose. You learn to win, lose, or play the game and be better than your previous version of you. There is a sense of danger. You may get hurt if you put yourself in the game, a real game, not a video game (as we are doing a lot now in the winter months). There has to be something that is on the line. You need to have the ability to get hurt, accountability to teammates, going off course in a race, just some type of failure. There needs to be that 50/50 chance of success, because you can’t trick your brain. It knows if nothing is at stake: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

This is the best understanding of the “WHY” for ultras. People think you’re insane when you tell them you can’t wait to run 100 miles in the woods, trying to find your limit. That limit is where the AMCC grows, as someone who has been doing this a long time. I can go back in my mind and remember those past events and feel the pain of the big races. I can look back at them, see the medal or buckle on the shelf, and actually feel how much I grew from a single event, YEARS after it has passed. I remember how tired I was, how hard it was to gain those wins. I know the exact points in races where I had to dig deep and where those synapses in my brain fired to get me a finish. It wasn’t for the buckle, medal, or right to say I completed it. It was for the urge to drive the growth, to be better than my previous best, and that’s it. That’s what drives me year after year, and why I’m excited to plan my adventures every year. Where will they take me? How hard will I push? Will I get in all the training needed to complete the challenges? What type of person will I become when the year is done and I look back?

Find what you’re afraid of most and GO LIVE THERE. That quote is so true because that’s the part of your brain that is scared and needs the inoculation to fear. If you do, you grow, you get stronger, and that fear fades, leaving less places for fear to hide. If you need to convince your significant other to let you sign up for a 50K or 100K, you can forward them this post as to WHY. You become stronger IF you complete it, and even if you don’t, you still grow because you put yourself out there. You can promise them that IF you succeed, you will be stronger mentally AND physically, able to take more of the burden of any problem that gets thrown your way.