Mantra

The courage to start.

The strength to endure.

The will to finish.

I am in the process of designing a t-shirt to wear for the race in two and a half weeks. Over the past few months, I have batted around various concepts. I needed a slogan, though—something that captured the spirit of the endeavor. A while back, my buddy sent me a quote which embodied the series of lines above. Those three phrases capture what I was looking for. Interesting enough, they also capture the spirit of one of my heroes—the explorer Ernest Shackleton whose ship was named The Endurance. Like no one else I know, he was a man who understood what it took to endure.

The courage to start. When Shackleton left England in 1914, it was his second trip to the Antarctic. He had led an initial expedition to the continent seven years earlier with the hope of being the first to reach the South Pole. He failed in that project, having come within just 112 miles of the objective. Just a few years after his failed venture, Norwegian Roald Amundsen would beat him to the prize. Therefore when Shackleton and his crew left in 1914, his objective was to attempt the first crossing of that continent. The advertisement that he placed in the paper to attract crew exemplifies the nature of the mission. It read: “Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkeness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honour and recognition in case of success”. Looking at his prospects, Shackleton saw with honest eyes the true nature of his task. Yet he stepped into it thoughtfully and courageously.

The strength to endure. I firmly believe that one’s character is exemplified, not when the going is good, but when conditions are harshest. Shackleton, his crew, and his ship were locked in sea ice before they even reached Antarctica. For 16 months they were adrift in the frozen ocean. Ultimately their vessel was crushed by the relentless forces of the ice and sank. Never-the-less they eventually reached solid ground by dragging immensely heavy sledges for miles over the windswept and broken ice floes. Shackleton remarked that what was so challenging about the experience was that for over a year, while they were living on the sea ice, nothing changed. They struggled against the same things again and again: cold, dark, wind, poor food, and mental exhaustion. Truly that man embodied the strength to endure. He also acknowledged that no one ever gets the conditions that he wants. As a result one has to deal with what he has. And purposefully deal himself a bad hand he did. When lots were cast for the best tents and sleeping bags, he rigged the lottery to ensure that he got the worst of the bunch. He chose to endure the harshest conditions, so his men would not have to.

The will to finish. Shackleton recognized that they could not live marooned at the bottom of the world interminably. No one was going to rescue them. A small group, including Shackleton, then sailed 800 miles over 15 days in a small open boat, without modern navigation equipment, and managed to land at South Georgia Island where there was a whaling station. The southern ocean between Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica is some of the most dangerous waters in the world due to consistently heavy seas and strong winds. Once the men reached land, they still had to cross unmapped and glaciated, mountainous terrain before they were back in civilization. Their expedition was, in the same stroke, one of the greatest failures and most sensational successes of all time. Every time the goal posts were moved for Shackleton, he demonstrated the will to finish whatever new task he was faced with.

I have pored over the various ultra-running forums searching for nuggets of advice. One that I plan to implement is using a mantra. The advice is simple: when the $#*! hits the fan, you just start repeating your phrase, focusing on it alone. For me that phrase will be “The courage to start. The strength to endure. The will to finish.” As I repeat this phrase, I will be thinking of Shackleton blasted by vicious winter winds at the ends of the Earth. In challenging circumstances he understood that focusing on the task at hand—not the finish line—was the only way to reach the finish line.