Withdrawn / DNC - There is no shame...

Withdrawn, DNC (Did Not Complete), these are the words that all runners dread, yet it features somewhere in the back of every multi-stage endurance participants mind. This thought is not a dominant or debilitating thought as one might expect, but in some regards, serves as the strongest motivator during training. Each endurance runner invests many committed hours in training, physical and mental discipline and general conditioning all with one fundamental aim – to complete the race. Completing the race, for the majority of runners, is the primary objective, time, ranking etc., comes in as a secondary objective.

If these words, then serves as such great motivator during training, what happens during a race that turns these motivating words into the most dreaded reality? Well, there are a few obvious reasons why a runner will withdraw, or be withdrawn by the race organizers and/or medical personnel. The first is sustaining a serious injury during the race, or in some cases, bringing a known or underlying injury or medical condition into the race, where it simply escalates out of control. Unfortunately, there is not much a runner can do about this and in my opinion a withdrawn or DNC is far better than worsening an injury to the point that it impacts negatively upon an individual’s running future.

The second reason is dehydration; the effect of dehydration varies from mild dehydration that can be corrected to something so serious that the runner is withdrawn from the race. The signs of dehydration are evident everywhere during a multi-stage endurance race, but no more so than when we look at the condition of many runners’ feet. Often serious blister problems are the direct result of dehydration. Fluid management is a critical factor in ensuring that the words withdrawn and DNC does not become a feared reality. Treat small issues before they become big disasters is by far the best way to manage yourself throughout a race. A five minute stop at a check point (CP) to check your heart rate, clean your feet and check your own hydration levels saves much pain and time over the duration of the race.

But these are the obvious things. There are, however, a far more sinister reality the lurks in the background and haunts every multi-stage endurance racer, it is our varying mental state during the extreme pressures and stresses that the race, the environment and the terrain forces on our physical bodies as well as the mental fatigue that we are subjected to. The monotony of running for prolonged hours day after day, combined with the physical deterioration and tiredness of our bodies over this time becomes a very strong force, that must be efficiently managed or else it will be the reason for a runner not completing the entire race.

Our primary enemy in this regard is exhaustion and pain, so how do we deal with it?

It is not simply a matter of denying the reality or confessing an alternative reality that will resolve the problem, no it requires strategy, discipline, self-knowledge, honesty and in some cases cunning. In any race, there will come a time that you will have to dig deep to overcome the desire to simply give up, you will have to speak to those inner daemons of self-doubt, and past failures, and battle it out until the strongest element wins. For those that are incapable of winning the battle of the mind the dreaded DNC will be entered behind your name. But this is not a hopeless situation; one can prepare and manage the battle of the mind just as one would train the body.

The first step in preparing the mind, is to never underestimate the value of a long-run (5 hours plus) in training. The time spent dealing with monotony, pain, tiredness and a host of other factors has as much benefit for the mind as it has for the body. The second step in preparing your mind is to embrace solitude. During periods of solitude, you will have to be able to take control of your mind to keep it focused on the task at hand. But, once again, these are actually very obvious solutions that we often overlook.

Unfortunately, there is another danger that, I believe, is the cause of many runners having the letters DNC entered behind their names. Multi-stage endurance racers have become obsessed with shedding race weight, participants run with super light race packs, cut the handles of tooth brushes and do a host of things that will reduce race pack weight to the absolute minimum, in the hope that this will provide the edge. Simple physics dictates that with a limited energy reserve, the only way to increase running speed would be to reduce weight, this is true. However, the majority of runners out there will never be able to compete for a top 5 or 10-percent position, so for these runners increasing speed has little additional benefit. The danger, however, with this weight shedding obsession is that runners find the extra weight to shed within their race food. There is another law of physics that simply states that for any object to remain in motion, no matter how fast or slow, it requires a steady energy supply. Runners are often encouraged to pack 20-percent less calories than what their body would need during the race, and as I have learned in recent months, even as high as 33-percent less than what the body needs.

So what does this have to do with the dreaded DNC letters behind a runner’s name? Simply this, food has a twofold function for any endurance racer, firstly it serves to provide fuel for the body to burn, which in-turn will keep the body in motion, but secondly, and one might argue, more importantly it has a hugely psychological effect. Don’t underestimate this psychological effect, as it might cost you your race. Running on empty is not fun, I had to do it during the long stage of the Kalahari Augrabies Extreme Marathon, and does not which the pain, struggle or discomfort upon my worst enemy. But it was at 74km’s, in the early hours when the dessert temperature had dropped to -1 degree Celsius and my body started to become hypothermic that my mind became irrational. It presented the most eloquent arguments for quitting. As I struggled through the sand the defences of my mind was gradually eroded by the many inner daemons that seems to travel with us on our journeys. At 74km’s the breaking point came, I had dug deep, I had fought and victory was hanging in the balance. That early morning I went on to complete my stage and eventually completed the race, but at 74km’s there was a decisive moment where the battle had to be decided. Exhausted, in pain, bitterly cold, hungry, and alone, the battle was won with nothing more than a sucker, and some good humour. At 74km’s I sat down for 20 minutes, wrapped a space blanket around myself, put a sucker in my mouth and used my sense of humour to regain control. The crew at the last CP provided their support by being there, but it was the sucker with its overpowering sweet taste, and energy rush that broke the hold over my mind, and allowed me, in that moment to regain control.

Some of you might think that I attribute too much to the sucker, but the reality is that every little bit of energy that is in your race pack provides you with an opportunity to succeed. Nutrition is a very personal thing but there is an underlying scientific law that dictates how much energy an individual will need to remain functional. Don’t get caught up in the weight reduction hype, and don’t let the letters DNC behind your name be as a result of bad overall preparation, lack of self-management and lack of sufficient nutrition. Don’t let DNC stand for ‘Deficient Nutritional Catastrophe’.

But let’s return to a more scientific approach to this argument, let’s do the maths to see what the possible benefits could be if nutrition reduction is used as the weight reduction agent. There is an accepted rule of thumb that states that a runner will lose 25 minutes per kilogram of weight over 4kg’s on their standard marathon time. What this means is that if a runner is normally capable of running a marathon in 4 hours, that the same runner, running with a 10kg race pack will take 2 ½ hours longer to complete the same marathon distance. A modest calorie to weight ratio would be around 4,2 kCal per gram.

The average runner will need in the order of 3,000 kCal’s per day or rather 21,000 kCal’s over the duration of the race. This is a worst case calculation and does not allow for the weight reduction of the first day’s breakfast, nor the last day’s dinner that is not needed, nor does it consider the day by day weight reduction that takes place as a result of eating the weight away.

	21,000kCal (3,000kCal per day) Full Compliment	17,500kCal (2,500kCal per day) Reduced Compliment	14,000kCal (2,000kCal per day) Minimum Compliment
Food Weight (4,2kCal/gram)	5,000g	4,166g	3,333g
Food Weight Reduction (g) (Reduction in relation to full compliment)	0g	834g	1,667g
Time Impact of Weight Reduction over a Marathon Distance (minutes)	None	20min 51sec	41min 41sec
Time Difference over Entire Race Distance (250km assuming no progressive weight reduction)	None	+/- 2hours	+/- 4hours
Position change for the average runner placing in the middle of the race group. (2012 race results used)	Position 380 43H48'49 5.66km/h	Position 321 41H48'22 5.93km/h 7% Position Gain	Position 275 39H49'20 6.23km/h 13% Position Gain

The question that remains is whether the added potential health risks, DNC or withdrawal risks associated with calorie reduction outweighs the potential 2 to 4 hours (17 to 34minutes per day) that might be gained through the weight reduction. Most of the MdS runners will successfully complete the race, but each one runs the risk of not completing the race. In some cases nature will dictate the outcome and all that a participant can do is to adapt, for some it will be the natural outcome of insufficient preparation, however, in some cases, it will simply be the lack of inefficient hydration and nutrition management that spells disaster.

I hope that this blog entry provides some insight and that the content provides a starting point from which each runner can make an informed decision.

Thank you for visiting my blog

Genis