Uncertainty is baked into the Grand Traverse ski race. Every year, there’s a real chance the race won’t go as planned. As late as 11 p.m. – just an hour before the midnight start – organizers might decide it’s too risky for 500 skiers to navigate the avalanche-prone peaks between Crested Butte and Aspen. When that happens, the race reverses course and shifts from a race with a destination to an out-and-back from Mt. Crested Butte – the “Grand Reverse,” as it’s called. In an instant, months of course-specific training for a point-to-point journey are upended. The logistical gymnastics of getting racers and their gear from point A to point B suddenly shifts to an unexpected return to point A.
For some, this last-minute shakeup can be too much. For others, it’s just another challenge to address. The athletes who thrive in uncertainty – who can adapt, embrace the chaos, and stay focused – are the ones who win races like the Grand Traverse.
Mind over matter. Does the old adage carry more weight than we think?
Endurance sports push athletes to their physical limits, but those who succeed often credit something beyond training and genetics: the ability to master their own minds. Whether it’s embracing suffering, adapting on the fly, or digging deep for motivation, mental toughness is what separates the good from the great.
Crested Butte’s endurance athletes know this well. Years of pushing themselves in extreme environments have given them an intimate understanding of how the mind dictates performance.
While sports science is just beginning to explore concepts like brain endurance training, these athletes have been honing mental resilience for years, proving that the most important muscle in endurance sports might just be the mind.
The mental game of endurance
At 60, Pat O’Neill finally got into his ‘bucket list’ race – the Hard Rock 100. Touted as one of the hardest ultramarathons in the world, the 102.5-mile running race clocks 33,000 feet of ascent at an average elevation of over 11,000 feet. You can bet that O’Neill, a Crested Butte local of nearly 40 years, trains year-round for the July event.
But logging miles on the treadmill and skin track are just the ‘controllables,’ as athletes like to say. It’s often the uncontrollables, like the weather, other racers, mood, or even your GI tract, that more often derail people in events like the Hard Rock or the Grand Traverse.
“By far, mental strength is what’s truly key,” O’Neill says. “Yes, you have to be prepared, you have to train. For a 100-miler you have to get in your mileage before the event. But when it gets down to it, it’s mental toughness that makes all the difference.”
Monique Merrill, a CB-based veteran adventure racer and skimo national champ, believes that mental toughness is an advantage even before a race begins.
“I firmly, firmly, firmly believe in mind over matter. If you have a strong matter and a weak mind… often you’ll never even make it to the start line,” she says.
Merrill credits her upbringing with giving her an edge. Raised around the world in developing countries, she learned grit at a young age. When she got into racing in her early thirties, she found she didn’t seem to suffer as much as her competitors.
“And when I did, I seemed to manage it better than everyone else,” she says. “I think because of that, I was like, ‘Sure, I’ll go to Fiji, to New Zealand, to China.’”
Or wherever,” without paved roads or air conditioning. None of it bothered me.”
In Merrill’s experience, athletes who can roll with the punches have an advantage. It’s not that these athletes are hoping for challenges like snakes or blisters during their races; rather, they go in knowing that the obstacles will appear regardless.
For local ultrarunner and skimo legend Stevie Kremer, the unknowns of the Grand Traverse are always daunting, even after a dozen finishes. Her strategy? Focus on what she can control.
“The hardest part is starting at midnight and mentally pushing your way through the night,” she says. “You never know what might happen – weather, gear malfunctions, you or your partner feeling sick. Obviously, you need to be in somewhat good form, but people who are mentally tough are the ones who can push themselves harder than they believe.”
Where the mind goes
So where does the mind actually go in those moments of extreme exertion and the unknown? Athletes often enter dark places, sometimes even hallucinating from sleep deprivation and fatigue. But more commonly, they battle their own negative thoughts.
For O’Neill, that moment came during the IMTUF 100-miler in McCall, Idaho. He misjudged where to pick up his headlamp and had to run four miles in total darkness. As his thoughts turned negative, he knew he needed to reframe the situation. So, he says, “I basically attempted to see in the dark.
“And I found that not only was I able to get out of the agitation, but I could actually see the trail pretty well. I remember going by the feel of the trail. I was really able to pull myself out of that state, get some food, water, warm clothes, and get my headlamp. It was actually kinda fun.”
While channeling his inner night light helped O’Neill shift his mindset, some athletes anchor themselves in the physical pain to push through.
Merrill recalls a time at the Adventure Racing World Championship in 2006 when one of her teammates, Gunnison endurance legend Dave Wiens, stripped down to his swim trunks during a middle-of-the-night kayak leg of the race. She was shocked to see that he was covered in bruises.
“And he hadn’t said anything,” Merrill says. “It’s possible to put pain in a box and throw away the key and continue on. People have similar physical abilities at that higher level of sport, but it’s the mental ability that can set them apart.”
There is perhaps no greater test of an endurance athlete’s mental ability than how they handle the moment when quitting seems like the only option.
For Merrill, who spent about a decade competing in some of the world’s most grueling races, learning how to compartmentalize uncomfortable thoughts and feelings has been key to staving off any DNFs (“did not finish”).
“I just shut up, go deep, and keep telling myself it’ll end sooner or later and I’m gonna be better for it,” she says.
Training the mind
While none of these CB athletes have used formal mental training, their belief in mental toughness aligns with cutting-edge sports psychology research.
Dr. Christopher Ring, a professor at the UK’s University of Birmingham, studies brain endurance training (BET), which consists of cognitive tasks that improve an athlete’s ability to tolerate discomfort, stay focused, and recover from setbacks during long events. Typical BET exercises include adding problem-solving or memory games to physical activity, like doing mental Sudoku on a distance ride or engaging in memory games on a long run. Ring’s research suggests that, just as physical endurance is built through repetition and strain, mental endurance can be developed in the same way.
For Crested Butte’s endurance athletes, mental strength has been honed through years of experience and lessons learned on the trail. But for newer athletes struggling with the mental side of racing, Ring believes brain endurance training could be a game changer.
“Just like you can build physical endurance, you can build mental endurance,” Ring says. “The brain has a capacity for growth, and we can train it to handle the psychological stressors of endurance sports.”
Psychological stressors are guaranteed in endurance racing, whether you’re a PhD or a painter. For O’Neill, it’s not if but when the mental darkness will descend. Then, it’s about finding a way through it.
“In a 100-mile race, you’re going to crater five different times,” he says. “But you’ve got to know you can climb back out. It’s like going to the bottom of the well to see what’s there.”
In the end, these athletes prove that mental strength isn’t just part of endurance sports, it is endurance sports. Legs and lungs matter, but when 11 p.m. rolls around on the night of the Grand Traverse and the organizers say the dreaded ‘R’ word, the strongest athletes are the ones who can process the news without losing their minds.