I am currently training to run 90 kilometres along the Fife Pilgrim Way in May, and if everything goes according to plan, I will finish approximately fifteen minutes before they pack up the finish line and go home.
I am currently training to run 90 kilometres along the Fife Pilgrim Way in May, and if everything goes according to plan, I will finish approximately fifteen minutes before they pack up the finish line and go home.
This is not false modesty. This is not some elaborate psychological trick where I'm secretly harbouring dreams of placing in the top ten. This is the actual goal. I want to cross that line with just enough time for someone to hand me a medal before they start loading the signs back into the van.
There's something beautifully honest about this approach that runs counter to every motivational poster ever printed.
We live in an age where everyone is supposed to be optimising everything. Your morning routine needs to be productive. Your hobbies need to have measurable outcomes. Even your leisure time is meant to be "intentional." The idea of doing something adequately, of being consciously, deliberately mediocre at it, is treated like a moral failing.
But here's the thing about ultramarathons: they're inherently ridiculous. The human body was not designed to run 90 kilometres. We evolved to chase antelope for a bit, sure, but then we invented spears specifically so we wouldn't have to. Running an ultramarathon is already such a monumentally stupid thing to do that trying to do it well feels like missing the point entirely.
I've already run a marathon. Loch Rannoch, October 2024. Time: 05:50:46. I can report with absolute certainty that there is no meaningful difference between finishing a marathon in five hours versus finishing it in four. The same hills hurt. The same parts of your body develop new and interesting complaints. The same existential questions about why you're doing this arise around kilometre thirty. The only real difference is that the four-hour people get to spend an extra hour feeling smug about it.
Here's what I've worked out: the cut-off time for the Fife Pilgrim Way Ultra is generous enough that if I maintain a pace that doesn't make me want to die, I will finish. Not comfortably, but without needing to summon the kind of grim determination that makes you re-evaluate your life choices.
This is the sweet spot. This is where running becomes sustainable rather than a war you're waging against your own cardiovascular system.
I'm going to train properly. I'll do the long runs. I'll probably even do some of that tedious strength training that everyone insists is important. But the goal isn't to see how fast I can go. The goal is to see how far I can go without making myself miserable in the process.
Because the runners who finish fifteen minutes before the cut-off are having a better time than the ones who are racing the clock. They're actually looking at the scenery. They're chatting to other runners. They're not grimacing through the pain; they're just...running. Slowly. Very slowly.
I am currently a bit fatter than I need to be. My writing is progressing at a pace that could charitably be described as "glacial." My photography is improving, but mainly because it would have been difficult for it to get worse. In most areas of my life, I am spectacularly average.
And you know what? That's fine. Better than fine, actually. It's liberating.
The idea that we should be excellent at everything we attempt is exhausting and, frankly, mathematically impossible. By definition, most of us are going to be mediocre at most things. We can't all be in the top ten percent. That's not how percentages work.
So instead, I've chosen to be deliberately, intentionally mediocre at running ultramarathons. I will train enough to finish. I will run far enough to say I've done it. And I will cross that finish line with a time that no one will ever remember, including me, approximately six months from now.
Here's the secret that the fifteen-minute-before-cut-off club knows: when you're not trying to be great, you're free to just be.
I'm not running to prove anything. I'm running because I've set myself this ridiculous goal of progressively longer distances, and because there's something appealing about the sheer bloody-mindedness of it.
There's no pressure. If I have a bad day, I'll still finish, just closer to the cut-off time. If I have a good day, I'll finish with a bit more buffer. Either way, I'll have run 90 kilometres, which is a genuinely absurd thing to do.
The runners racing for podium positions are fighting a completely different battle. They're measuring themselves against other people, against their previous performances, against some Platonic ideal of what they should be capable of. That sounds exhausting.
In a culture obsessed with optimisation and excellence, choosing to be consciously mediocre is almost rebellious. It's saying: this thing is worth doing even if I'm not going to be particularly good at it. It's worth doing for its own sake, not for the Instagram post or the personal best or the validation from strangers on the internet.
I'm going to shuffle through the Fife Pilgrim Way in May at a pace that will not break any records. I will probably get overtaken by people who are older than me, fitter than me, and quite possibly walking. I will cross the finish line with enough time to spare that the volunteers won't be actively annoyed with me, but not so much time that anyone could accuse me of not trying.
And I will have completed an ultramarathon, which is more than most people will ever do, despite being slower than most people who do it.
So here's what I'm working towards: Fife Pilgrim Way Ultra (90 km) in May, then Ultra Scotland 100 (161 km) in June. I'll follow up with the Ochil Ultra (90 km) and I'm toying with the idea of a second large race, 150 km through soft sand in Mauritania. After that, who knows? Maybe I'll keep adding distance. Maybe I'll plateau at 161 kilometres and just run that same distance repeatedly until I get bored. Maybe I'll decide I've proved whatever point I was trying to prove and take up pottery instead.
The beauty of setting deliberately mediocre goals is that I can't really fail. As long as I cross the finish line before they pack it away, I've succeeded. Everything beyond that is just bonus.
And honestly? That feels like a much healthier approach to life than the alternative. I'm not trying to be the best. I'm just trying to be good enough, consistently, at progressively more difficult things.
Fifteen minutes before the cut-off. That's the dream. That's the goal. That's my love letter to mediocrity.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go for a run. A slow one. Obviously.