Article 20: Resilience in Action: Series 1.4: UTMB: Control the controllables

Introduction:

What UTMB taught me about letting go of the outcome, learning from what happened and putting my energy into the next thing I can actually influence.

Section 1:   Resilience in Action

There is a moment after almost every setback when the mind starts negotiating with the past.

If only I had done that differently.

If only I had left five minutes earlier.

If only I had trained that weakness.

If only I had eaten something else.

If only I had known.

After UTMB, I did plenty of that.

And some of it was useful.

Because reflection matters.

Learning matters.

Accountability matters.

But eventually reflection can stop being learning and become something else.

It becomes an attempt to change an event that has already happened.

That is where I think one of the most practical forms of resilience begins:

Control the controllables.

Section 2:  The race ended. My mind kept racing it.

Once I was back from the mountain, there was no shortage of things to analyse.

I had stopped for a substantial reset at one checkpoint.

Could I have saved ten minutes?

I had lain across a rock to stretch my back on the final section.

How many minutes did that cost?

My nutrition strategy had fallen apart after the vomiting.

Should I have managed caffeine differently?

My training had been disrupted by injury and then compressed.

Should I have built differently?

My core and back had not held together late in the race.

Should I have done more strength work?

Those are legitimate questions.

In fact, if I want to return stronger, I need to ask them.

But there is a point where the question stops being:

What can I learn?

And becomes:

How can I mentally rerun the race until I produce the ending I wanted?

I can’t.

Section 3:  Useful review versus endless ‘what if’

I now think there is an important distinction between review and rumination.

Review looks backwards in order to improve a future action.

Rumination keeps looking backwards even when there is no new action to take.

One produces a decision.

The other often just produces another loop.

For me, the useful review of UTMB sounds like this:

I underestimated the repeated vertical and technical load.

I need to be stronger through my core and glutes.

I need to prepare more specifically for long technical descents.

I need a more robust nutrition and caffeine strategy.

I need to respect how compressed training load can accumulate.

Those observations can influence what I do next.

But questions like, “What if I had been ten minutes faster there?” eventually reach a dead end.

The answer no longer changes anything.

Section 4: There are things we can control, and things we simply cannot

I have always liked simple frameworks.

This one is almost embarrassingly simple.

There are things I can influence.

And there are things I cannot.

I could influence my preparation.

I could influence my pacing.

I could influence what I packed.

I could influence whether I listened to warning signs in training.

I could influence how I responded when my stomach went.

I could influence whether I kept moving towards the next cutoff.

I could not go backwards and remove the shin injury once it had happened.

I could not undo the vomiting.

I could not make a cutoff that had already passed.

I could not negotiate with the clock.

I could not change the fact that my back began spasming on the final climb.

The moment I mix those categories together, I waste energy.

Section 5: Acceptance is not approval

This is where the word acceptance often gets misunderstood.

Acceptance can sound passive.

As though we are saying:

This is fine.

I don’t care.

I give up.

That is not how I use the word.

Acceptance means acknowledging what is actually true now.

I didn’t finish UTMB.

I don’t like that.

I am still disappointed.

I can wish the result had been different and still accept that it wasn’t.

Those things can coexist.

In fact, until I accept the reality, I cannot respond intelligently to it.

If I spend all my energy arguing with something that has already happened, there is less energy available for the next useful decision.

Section 6: Stroke taught me this years before UTMB

I had already been forced to learn some version of this after stroke.

For a long time, I wanted to get back to exactly who I had been before.

Same capability.

Same pace.

Same life.

But the reality in front of me had changed.

Acceptance was not deciding that the impairments did not matter.

It was not pretending I liked them.

It was recognising the terrain I was actually standing on.

Only then could I work out how to move across it.

I eventually began thinking about Christchurch after the earthquakes.

You do not rebuild a damaged city by pretending nothing changed.

You understand the ground.

You learn what is different.

You strengthen what needs strengthening.

You redesign around the new reality.

Then you build forward.

UTMB brought me back to exactly the same lesson.

Section 7: Psychology has a useful term for this

One concept that sits close to this idea is psychological flexibility: the ability to stay in contact with what is happening now while continuing to act in line with what matters, even when thoughts, emotions or circumstances are difficult.

A 2024 systematic and meta-analytic review of 67 studies involving more than 9,000 participants found that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy interventions increased several dimensions of psychological flexibility and reduced inflexibility, and that those changes were associated with reductions in psychological distress.

Another 2024 meta-analysis examining 151 studies found that greater psychological inflexibility was moderately associated with poorer wellbeing. Because much of that evidence was cross-sectional, it cannot establish that inflexibility causes poorer wellbeing.

I don’t read that research as saying we should simply ‘accept everything’.

I read it as support for a more practical idea:

We function better when we can stop fighting reality long enough to choose a useful next action.

Section 8: The next action is where agency lives

This may be the biggest reason I like the idea of controlling the controllables.

It brings agency back.

When the whole situation feels too large, ask:

What can I influence now?

During UTMB, sometimes the answer was tiny.

Drink.

Eat something simple.

Put one foot in front of the other.

Get to the next aid station.

Ask my wife for the numbers.

Put the poles down and try to run.

After the race, the answers changed.

Get the shin assessed.

Wear the moon boot.

Let the injury heal.

Review the training.

Identify the weaknesses.

Decide what needs to change.

The scale of the action does not matter nearly as much as whether it is actually available to you.

Section 9: This applies everywhere

This is not really a running lesson.

It is a life-management lesson.

A leader cannot control the economy.

But they can control the quality of the decision they make with the information available.

You cannot control whether another person likes you.

But you can control whether you behave in a way you respect.

You cannot control whether every application succeeds.

But you can control whether the next one is stronger.

You cannot control that a relationship ended.

But you can control what you learn, how you behave and what you build next.

You cannot control that illness or injury happened.

But there may still be actions available today.

The useful question is rarely:

How do I make reality different from what it is?

It is:

Given reality as it is, what can I do next?

Section 10: The danger of making controllables too simplistic

There is a trap here too.

People sometimes use ‘control the controllables’ as though every outcome is just a function of attitude.

It isn’t.

Life contains randomness.

Bad luck.

Other people’s decisions.

Biology.

Timing.

Systems we do not control.

Resources we may or may not have.

Resilience is not pretending those things don’t exist.

And it is not blaming ourselves whenever an outcome is poor.

The point is narrower:

Once we have identified what is outside our control, we can stop spending all our effort trying to command it.

Then we can put that effort somewhere it has a chance of making a difference.

Section 11: There is still room for regret

.I don’t think the aim is to eliminate regret.

Regret can be informative.

If I look back and think, ‘I should have trained differently,’ that can become a better training decision.

If I think, ‘I ignored a warning sign,’ perhaps next time I respond earlier.

If I think, ‘I let pressure distort my judgement,’ I can recognise that pattern sooner.

The problem is not regret.

The problem is regret with nowhere to go.

If the lesson has already been extracted, repeating the thought does not extract another lesson.

At some point, we have to release it.

Section 12: Letting go does not mean lowering the standard

This is another distinction that matters to me.

Letting go of the past is not letting myself off the hook.

I still want to be accountable.

I still want to ask what I got wrong.

I still want to return better prepared.

I still want to finish UTMB.

But accountability without acceptance becomes punishment.

And acceptance without accountability becomes avoidance.

I want both.

Be honest about what happened.

Take responsibility for what was mine.

Let go of what wasn’t.

Then act.

Section 13: The line I use with myself

For years, one of the phrases I have used is:

“It is what it is. It will be what it will be. I am here now.”

I do not mean that fatalistically.

I mean it as a reset.

The past is fixed.

The future is uncertain.

This moment is where I can act.

That phrase helped me through parts of stroke recovery.

It has helped in races.

And it has helped me after UTMB.

Come back to now.

Then ask:

What is the next controllable?

Section 14: The evidence from stroke recovery is more nuanced too

Acceptance after stroke has been studied directly, although it is a complex and non-linear process.

A 2024 systematic review found that acceptance of disability after stroke was associated in the literature with a range of rehabilitation-related and psychosocial factors, while also noting that measures and study methods varied considerably.

A separate 2024 qualitative metasynthesis identified three recurring themes in stroke acceptance: understanding impairments, flexibility and active engagement, and acceptance as a non-linear process.

That final point matters to me.

Acceptance is not a switch.

You can accept something today and fight it again tomorrow.

You can be positive and disappointed at the same time.

You can move forward and still wish the past had been different.

That is human.

Section 15: What I can control now

I cannot change UTMB 2026.

I can change how I prepare for what comes next.

I can heal properly.

I can rebuild strength.

I can address the core and glute weakness I believe contributed to my late-race posture and back problems.

I can train repeated long climbs and descents more specifically.

I can improve technical trail ability.

I can build a better nutrition strategy.

I can earn the qualification requirements again.

I can arrive in 2028 better prepared than I was in 2026.

None of that guarantees a finish.

That is important.

Control does not mean certainty.

It means responsibility for the part that is mine.

Section 16: And if 2028 does not go to plan?

This is the question that makes the philosophy real.

If I return to Chamonix in 2028 and something goes wrong again, what then?

I hope I finish.

I want to finish.

I will prepare to finish.

But resilience cannot depend on being rewarded with the outcome I want.

The test will still be:

What is true now?

What is mine to influence?

What is the next useful action?

That might mean pushing.

It might mean adapting.

It might even mean stopping.

Controlling the controllables does not tell you what the answer must be.

It tells you where to look for the answer.

Section 17: Resilience in Action

I used to think resilience was mostly about enduring.

Now I think it is just as much about directing attention.

Where are you putting your energy?

Into something you can influence?

Or into fighting something that has already happened?

UTMB gave me plenty to learn from.

I intend to learn all of it.

But I do not intend to spend the next two years mentally rerunning a race that ended in 2026.

The useful lessons come with me.

The rest can stay on the mountain.

That, to me, is Resilience in Action.

See reality clearly.

Take responsibility for your part.

Release what you cannot change.

Then put your energy into the next thing you can.

Because the future is not controlled by how many times we replay the past.

It is influenced by what we do next.

Section 18: The series ends here. The work doesn’t.

This is the final article in this first Resilience in Action series.

Across these four pieces, UTMB has become more than a race report.

It has given me four questions I want to keep carrying:

What am I really capable of?

What is my why, and is it bigger than the outcome?

What can I learn when I fall on the wrong side of the knife-edge?

And when life does not follow the plan, what can I still control?

I do not think resilience is a trait some people simply have and others do not.

I think much of it is practised.

In the challenges we choose.

In the setbacks we do not choose.

In the way we respond when the result hurts.

And in the next decision we make.

The race is over.

The next action is not.

Section 19: The science behind the idea

Psychological flexibility is commonly described as the capacity to remain in contact with present experience while choosing behaviour that is consistent with values and current circumstances. A 2024 systematic and meta-analytic review of 67 unique studies (more than 9,000 participants) found that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy interventions improved several dimensions of psychological flexibility and reduced inflexibility, with those changes linked to reductions in psychological distress.

A separate 2024 meta-analysis of 151 studies found that greater psychological inflexibility was associated with poorer wellbeing. The authors cautioned that much of the evidence was cross-sectional, so the association should not be treated as proof of causation.

Stroke-specific research also describes acceptance as a non-linear process involving recognition of impairments, flexibility and active engagement rather than passive resignation.

Section 24: Closing

Resilience in Action extends that journey to wider communities, exploring what difficult goals, setbacks and rebuilding can teach us about how we respond when life does not go to plan.

Support Us:

If you found value here, consider clicking the (Support Us button on the website), which is linked to “Buy Me a Coffee”, to make a small donation. This donation will help us to continue creating practical recovery resources.

References: (simplified, policy-aligned)

1. Macri JA, Rogge RD. Examining domains of psychological flexibility and inflexibility as treatment mechanisms in acceptance and commitment therapy: A comprehensive systematic and meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review. 2024;110:102432. PMID: 38615492.

2. Ong CW, Barthel AL, Hofmann SG. The Relationship Between Psychological Inflexibility and Well-Being in Adults: A Meta-Analysis of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire. Behavior Therapy. 2024;55(1):26–41. PMID: 38216235.

3. Lim MJR, et al. Acceptance of disability in stroke: a systematic review. Annals of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine. 2024;67(2):101790. PMID: 38118296.

4. Acceptance of disability in stroke: A qualitative metasynthesis. 2024. PMID: 38725263.

Additional Disclaimer:

Medical Disclaimer

The content on this channel is for informational and motivational purposes only and should not be considered medical, therapeutic, or professional advice. I am not a licensed healthcare provider. Always consult your physician or a qualified health professional before starting or modifying any rehabilitation program, exercise routine, medication, or lifestyle change.

Personal Experience

Everything shared here stories, drills, opinions, and training methods comes from my personal stroke-recovery journey and individual learnings. Your situation, risks, and capabilities may differ.

Organisational Independence

I currently serve as an independent director and/or volunteer with several organisations (including St George’s Hospital and the Stroke Foundation).

All views expressed on this channel are strictly my own and do not represent, endorse, or reflect the positions of any organisation I am affiliated with.

No Liability

While I strive to present accurate, up-to-date information, I make no warranties or guarantees, express or implied about the completeness, reliability, or applicability of the content. Your use of any information provided is strictly at your own risk. I accept no responsibility for injury, loss, or damage that may result.

Affiliate & Sponsorship Note

From time to time, this channel may mention or link to products or services. If an affiliate link is used, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only mention resources I genuinely believe can help the recovery community.

Emergency Disclaimer

If you think you are experiencing a medical emergency, call your local emergency number immediately. Do not rely on videos or online content for urgent medical care.