The Emotional and Physical Toll of Not Finishing an Ultramarathon

Ultramarathon runners train for months, sometimes years. But what happens when they don’t finish a race?

DNF stands for ‘did not finish’ – the acronym no ultrarunner wants assigned to their race result. For amateurs, DNFing is loaded with emotion – but attrition rates are extremely common Drenched, freezing, utterly miserable and with a GI catastrophe ready to blow, my internal conflict of quit/don’t quit was in full force. I was at about kilometre 56 of my 100k ultramarathon. After a cascade of bad decisions and worse weather, totally wretched, I shuffled and sobbed my way through the dark to t...

By Jane Davies