Hey Reader,

Most of us in the endurance world have a fairly tidy definition of mental toughness rattling around our heads: the ability to suffer without complaining, to keep going when it hurts, to not quit, “wanting it” more than someone else. These are fine sound bites — except that they don’t actually explain what’s happening in the moments when everything goes sideways. They doesn’t tell you what to do when your race plan falls apart at mile 18, or when you someone tells you to bake a cake you’ve never even heard of (I promise that metaphor will become relevant)

​Justin Daerr has thought about this more carefully than most. Justin raced as a professional triathlete for nearly two decades, finishing over 40 Ironman triathlons, including 18 top-five finishes, 29 top tens, and a win at Ironman Boulder in 2014. Since retiring from professional racing in 2020, he has coached athletes through his company All of It, competed in swim-run events like Ötillö, and spent considerable time thinking about what mental toughness actually is — and whether it’s possible to train it.

The endurance world tends to romanticize mental toughness as a kind of armor — a state in which nothing phases you, in which suffering is a masochistic end in itself, not a doorway you pass through. Where nothing is difficult. But Justin pushes back on this idea directly.

“Mentally tough athletes have the ability to consistently derive motivation from a variety of different sources that allows them to persist and perform while under duress,” he says. If you take a second to really sink into that definition, you’ll notice the absence of the word “difficulty.” The difficulty is always there. What changes is what you do with it.

Justin’s working model of mental toughness focuses on a specific, uncomfortable moment: the moment when something hits you that you haven’t prepared for. Not when things get hard — you’ve trained for hard. The moment when you encounter a situation that is genuinely unfamiliar, genuinely threatening, and for which no amount of rehearsal has given you a clear roadmap.

What happens next is where mental toughness lives or dies. Read more by clicking the link below...

Psssst—A Sneak Preview

For years athletes have asked me for two things — coaching that doesn't cost what 1:1 costs, and people to train alongside. I've quietly been building both.

Today I'm introducing The Scout level of coaching at Campfire: a small-group training option that launches in September. Here's what you'll get:

• Weekly group classes (all recorded so you can go at your own pace) that takes you through Campfire's proven process of Endurance Mastery. We'll cover effort, pacing, fueling, tactics, training, race logistics, and much more
• Weekly office hours, where you can ask Chris any question you want (ideally about training, but hey, the Doctor is In)
• A training plan built for YOU alone—not a cookie-cutter imitation of a training plan
• Daily communication via the TrainingPeaks app
• A cohort of like-minded individuals, aiming for the same race as you or a race in the same time frame—you get the support, community, and camaraderie you've come to expect from Campfire.
• And so. Much. More.

If this sounds like something you want—individualized community coaching—then click the link button below: you'll get all the information you'll need ahead of our launch on September 1, including a bonus for those who join the inaugural cohort.