Stage Chunking for Long Efforts
Break an overwhelming distance into a handful of named stages, then run only the current one
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 78%
Océane's method for surviving very long efforts is to change the counting unit. For a 50k ultramarathon she refused to think in kilometres and instead built two loops, so the whole event became two things. For her Ironman she held only three objects in mind — one swim, one bike, one run — and while on the bike deliberately did not think about the marathon waiting on the other side. Within the marathon itself she dropped to 10km laps and counted them off one at a time. The mechanism is that perceived difficulty scales with the number of units remaining, not the absolute distance, so a small number of large stages feels tractable where a large number of small ones feels endless. Sustained training reinforces this: once 20km runs are routine, a marathon reads as 'double that'.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal, where Natacha Océane described how she got through her first Ironman in Barcelona and a 50k ultramarathon filmed for her channel.
Core principles
- 01The unit you count in determines how large the task feels.
- 02Fewer, bigger chunks beat many small ones for morale.
- 03Only the current stage is allowed in your head.
- 04Training the distance shrinks it perceptually as well as physically.
- 05Completion, not ranking, is the goal that keeps you moving.
How to run it
- 1
Refuse the default unit
Do not count in the unit the event advertises — kilometres, hours, chapters. That unit is chosen for measurement, not for morale.
Pro tip Say the total once at the start, then ban it from your internal monologue.
- 2
Design two to four stages
Cut the effort into a small number of stages with natural, unmistakable boundaries — a discipline change, a loop, a venue change.
Pro tip Loops work well because the boundary is physical and undeniable.
Watch out More than about four stages and the count starts feeling long again.
- 3
Run only the current stage
While inside a stage, the next one does not exist. On the bike, Océane thought only about getting off the bike, not about the marathon after it.
Pro tip If your mind jumps ahead, restate the current stage's finish line.
Watch out Previewing the remaining stages is the fastest way to lose morale mid-effort.
- 4
Sub-count inside the hard stage
For the stage that will hurt most, drop to a smaller repeating unit — she used 10km laps — and close them off one by one.
Pro tip Count laps completed, not laps remaining.
- 5
Pace to complete
Enter with completion as the goal and pace accordingly. Racing changes the entire experience and the suffering that comes with it.
Pro tip Have nutrition and pacing settled beforehand so neither becomes a mid-event decision.
Watch out Going in to win when you trained to finish turns the day savage.
In the wild
For an ultramarathon filmed for her channel, Océane declined to think about 50 kilometres. She designed the route as two loops and held only that in mind. Reducing the mental arithmetic to 'one loop, then one more loop' made an unprecedented distance feel, in her words, not so bad.
→ She completed the 50k treating it as a two-part event rather than a fifty-part one.
Océane went into her first Ironman with completion rather than placing as the goal, well-prepared on nutrition and pacing. She held it as one swim, one bike and one run: finishing the swim meant a third done, and on the bike she thought only about getting off the bike. The marathon she then broke into 10km laps, ticking them off as one done, two done, three done.
→ She finished — and was genuinely surprised to place second, since placing had never been the aim.
Common mistakes
Chunking too finely
Splitting the effort into dozens of small units reproduces exactly the overwhelm you were trying to avoid; a handful of big stages is the point.
Rehearsing the stages ahead
Thinking about the marathon while still on the bike collapses the whole structure and hands the difficulty back to you all at once.
Chunking without the training base
Chunking makes a prepared distance feel shorter; it does not substitute for the long training runs that make the distance familiar in the first place.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone attempting a distance or project far beyond what they have done before.
Not ideal for
Elite competitors racing for a time, where pacing strategy overrides psychological chunking.
From the transcript
“So I tend to think of things in stages.”
“With the Ironman. I just thought of it as one swim, one bike and a run.”
“And I just thought like one lap done. Two laps done three laps done four done.”
From the episode
Why You Shouldn't Be Afraid To Quit - Natacha Océane
Natacha Océane