Helps to ease the pain

Australians who were singing it ironically at the startline as we stood around in the dark waiting before a day-long race through a forest.

Now, I’ve got nothing against Perry, and I’m probably not her target audience, I’m guessing. But come the middle of the afternoon, as fatigue had well and truly set in, I was less than impressed that, yep, stuck on repeat in my head was I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire.

’Cause I am a champion, and you’re gonna hear me roar…

Oh, lordy… I’m sure the longhaired, admirably-bearded Krupicka was warning about exactly this.

And I can only hope that Matt isn’t reading this – the shame, the shame!

Another time I got stuck with Annie Lennox singing Little Bird – no idea where that came from either. It’s better than Roar, but when you’ve heard it over and over again while you’re struggling up a part of a course called ‘‘The Loop of Despair’’ (yes, it’s as soul-crushing as it sounds) you’d be over it, too.

I was happier another time with (the Metallica cover, rather than the Bob Seger original, in case you’re wondering).

Something about its brooding, just-get-it-done lyrics spurred me on( Every ounce of energy, you try to give away. As the sweat pours out your body, like the music that you play).

On the podcast this week, we interviewed Andrew McDowall, a New Zealand representative ultra runner who also happens to be a sound engineer and professional musician, writing scores and playing in bands like Katchafire.

We asked him what motivated him in his darkest moments.

His go-to trick was ‘‘you paid for this so you might as well enjoy it’’ – basically the Scrooge tactic.

Other times he gets a boost thinking about his kids and wife, and the thought of them cheering him on.

But another mind tool was visualising the finish line and imagining finishing.

It might seem strange to be thinking about finishing to keep you going but, hey, you take your motivation where you can.

Maybe there’s a song about that.

Eugene Bingham and Matt Rayment are hosts of a trail running podcast Dirt Church Radio. Learn more at dirtchurch radio.com or get in touch via email dirtchurchradio@ gmail.com