32 Days To Go...
The big race day is getting closer and the reality that I'll be running 104km in 32 days time is yet to sink in.
“There’s a great empowerment that I get from running, not only from the endorphins . . . Being a runner, to me, has made being depressed impossible. If ever I’m going through something emotional and just go outside for a run, you can rest assured that I’ll come back with clarity and empowerment.”
Alanis Morissette
This Week’s Earworm
I blame mum for this one, this song came out when I was four, at the time it was a huge risk for Madonna to adopt the electronic genre, which was far different than anything she had done before. The pay off was huge.
Going Off The Script
As runners we like plans, they give us something to follow, something that provides a path to a goal. My coach Shiree gave me a nice plan to follow, but I found early on in the plan I was struggling with the concept of following it to the letter, so each week I’ve been going off my intuition.
This is something I think can be so great for runners, the plan is there as a rough base, that if you complete you will be strong enough to complete the race you’re going for.
But are there some days you just wake up and you feel like you can’t go out for that five hours that’s in your plan? Or on the day you’re meant to do an easy hike you feel like you can take on the world? I think (and this is my opinion only) it’s beneficial to dial it back on days we don’t feel good, and really take advantage of the days we are.
For this purpose you’ll see sometimes I’m doing longer runs in the mid-week, and sometimes shorter runs on the weekend, depending on where I’m at or how I’m feeling.
I’m still following the plan, but it’s flexible to how I’m feeling, that isn’t to say I haven’t gone out and grinded through some long runs when not feeling it, which are just as important because I know at some point in UTK100 it’s going to suck.
Recently I listened to a podcast with Courtney Dauwalter who I think is the best ultra runner in the world. She spoke about how she has a rough idea of what she wants to do each morning, but nothing is actually set in stone until she has her two morning coffees.
This was mind-blowing for me to hear someone be so easy going about their approach to training (I say this as her weekly mileage is somewhere around 177 to 210 kilometres).
But this flexible approach could be the future of how people plan for their races, especially as the debate rages on about how long a long run should be! If in doubt or you’re concerned about your training, I’d always direct people back to their coach for advice, and I’m very lucky I have one of the best!
The Things We Do For Love
Not many people in the world understand what it’s like to train for an ultra. I’m paraphrasing a little bit here, but my friend Nat who is also doing the UTK100 said recently “anyone who said training for a 100 kilometre race was easy, is a liar.”
It’s the truth though, since I signed up for this race earlier this year, there has been a lot of training, planning and logistics, and I’m very fortunate that my girlfriend Cassandra and our good friends Anna and Ed are going to crew my attempt.
I’m hoping to introduce them all to you in the weeks ahead with their own profiles, because I think as much as this ultra is going to come down to my body and mind, the three that are helping me will provide much needed nutritional and moral support when the going gets tough.
As a first time attempt at the 100 I feel good knowing when I’m going to be fatigued and not thinking straight, someone else will have worked out what I require for the next leg, and to have their support on race day is going to feel quite special.
A partner of someone training for an ultra is the absolute MVP. Unless you’re lucky enough to be with someone that also runs long distances, it’s very likely your partner understands running in a limited sense.
When I ran my first ultra earlier this year I actually stuffed my timings up due to how bad my stomach had gone, due to the Powerade I had, Cassandra was waiting at the finish line (as she had for my marathon the year before) with a big smile on her face.
She’d setup in a camping chair with an umbrella due to the heat, her first question when I finished was “are you okay?” and then “I’m proud of you.”
She didn’t care about how long it took, she didn’t care that I’d finished right at the back of the field. It was on this day, that the attitude around racing changed, we’d just been denied close to 18 months of racing, why not enjoy everything, no matter the result!
Often the first person I’ll message when I finish a long run will be Cassandra, at Bright recently, she was unable to make the trip, so I made sure to text her when I’d finished the course for the day, the first response coming back would be “I’m glad you’re okay.”
I’m very lucky that Cassandra allows me to do the amount of training that I do and still be my number one supporter, but in turn I think it’s important to stress that there needs to be balance. Often a long run on the weekend happens early, so that brunch with Cassandra can take place after, sometimes we’ll hike together then get brunch.
This I’ve found is the best balance you can have, not once has Cassandra complained about my training, if anything she has encouraged it. The least I can do if I’m spending up to four hours running on a weekend, is find the time to make plans and go on dates, it’s not a big ask but will add a much needed boost to your overall health.
The Magnitude Of The Task Is Yet To Sink In
I was talking with a work colleague the other day about what I was attempting to do next month and their first response was “in one go, so you’re not stopping?”
I then explained that there are aid stations along the way, food is consumed and it’s very unlikely the back end of the race is going to resemble anything more than a ‘Cliffy Young Shuffle’.
Their second response “you’re crazy.”
It was in the very shock though of my colleague that I started to realise that what we’re going to do next month is anything but ordinary, but I’m yet to fully grasp how big it is. Paraphrasing another friend here but on a difficult training run, Gretchen said something along the lines of “this is a fucked up sport.”
She’s right, if you were to say to someone I’m being dropped in the wilderness, running for a couple of hours with some snacks and water, only to find your way back to civilisation, most people would think you’ve lost the plot.
But it’s in this pure essence of testing the body and what it’s truly capable of that I love about the sport, and I’ve come to the realisation that not many people either share that love or they simply don’t understand it, and that’s completely fine.
I think it’s helped that I’m part of a running group like Elevate where doing these events are normalised, which has helped me stay calm heading into the race. I don’t think the full magnitude of what I’m taking on will probably hit me until I’m running (walking with purpose) up that first incline on race day.
Training Week
Monday: Rest Day. This normally means a bit of stretching focussing on my hips, hamstrings and quads. These are the areas I have the most difficulties with.
Tuesday: 90 minutes easy on the trails, exploring some of my favourite parts of Mulligans Flat.
Wednesday: An hour in the morning with undulating hills to start off with, the first kilometre has about 40 metres of climbing, then nice changes in surface, back half of the run has a nice downhill and some flats, then a short climb again at the end.
Thursday: MONA Fartlek session at Elevate with Coach Shiree, after a really thorough warm-up I got through three and a half kilometres during the 20 minute Fartlek aspect, session finished with a bush bash up the top of Red Hill.
Friday: Being time poor over the weekend I got up early on Remembrance Day and decided I needed to go out for three hours. Put some road shoes on for a change and just went out hoping to get a consistent run out in an aerobic capacity. This has many definitions, but for me that’s running at a pace that you could easily hold a conversation at.
Paid a visit to my Grandpa’s grave on what I later found out was the 31st Anniversary of him being buried. I got really emotional heading into the cemetery, I’m third generation in our family with the middle name James, but felt a lot better in the last six of so kilometres I needed to run to finish this off. Tested some walk-run strategies towards the end and legs felt like they could’ve done a lot more which is a good sign coming into Stromlo 30 this weekend.
Saturday: Trying to change up my running a little bit so it’s not all during the morning. I messaged Nat from my run group to see her weekend plans, and she said she was running at 5pm to 7pm with Will (you’ve met both of them before as Monday Motivation Heroes).
I lost my entire water bladder early in the run due to pulling the chew bit as I was taking it out of my bag I didn’t realise a plastic bit came off, so glad all these mistakes are happening in training! I had a litre of water and electrolytes across the rest of the run and some Clif chews.
This was an awesome course that took in a variety of different circumstances both Nat and I are going to encounter during the UTK100, it’s also amazing how much quicker a two hour run goes when you are enjoying yourself.
Sunday: Really time poor with early morning work and an afternoon barbeque, did an 18 minute session that was basically a progressive two miler. Not the session I probably needed going into UTK100, but in my head it was better than nothing, so felt a lot better as a result.
Totals: 75.05 kilometres, 1,190 metres of elevation, 8 hours and 45 minutes
Monday Motivation Hero
I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, because I wanted this person to stand alone and to also do this profile justice to how fucking inspirational this person is to me and they probably don’t even realise it.
In July of 2020, Fiona Kilby set out to do a run when she couldn’t coordinate her right arm to set the timer on her watch. In the weeks prior to the run Fi had started experiencing headaches as well as weakness in her right arm just a few weeks earlier.
That night, Fi was in surgery and specialists at Canberra's Calvary Hospital emergency department had identified a 3.5 centimetre lesion on the left frontal lobe of her brain.
I can’t even comprehend what a diagnosis like that would do to a person, let alone a mother of two kids, we see it in movies when someone gets a devastating diagnosis, but this is real life, stage four metastatic melanoma.
I didn’t get the chance to meet Fi until much later on, but I remember reading about her recovery when I was sort of playing around on trails, and saw that Elevate Running and Fitness was involved, I had considered signing up through talking to a friend Stacey, but this was the final push I needed to commit.
Earlier this year I got to run part of the Alpine Ascent race with Fi (because she took off!) a woman who only 20 months earlier was told she had stage four cancer, was running to the top of Australia in a way that I could only dream of.
But, it’s not just her own personal running that inspires me, it’s her positive attitude, whenever someone finishes a run, Fi is often the first person encouraging them, it’s this selfless nature that I simply love, and it’s something I’ve tried to adopt, because all boats rise with the tide, and Fi is a tide that lifts us all up.
Training flexibility is vital to preventing injury and burnout. At Brumbies our trainers always had a plan for each session, but tweaked it based the group's HRV. If we were all flat, training would be a bit shorted, and if we were all fresh, they'd make it a bit tougher than what they'd planned. Gotta adjust as you go, as nothing wrecks preparation for an event more than getting injured or burning out.
Nice photo of both of you. Your words are true that the plan should be adjustable always based on how we feel on that day. you are so lucky to have your girlfriend to support you in your goals and training, thats amazing. It makes me jealous of you and reminds me that "My wife used to ask me what your going to get by running in the races instead just run every day and keep your health well ?" I answered it wont take you anywhere and eventually stop running one day without doing races or having goal to compete in big races. I dont know that is right answer. Keep training and writing as well.