The Great Ultra Mediocre Back Yarder

Lets get loopy

Everyone loves a comeback story, and everyone loves the underdog as well. I kind of feel like I've been the underdog. Hopefully that inspires people to not give up on themselves and their lives and not give up on their dreams.

James Arthur

I've never had to knock on wood, but I know someone who has, which makes me wonder if I could

Come What May

This Saturday is officially my first ever Backyard Ultra, the Gumbaby last year was a taste of the format, but in a technical sense it’s not a backyard ultra, in the sense that it has a race on the eighth lap and the fastest one home wins the race.

I came in incredibly overcooked last year after indulging in a 12-hour track race a fortnight before, not knowing that I had the start of a back impingement, which after two long haul flights overseas in April last year, kept me out of the running game for months, completing just 120 kilometres from July to August.

That was until I found Peak Health and Mark Trbojevich, I call him the magic man, and together we’ve identified weaknesses in my body’s chain, and worked through months to correct them. He’s incredibly thorough and thrown out every single misconception I’ve had about chiropractors.

My first session involved me standing in different directions, and he identified I bend my left knee while standing, for no reason whatsoever. My left shoulder where I’ve had stabilisation surgery was tight and that’s connected to my lower back, my calves were weak and my glute strength was well ‘lazy’. All things I never gave much consideration to, so we’ve worked slowly over months to correct them and give me the best chance at remaining injury free, I can only thank Danielle Donegan for her recommendation.

The thing about GUMBY as it’s affectionately known is that it is a brute, it’s arguably the toughest race in this format in Australia, and a coin toss decides the direction you’ll be running. A fire trail with enough climbing that by the time you get to two days deep it’s equivalent of running from the sea level and climbing Mount Everest levels of elevation.

There’s a reason Chris Wilder holds the laps record of 32, it’s incredibly hard to run a fast lap consistently with that much elevation slapping you in the face. It’s fitting of silver ticket status and a spot in the Australian team, and I’m happy to get a front row seat to the action, noting last year’s times it’s likely I’ll spend a lot of laps I’m in with ultra running legend Pam Muston who won last years event, a prospect that has me wanting to go for as long as possible so I can soak up as much wisdom as I can.

The Training

I took a miler plan from my coach Shiree with the want to complete the miler distance over this course. I realised early on in the training I didn’t have enough base to work through the program, so scaled it back and focused on trying to get around 1,600 metres to 2,000 metres of elevation a week, with a combination of running and walking, with two to three elements of strength.

Heavy compound lifts with my squat is now back above 110 kilograms for the first time in a long time, my adductors were so painful last year I couldn’t squat with weight.

My belief is that hills pay the bills, after watching Ihor Verys go about his Bigs and Barkleys, you can run all the kilometres you want and smash volume, but hills will be the cream that adds to a good training program.

My biggest week in the training block was 100 kilometres, with most weeks sitting around the 60 to 70 kilometre mark, it had me stressing its not enough to do much in this race, but getting some perspective has me realising two things:

1. It’s more than enough based on what my day to day life is (I’m not a professional athlete).

2. I’m coming in healthy with no niggles, a thing that rarely happens for me.

That should be the aim for any amateur in my eyes coming into a race - have their health - for me not one bit of this training block felt like a slog either, so mentally I feel really good heading into Saturday.

I’m also 10 kilograms lighter which is crazy, here’s a photo from the beer mile in December to me training a couple of weeks ago at Elevate:

Beer miles to miles dreaming of beer

The Mindset

I think where I went wrong last year is that I viewed the Gumbaby as one whole race, rather than breaking it down into bite sized pieces, it’s a race format that can change very quickly, so going beyond the view of the next 6.71 kilometres can be dangerous, but I’ve got my plan in place that Team Nandy (Nat and Andy) are going to help me implement, and keep me out there for as long as possible, but anything more than 4 laps is a huge win.

What I’ve realised is that I need to push beyond the threshold, too often I’ve come to a walk where there is energy in the tank, if I can unlock that, there is a potential that tacos might come into play in my meal plan!

Prediction

Whoever wins this silver ticket may have to scale to the heights of Everest to collect it, a field stacked with incredible talent, some asked me to do a podcast episode on the race with predictions, but I couldn’t in good faith do a preview episode of a race I was taking part in.

There are so many names that stand out on the men’s side with Kevin Muller, Chris Wilder and Ben Hirst.

While on the women’s side Allie Corripio, Pam Muston, Lindsey Hamilton and two of my training buddies Rachel Burns and Linda Edstrom will give it a really solid crack.

What a race, what a weekend, and what a way to be a part of it all. It all kicks off 9am at Blue Range Hut, hope to see you out there.

One Final Say

I want to thank my partner Cassandra for her unwavering support, she’s a rock and has allowed me to get back to where I am, without her I don’t know where I would be.

To everyone that has checked in from when I was struggling last year, and everything in between thank you so much.

Oh and if it takes me a while to get back to you this weekend, I’m out bush!