Broke Road to Mandalay is a long section after you’ve been running all day and are still getting use to long days, if that is even possible. You normally run this in the dark and it can take three hours or longer as the terrain can be testing , especially towards Mandalay beach. Add in some serious gradients, serious steps into the aid station, the late arrival and you are more than ready to get your head down for some rest. The last two years I have got to Mandalay I have stopped for a good three to four hour sleep. This allows me to attack the next section, another tough one, to Mount Clare in the light and on fresh legs.
The plan this year was to run through Mandalay and get some shut eye at Mount Clare before a morning shower at Walpole, just 10km later. I had ran most of the day with Julie Gibson and we continued into the night together after a slight detour running out of Mandalay. The race leader had activated his SOS beacon and we all assumed it was for a snake bite. Turns out he had wondered off the course as GAIA was showing a different route. Julie and I assumed the same thing and before we knew it we were hundred of metres into thick gorse, not ideal. At one point I fell down a hole and found myself completely covered by gorse, unable to move. Not ideal but I managed to scramble out, just. We managed to extract ourselves and find the track after first making sure the rescue team could get to the race leader.
Mandaly Beach -> Mount Clare 20.6km ( accumulated 131.9)
This next twenty kilometres was brutal and that’s being kind , running it on fresh legs on the morning of the second day is the way to go but I was after a quicker time this year so sacrifices had to be made, this was a big one ! There are some serious climbs , the sort of climbs when you run a sixteen minute kilometre and you’ve worked so hard, to a road runner this is so alien. I was hoping to get to Mount Clare by two in the morning and even harboured thoughts of running through to Walpole before a sleep. This was never going to happen and we made Mount Clare around four in the morning, just in time for a ninety minute break to start again just after first light. That swag never felt so good and I was relieved to get around an hour’s shut eye.
A bridge heading towards Mount Clare, day one just about done by around four in the morning.
Mount Clare -> Walpole 10.9km ( accumulated 142.8)
Decided to grab a cup of tea at Mount Clare , change of clothes and then a quick 1okm leg to Walpole where Id’ have brekkie and a shower. Coming from Mount Clare to Walpole is mainly downhill and as it was after a nap and early morning I felt great. Julie ran into Warpole with me and we certainly enjoyed this leg more than the previous slog from Mandalay. Note to self next year I think I’ll sleep at Mandalay so I’m better prepared for the brutal leg to Mount Clare, running this 20km after a full day of racing was a challenge. On this leg I rang the lads at Yelo , Thursday 7am, as is tradition. It was good to see them and I was buoyed by the facetime meeting. Walpole came along quickly and the shower was awesome, so refreshing. Next, five weetbix another cup of tea and I was ready for the next leg to Tingle Tree and then the halfway stage at Treetops. Julie had decided against a shower and left before me so I was alone to start the Tingle Tree leg.
Shower time at Walpole.
Walpole -> Tingle Tree 9.8km ( accumulated 152.6)
The traditional Tingle Tree photo… Thanks Mark.
I enjoy this section, the first part is flat and then you rise to the Giant tingle tree. It’s less than 10km so is over pretty quick. Some great scenery looking back to the ocean and the image below is a traditional shot I take ever year, normally with Adam. The photo never does the view justice but trust me it’s special. Overcast conditions continued the humid environment but a lot better than the day before. It was great to get to Tingle Tree and get some serious potatoes from Frank and Jill Kaesler, Shaun’s parents. The salt on these bad boys made such a difference and I set off for Tree Tops in great spirits.
On the way to Tingle Tree
Tingle Tree -> Tree Tops 22.4km ( accumulated 175)
This is another hard section, funnily enough I seem to have typed this a lot on this post ? Another long leg with some elevation to cope with. I had finished the last leg with Oliver Maass and bumped into Kate and Julie at Tingle Tree , all left before me. This section was hard as my legs deserted me and there was a lot of walk breaks, more than the previous two years from memory ? I was surprised though when I bumped into all three of them at Tree Tops, I envisaged dropping off the pace but it seems we were all suffering. At Tree Tops I was offered some great pancakes as well as a Brownes Mocha, I was in heaven. Mark allowed me ten minutes in the Wanderer chair , towel on head, I may have even nodded off for a few minutes. As part of the course you are allowed to walk the Tree Tops walk , which is pretty cool, I was even allowed to take my crew, in this case Warwick turned up. This certainly surprised other customers taking in the magnificent views from the skywalk.
Tree Tops and the sun has finally came out on day two.The illustrious Warwick Crapper.
Tree Tops -> Conspicuous Cliffs 15.8km ( accumulated 190.8)
I was feeling better after Tree Tops and passed Julie and Oliver sitting on the side of the track complaining it was too hot. I love the heat and had spent the last two months running in the midday sun through a Perth summer, I was not for slowing as this next video shows.
Thinking about it I was probably second at the time as I didn’t realise Kate had paused her challenge at Tree tops, and would eventually DNF at Peaceful Bay. I always look forward to the section to Conspicuous cliffs, as you’re coming down from Tree Tops , and after to Peaceful Bay as the beach sections are stunning. Unfortunately this year I knew I’d be faced with some beach running in the dark, and that isn’t as much fun. Add in some rock hopping and it becomes even more challenging. I’d also left my best head torch with Mark and only had my two ‘normal’ torches, I say normal as in not 2000 lumen like my Silva. Being Swedish you know that Silva is going to be good, c’mon any country that gave us Abba, Saab and Volvo knows what its doing.
Dropping into the Conspicuous Cliffs car park
Conspicuous Cliffs, off to the beach I go.
Conspicuous Cliffs -> Peaceful Bay 15.2km ( accumulated 206km)
Dropping onto the beach at Conspicuous cliffs I was confronted with a solo kangaroo happily munching away , how Aussi is that ? Got a selfie with said kangaroo before climbing off the beach and back onto the trail. This section is so, so good. Lots of little coves with no one about, solitude and serenity at their best. The sun was out, I had over 200km behind me and I was feeling great. Life was good. These are the moments you realise why you run Delirious, when everything clicks into place, stunning.
How quintessential Aussi is this ?
Unfortunately I knew I was racing the sunset to Peaceful Bay and it was a race I was set to lose. As I mentioned earlier I had two headtorches but they were ‘normal’ and after being used to Swedish equipment I was disappointed. This was also the time I would have liked a decent light as I had rocks and coves to transverse with limited signage. On a number of occasions I was winging it keeping the ocean to my right and moving forward, I knew I’d hit Peaceful Bay eventually. I was reminded of a story Jon Pendse told me of rock climbing with the ocean waves lapping at his heels, I could see a similar scenario in my near future.
In Australia even Rocks kill you !Sunset day two just before Peaceful Bay.
Regretting leaving my best headlight with Mark.
Alex Pattinson guiled me into Peaceful Bay and before I knew it was was salivating over a freshly cooked steak professionally prepared by Mark, seasoned with onions, made with love. Mark had made a special trip to the local butcher and the trip was so worth it. Please note they were not both for me, he treated himself to one as well albeit he also saved me one for lunch the next day. It’s tradition that evening meal day two is always steak. Last year it was at Tree Tops but we were making better time this year, thirty or so kilometres further into the race.
While Mark cooked the steaks I took the opportunity to grab another quick shower and change of clothes for the next stage. I knew this would be my last shower before the finish and again felt great afterwards. I only had John Yoon ahead of me but wasn’t worried about position, more about my next sleep which we planned for Parry’s , thirty kilometres away. The plan was to get to Parry’s around two in the morning, have two hours, brekkie and get our just before sunrise. In between Peaceful Bay and Parrys Beach is an uncrewed aid station, Boat Harbour. I wasn’t keen on running alone in the dark , alone with my thoughts, but couldn’t persuade Oliver or Julie to come out with me. Oliver needed sleep and Julie was wanted a shower.
Second day is traditionally steak.
Peaceful Bay -> Boat Harbour 18km ( accumulated 224km)
I had spied Sarah Dyer as I arrived but she seemed to have disappeared. I was discussing my next move with Mark and mentioned it would have been good to have Sarah pace me when we heard her voice coming from the SUV behind us. She had just finished pacing duties and was preparing to get some sleep when she heard her name. Great news for me, I had an enthusiast pacer, my first.
Picking up some company at Peaceful Bay, Sarah Dyer volunteers to pace me for the night sections and beyond.
Our first challenge of this section was a jet ski ride over the river inlet, how cool is that? Sarah went first, I am a gentleman and I followed closely behind. First time on a jet ski since Karen and I hired some in Barbados over 25 years ago ! They are seriously good fun albeit I was on the ski for approximately two minutes. It was surreal, how many trail races involved jet ski’s, very few I would presume ! After the jet ski Sarah and I moved along the beach with headtorches bearing down on us, the 100 milers were in hot pursuit and we knew Phil Gore would be cruising past sooner rather than later.
The race that keeps giving, a jet ski ride.
The next part of the story is a tad wild. Walking along the beach I spied a small rectangler package on the beach, by the high water mark. It had obviously been washed up and to me it was obviously drugs, a kilo I estimated. Unbeknown to us drugs smugglers had sunk their boat a few days ago with over 400 kilo of cocaine onboard. It seemed one of those kilo’s had found its way to our beach as we motored along. We had two options, leave it, (never going to happen) or carry it to the next aid station, open it and then decide what to do. It was always going to be the latter albeit I made Sarah carry it as I had poles to worry about. So ten kilometes later at Boat Harbour we opened the package to confirm my instinct (from years of watching CSI ?), it was a kilo of cocaine.
Street value around $350k AUD apparently, at that moment in time , to me, worth a chicken risotto, which is what I swapped it for. The aid station crew phoned the police while Sarah and I continued onto the next aid station, Parry Beach, giggling to ourselves about our find and the stories we would be telling for many years to come ! As I have said many times Delirious is the race that keeps on giving !
Street value $350k AUD, ultra value, a chicken rissota; albeit a good one !
Truth be told I can’t remember much about this section. I know it took longer than we would have wanted but all we were thinking about, or talking about, was our find on the previous section. I mean it’s not everyday you find a kilo of coke on the beach. There was lots of laughter that’s all I can remember and we got into Parry’s around four am, a lot later than planned. I was so tired at this point and poured myself into my swag and a deep sleep. I told Mark two hours minimum to prepare for the final push as I knew there would be no more sleeping after this. Unfortunately no one told Rob Donkersloot this and I heard the zip on my swag open just before six am. I was not happy but Rob cajoled me out of my swag and off I went, back on the beach alone. Sarah would be saved for later in the day and the following evening, the final push to the finish.
Out of Parrys’ morning of day Three, Simon Poli in the distance ahead.
Right that’s enough for Part 2.. I need a rest from all this typing.. maybe go for a run ?
Fisiocrem is a must have in your ultra box of tricks…
Bix hydration is just ace, a product brought to life by Vlad Ixel a professional ultra runner who knows a thing or two about hydration. ( https://www.bixvitamins.com/ ) The best thing about Bix is it tastes good with many different flavours and you never get sick of drinking it, this is a big plus as Maurten and Tailwind (both great products) can be difficult to digest later in the event. From the website :-
As an Australian elite multiple trail running champion, with wins in over 40 ultra-marathon races across Asia, recovery from training and races has always been my top priority.
In searching for a solid recovery and hydration supplement, I recognized that critical vitamins and minerals – both in diversity and quantity – were missing from almost all supplements on the market. I had the feeling that in an effort to maximize their bottom-lines, companies in the hydration space, failed to deliver a product that could meaningfully assist athlete performance.
In order to address this, I began the development of a hydration product. After two and a half years of development alongside a leading German sports scientist, BIX Recovery, an advanced, high-quality recovery drink was born.
BIX boosts 12 active ingredients scientifically balanced to replace lost electrolytes and assist in immune function. It’s designed with quality vitamins and minerals, in quantities that work!
BIX is a recovery solution for everyone, that will get you to the top of your game!
Great hydration.
What can I say about HumanTecar, ( https://athleticus.com.au/ ) it looks great, smells great and is awesome for recovery or even pre-run/workout. Read about the science behind it first and then try the products. The compression bandages are just magical after a long event. Put these on and the next day you are recovered, I have used them on a number of occasions and they never fail to astound me albeit the family poke fun at me as I look like a ‘mummy and smell funny’ !
Fractel ( https://fractel.com.au/ ) have your performance headgear covered. I love the colours and the functionality of these hats, I guarantee there is one model you’ll fall in love with.
Fractel headgear, just ace.
Shokz headphones, let you keep in touch with the world around while losing yourself in quality tunes or podcasts. ( https://shokz.com.au/ )
Pingerup aid station and my hamstrings seized solid. DW 2020.
I returned in 2021 in October, the wet year as it is now known, and had the time of my with Gary and Alex crewing me. ( https://www.runbkrun.com/2021/11/09/redemption-delirious-west-day-2/ ) Those boys made the whole experience such an adventure and so many stories are still told to this day around that trip, normally with a serious amount of laughter.
Me and my crew, DW 2021.
I was addicted. 2022 was the out and back year and again I loved the whole event from the Monday morning drive down to the Sunday evening after party, this event rocks. Even managed a respectable time and a fourth place finish. ( https://www.runbkrun.com/2022/07/04/delirious-west-february-2022/ ) This year I had Mark and Jeffrey crewing and again it was an incredible experience with more stories added to the Delirious legend.
DW 2022, the wet year.
I had trimmed down my 2022 crew as Jeffrey was too busy doing retired stuff to come along and help Mark, whatever that is? Mark of course was locked in the moment he won the bogan race in 2022, the race that stops a small town, he was confident he could crew solo albeit with the aid of his little helpers, his cans of bush chook. So midday Monday morning off we went to sunny Northcliffe for Mel’s 60th birthday celebrations and the start of the 2023 Delirious adventure. I was excited but also unsure of how the event would pan out. 2022 was a massive year for me with ten ultra marathons but towards the end of the year I had struggled with a knee injury and tight hamstrings. This has seriously limited my training as running became more of a slog. I joined a gym to try and work on my strength but my running stats fell through the floor. I managed to put together a good block pre and post Christmas but I hadn’t the base I would have liked.
The dream team, BK and Warwick Crapper, bogan champion.
Monday night in the Northcliffe hotel was great as old friends met up for Mel’s 60th birthday celebrations. Melanee Maisey is the ‘godmother‘ of ultra running in WA, she works so hard for the greater good of the running community it was great to spend some time with her on her 60th. As with all events when the WA ultra tribe get together there was much laughter and story telling, a perfect evening.
The bogan champion that is Warwick Crapper, with a few beers onboard.
After that is was back to sunny Pemberton where I had organised what I thought was a two bedroom cottage , turned out it was for two people, one bedroom. Mark volunteered to sleep on his camper bed in the lounge, that is what crew do. After a good nights sleep, for me, it was Tuesday check in and then the rae that stops a small town, the infamous bogan run. This involves the crew of the runners dressing as bogans, running around kegs, drinking beer and generally having a great time. Last year Mark won and he had been training all year to go back to back, a feat as yet not achieved. Unfortunately it seems this will never happen as the dice was loaded and despite Mark’s best efforts he could only claim to be the first bogan who finished and drank beer, a good result none the less. You really need to experience a bogan run, it is special.
All checked in.. 666 , the number of the BK. (and Jeff Hansen)
The check in and the whole day really is so special as you get to meet friends you haven’t seen since the last Delirious as well as new runners who will become good friends over the event. Delirious brings people together, period. I love the couple of days before the event as there is just so much love, it really is that simple. Add in serious laughter , a few beers , great food and it just works. Northcliffe before Delirious is just ace.
Veronika, Rob Sarah and Mark ham it up for the cameras.
Rob Donkersloot, he of Mind Focused running ( https://mindfocusedrunning.com/ ) was ever present as he had seven athletes, myself included, running the two events. (There is a 100 miler option apparently?) Rob is a guru of all things running and has taken that knowledge, and added in meditation and wellness techniques, to create a map to running success. It just works, Rob is like a childs comfy blanket, always good to have around. Rob is all about making running fun rather than focusing on time, pace, distance etc., just enjoy the moment, wise words. In the image above you also have my good friend Veronika Kretzer, who ran second female at Delirious last year and is now part of the Thursday morning Yelo run, one of the boys you could say. Also in the picture is Sarah Dyer who would pace me for over 100 kilometres in the run, great company in the darkest hours.
The landlord of the Northcliffe Hotel, Duncan, and the famous Northcliffe Waffles.
As I have said many times over the years running is about traditions ( https://www.runbkrun.com/2022/12/21/6-inch-2022-it-never-fails-to-deliver/ ) and my favourite one is the Northcliffe hotels waffles before the start of the race. Imagine eating waffles before the start of a marathon, it wouldn’t end well. This is why I love ultra marathons , and 200 milers specifically, you can eat and eat a lot and still compete, hell it’s compulsory. After a great coffee and waffles I was ready for the 2023 Delirious West 200 miler and I felt great thanks to the sugar high of my breakfast. Big shout out to Duncan and Helen and all the staff of the Northcliffe hotel, you guys are just so good at what you do and a glowing testament to small county pubs. Great food, great atmosphere and great people.
Two of my favourite people, Frank who was turning 70 and my GPS from the Unreasonable East, Sarah.
On the way to the start line I bumped into Frank and Sarah. Frank was attempting the event for the first time and is coincided with his 70th birthday, how cool is that. Although he would not finish he got to nearly 300 kilometes before tapping out which is just incredible and I reckon run of the event. He wasn’t helped by being self supported and carrying a pack far too big for what he needed. He’ll learn from this and I hope I can toe the start line with him next year. Sarah was my partner in crime for the Unreasonable East last year. She guided me through the difficult terrain and geographical challenges, she always runs with a smile and destroyed the course setting a massive PB, never in doubt really. Remember what I said earlier , Delirious is all about friends, reconnecting with old ones and making new ones.
I love the start line photo, iconic, although I’m looking the wrong way ?
The start line photo is one of my all time favourites, lots of my friends all gathered together about to embark on an epic shared adventure, seriously it really does not get any better. The anticipation of what is about to unfold combined with the nervous energy makes the atmosphere special, really special. It is here you are truly alive, everything else is details and can be forgotten for three to four days. It really is you doing what you love surrounded by like minded people. Not sure why everybody is looking one way and I’m facing the opposite direction ? Anyhow the start is incredible and I’m already counting down the days to 2024’s version. This was the biggest field by a large margin this year but once we all got going you were left with you and your thoughts pretty quickly, if that’s hat you so desired. If you wanted company just hang around at an aid station long enough and it would stumble in, eventually.
We all grouped together at the allotted time, thanked the traditional owners of the land and we were off, albeit in the wrong direction. Remember traditions, on the very first Delirious the runners turned left at the first fork, about 50 meters into the race, instead of right and headed back to Perth. This mistake is now played out every year with a distance that is determined by Shaun Kaesler, so you’re never sure how far ? Gotta’ love tradition. This year it wasn’t too far and before long we were headed towards Albany.
First video , early days, still smiling :
Running with Jeff’s shoes, we each took 5km to spend some quality time and reflect on our loss. Laura, Julie, Oliver and Felix , bring up the rear, in the shot.
Unfortunately one of the Delirious West Race Directors lost a short battle with Leukemia earlier in the year. Jeff Hansen was Delirious, involved from the start and was planning on running the event this year. As a tribute each runner would run five kilometres with his shoes he would have worn. I did my bit between ten and fifteen kilometres and reflected on everything Jeff in that short time. Gone but not forgotten my friend. When this happens you really do question your longevity on this planet and running events like Delirious become even more special, live for today people.
Next video about 20km into the race: –
Right this year I’m going to break down the post into the aid station hops, a bit like you approach the main event really. It’s not a 340km race it’s twenty two smaller races , between 9.3km and 25.9km, the distances between aid stations.
Start -> Chesapeake Road (West) 25.9km
The first hop between the start line and the first aid station is the furthest, just under twenty six kilometres. I suppose the logic is you are full of beans at the start and if you can’t run twenty six kilometres you are probably in trouble. The first day as a whole is good running so the extra distance is achievable as you are spending less time on your feet as you should be moving quicker. The only fly in the ointment on the first day was the humidity which was high and as such uncomfortable. This was partially offset by the mood of all the runners as they were finally released onto the course and moving towards Albany, albeit days away. Without my goose (to my Maverick, you’ve seen Top Gun right?) , Adam Loughnan, I was actually towards the front of the pack and this was a conscious effort on my part. Running with Julie Gibson as my pacer keeping Oliver and Kay in sight we were cocooned in the top five, not somewhere I’m use to being on day one. I enjoyed the run to Chesapeake West and noted the good conditions early. Once at the aid station it was a quick stop, refueled the water bottles, some fruit and a few lollies before taking on board some seriously good Anzac biscuits. Again a conscious effort to spend less time at aid stations this year. It was also great to run with JP and Tristan, two first time debutants who would both smash their first Delirious, nice one lads ! The first morning is a wonderful time in the event, everyone is nervous, excited but above all happy to be running after talking Delirious for months.
This aid station has no crew access so I would have to run another seventeen kilometers before meeting Mark for the first time.
By the time you reach aid station two you’ve already ran a marathon, on trails in severe humidity, no one said this was going to be easy ! The only bright side is Dog Road aid station is relatively close and also it’s the first time you get to see your crew, assuming you have one. Mark sat me down and before I knew it a cup of tea , with three sugars , was thrust into my hand. Again I was quick though this aid station as the next one was less than twelve kilometres away so would spend more time there. It was good to see all the crew, family and friends for the fist time but I was out and back on the bib in no time, heading towards Dog Road.
Chesapeake Road (East) -> Dog Road 11.7km ( accumulated 55.2km)
It started to get uncomfortable as we moved to Dog Road aid station, the humidity was turned up to eleven minimum and runners don’t like humidity. I ran with Julie Gibson who was setting the perfect pace and I just hung on and enjoyed watching the kilometres tick over. I think from memory I left Julie and Oliver and managed to arrive at Dog Road before them albeit Julie left before me so I followed her to Pingerup and Brooke Inlet. The terrain is pretty good upto Mandelay so we were moving along quite nicely and despite the humidity I probably felt the best I have at this stage of the race. I always find the first fifty kilometeres to Dog Road the hardest, you haven’t got into your ultra rhythm and it is still fifty kilometres, an ultra so to speak. I was still top three male so happy with position and progress thus far.
The early stages of the race was like running in a humidity washing machine.
Dog Road was rice pudding, a fruit bowl, obligatory cup of tea and some very tasty fresh strawberries from Harmony White, they were delicious. Again I was pretty quick through the aid station and left with a full stomach, my poles and fresh clothes ready for an eighteen kilometre hop to Pingerup aid station.
Coming into Dog Road…happy for a sit down and pick up my poles.
Dog Road -> Pingerup 18lm ( accumulated 73.2km)
This is a very runnable section of the course mainly on a limestone road, albeit no vehicles to speak off. Undulating probably best describes it. I kept Julie in my sight and she was always a few hundred metres ahead of me, from memory I was suffering on this section of the race. You question your ability to finish the race many times on the first day, it is only experience that reminds me I have finished this race and I always feel this way on the first day. An ultra is a rollercoaster of emotions and for every up there will inevitably be a down, it is knowing when you enter a ‘dark place‘ that it is not forever and there is always light at the end of the tunnel and sometimes its not a train. ( Please note if you run an ultra through a train tunnel the light at the end of the tunnel may be a train and in this case do not run to the light ! Luckily there are no tunnels on Delirious. )
Leaving Dog Road with new top, cap, socks and poles, fully hydrated and fed.
A few times I lost sight of Julie and assumed that would be it before catching her again, I would assume she was suffering as much as me. Apart from Julie I saw no one else until we hit the aid station where Michelle and Kate were just leaving, I think ? Didn’t feel like eating so wolfed down an icy pole and a coke and filled my water bottles, I’d see the aid station volunteers at Boat Harbour later in the race and make up for it. Pingerup to Brooke Inlet is a flat section of the race and you really start to feel isolated, there is no one anywhere near you. This section is normally where I see my first sunset but I was ahead of schedule and was aiming for Brooke Inlet in daylight, for the fist time ever!
About 5km from Dog Road aid station, heading towards Pingerup. You can see the running surface in this image.
I love this section of the course, beautiful scenery and you start to feel isolated, alone with your thoughts and knowing you are kilometres from anybody else, I enjoy the solitude as the sunsets, albeit I could still see Julie ahead of me. I eventually caught her and we ran into Brooke Inlet together. I was starting to feel fatigued , funnily enough, but knew I had spaghetti bolognaise waiting for me at the next aid station, it tradition on the first night. Mark does make a great ‘spag bog‘. With this in mind we up’d the pace and before we knew it we were sitting down eating dinner, sweet.
Heading into the fist night, just past Pingerup aid station.
Right , that it’s for part 1… always leaving your readers wanting more.. or not as the case may be.. I’ll continue next week when I get some more video footage.. until then..
Fisiocrem is a must have in your ultra box of tricks…
Bix hydration is just ace, a product brought to life by Vlad Ixel a professional ultra runner who knows a thing or two about hydration. ( https://www.bixvitamins.com/ ) The best thing about Bix is it tastes good with many different flavours and you never get sick of drinking it, this is a big plus as Maurten and Tailwind (both great products) can be difficult to digest later in the event. From the website :-
As an Australian elite multiple trail running champion, with wins in over 40 ultra-marathon races across Asia, recovery from training and races has always been my top priority.
In searching for a solid recovery and hydration supplement, I recognized that critical vitamins and minerals – both in diversity and quantity – were missing from almost all supplements on the market. I had the feeling that in an effort to maximize their bottom-lines, companies in the hydration space, failed to deliver a product that could meaningfully assist athlete performance.
In order to address this, I began the development of a hydration product. After two and a half years of development alongside a leading German sports scientist, BIX Recovery, an advanced, high-quality recovery drink was born.
BIX boosts 12 active ingredients scientifically balanced to replace lost electrolytes and assist in immune function. It’s designed with quality vitamins and minerals, in quantities that work!
BIX is a recovery solution for everyone, that will get you to the top of your game!
Great hydration.
What can I say about HumanTecar, ( https://athleticus.com.au/ ) it looks great, smells great and is awesome for recovery or even pre-run/workout. Read about the science behind it first and then try the products. The compression bandages are just magical after a long event. Put these on and the next day you are recovered, I have used them on a number of occasions and they never fail to astound me albeit the family poke fun at me as I look like a ‘mummy and smell funny’ !
Fractel ( https://fractel.com.au/ ) have your performance headgear covered. I love the colours and the functionality of these hats, I guarantee there is one model you’ll fall in love with.
Fractel headgear, just ace.
Shokz headphones, let you keep in touch with the world around while losing yourself in quality tunes or podcasts. ( https://shokz.com.au/ )
Back in the day when I was a marathon running show pony I had my ‘old faithful’ 10k before work loop I would run religiously on week days, and most weekends. Up and out at 5am and before I even commuted to work I had 10k under my belt. For ultra trail running I have adopted this to a 22km loop in the hills above Perth and before any 200 miler I make the hour each way journey to this route on a regular basis. Perth Discovery Centre to Helen Hut is where I spend most of my Christmas break and all of January training for the Delirious West 200 miler , early February. ( https://deliriouswest200miler.com.au/ )
I have a few similar images.
As you can see below from Strava ( https://www.strava.com/activities/8437952723 ) I have run this route ten times in January by the 21st, once every two days. It’s nearly three hours of running , due to the heat and trust me its been hot, so once every two days has been challenging. I equate heat training to poor mans altitude training, so the hotter the better. I’m a big fan of heat and adjust my pace and hydration accordingly but always run. I’m up to 52 times for this new trail old faithful but still love the run as much as the first time I stumbled upon it, when it comes to his type of route familiarity does not breed contempt but a sense of calm , knowing what is ahead, and also the comfort of running with an old friend. I often run it alone so I can put on the shokz headphones, you have a pair right? ( https://shokz.com.au/ ) and be serenaded by Taylor Swift or go naked and just listen to nature and watch out for the wildlife.
The new ‘old faithful’.
The point of this post is two fold, first every runner needs as old faithful run, one that you can just switch over to auto pilot and get it done without too much thought or even physical exertion. Secondly it needs to be tailored to your race conditions. Back in the day I was running marathons so my Carine old faithful was mainly on path, mimicking the conditions I would face in my goal races. Now I’ve moved to trail ultra running I run on the bibbulmun track ( https://www.bibbulmuntrack.org.au/ ) again mimicking race conditions, simple.
Bloody ‘ansom scenery.
There is the added benefit of the bibbulmun track being pretty special from the Perth Discovery Centre to Helen hut making the three hours, although testing due to the heat, a pleasure. I say pleasure in the broadest sense of the word truth be told, the final 10km is always testing and probably the bit I enjoy the most as I know it’s doing me some good. I push myself and this is the point of the run , to mimic the conditions I will face when running 200 miles as much as you can without running ridiculous distances. Rather than run 50km or longer training runs I tend to run this 22km, three hour or so run, back to back as many times as I’m allowed by my family. This way I can turn up to the start on tired, fatigued, legs mimicking the feeling of a multi-day ultra when you are always running tired. This has served me well on the two previous successful Delirious West campaigns and runners are creatures of habit.
The infamous Helena hut.
Two posts from my marathon days when it was all about double days. My 10k Carine old faithful was a run that I could run with my eyes closed and at 5am every weekday morning I’d stumble out of bed and notch up 10k before my commute to work, normally on my Ellptigo. ( https://www.elliptigo.com/ ) Another 10k lunchtime with the boys, a commute home on the GO and, voila, I was a marathon PB machine. I would regularly run 10-12 times a week and average 150km weekly totals. With running improvement I’m a big deliverer in distance is key and there is no such thing as junk miles. Arthur Lydiard has all the answers ( https://www.lydiardfoundation.org/ )
It was a big night in the Matthews running household tonight. I got to run my go-to 10k for the 200th time (Well 200th time on Strava ( http://www.strava.com ) and if it wasn’t on Strava it didn’t happen.) I’ve ran this route so many times it has a name , ‘Old Faithful’.
200th time running with old faithful.
As you can see from the image above my 10k loop takes in Star Swamp where I get to watch the sunrise in Summer and race the sunset in Winter. There a couple of nice rises which can test you if you’re fatigued, especially the last one after the Kings Straight. (The King of Carine has a 1k segment which he runs ridiculously quick. Nic, The King of Carine, Harman will one day represent Australia at either the Commonwealth or Olympic Games, mark my word. The only downside in having young Nic in the neighbourhood is you don’t get to keep any Strava segment records because as they appear on Nic’s radar they disappear from mine. ! )
The run itself starts with a nice downhill to ease you into it before a small rise as you register your first 1k. It’s downhill again to the corner of Marmion Avenue as you hit the 2k mark just before you cross the road into the Star Swamp. It’s here you get to watch the sunrise most mornings and it really is like the first time, every time. It certainly inspires me and puts a smile on my face every time as I think of the rest of the population of Perth in the land of Nod missing this spectacular show of nature at her best. As you pop out of Star Swamp, just after the 4k mark, onto Beach Road and into a kilometre rise on a bike path before a nice downhill section that encourages pace and sets you up for the Carine Park section of the run. You hit 7k as you enter the park and normally you have the park to yourself in the early morning light. If you time it right you get to watch the suns tentacles move through the trees and long lines of sunlight dance around you as you continue on you way.
You hit the top of the King Straight just over 8k and you have a decision to make either taking the Kings bike path and steeping up a gear or slowing it down and cruise on the grass. Must admit lately the cruise has been my route of choice. At the end of the Kings Straight is the third road crossing where you can prepare yourself for the last hill and the final small section back to the house.
So what makes this run so interesting that I’ve ran it 200 times. I believe it has everything you need in a running route, some nice hill sections, some off road trails, a section that encourages speed, the King’s Straight if you are really excited and a park section that reminds you how lucky you are to live in this wonderful country. I’m as excited about running it tomorrow (probably) as I was the first time I ran it and hope to run it another 200 times and more, assuming the status quo is maintained. If I was to move I would find another old faithful and I’m sure I’d start to rack up the mileage but this route will always have a special place in my running heart and sometimes familiarity does not breed contempt.
Did I make a big deal of the 200th running, not really, just me and the old girl doing what we do best, enjoying each others company. As runners we all need an Old Faithful…….
I awoke this morning with the normal pre-running fatigue that tends to happen when you run twice a day , every day and are about to move into your second half century. My running friend for the morning had cried off but will remain nameless, mark lee so I struggled to the door and crawled up the street to start my 10k ‘old faithful’ route for the 181st time (thanks Strava).
The sun was about to rise behind me as I started down the first hill which is always a great way to start a run in my opinion because the auto pilot light really is shining brightly for the 1k and also gravity as a co-pilot certainly helps, initially. I hit the 1k mark as I’m about 200m up the second challenge for the day as small hill to make up for the soft start. Again a good thing as this starts to engage the mind and the legs start to wake up. This small hill then gives ways to another decline before I cross the road into Star Swamp and the highlight of the morning run.
I time my start each day so I can see the sunrise from Star Swamp and every time I do it is like the first time. To describe it as inspiring does not do this justice but it will have to do. The temperature to is normally just about perfect at 5am making the whole experience so worth the early start. It is about here I am starting to warm to the task and must admit every time I see the sunrise, through the trees and bush, it brings a smile to my face.
I get about a kilometre of trail running before I am ejected back onto the bike path and start another incline for 500m before a kilometre of decline that encourages pace and caresses you to the start of the Carine park entrance. Here I normally get to enjoy the park alone and again bathed in sunshine peaking though the trees. I make an effort to look up while in the park as so many times I am focused on the ground 20 metres ahead of me. The park , like the trail in the swamp, can be inspiring if the light catches the surrounding trees and you have fingers of sunshine protruding all around you.
The park eventually gives way to the last hill of the run which can be used as a final test to raise the heart rate or as a time to reflect on the run as a whole and start planning run number two, one is never enough surely.
Although I’m normally chasing a sunrise I also use this as a double up run after work and race the sunset. Instead of the first light of a new dawn you’re racing against the last light of the day. Where as in the morning the sun can be on your back as you race the sunset it is ahead of you slowly disappearing to the horizon. This brings into play more wondrous images as you run into the last breath of the day. Same run but from a totally different light, which can make it feel like a new run completely. It’s get better, there is even a third option as you run in the middle of the day and , being Perth is really built in a desert, you dart from shade to shade avoiding the intense glare of the sun at the height of it’s prowess, an intimidating beast of pure heat and anger. Running really is the sport that just keeps on giving.
So that is my old faithful, go-to, 10k. One I run at least three or four times a week and one I never get tired off. All runners need an ‘old faithful’ because training for a marathon, or any distance really, requires repetition and sometimes you just need to switch off and get the job done. Having a run that allows you to tick all the training requirement boxes without the added pressure of too much thinking is paramount to success. Let’s face it marathon training can be , at times, a ‘slog’ , and that’s putting it nicely. To me a marathon is really about two thousand kilometres of training with a final 42k run to the finish. It’s the two thousand training kilometres in all sort of conditions that people don’t see, not the final 42k that is for the public and record books.
Tomorrow morning set the alarm a bit earlier and go and chase a sunrise, you never know you may find a new friend that over time cam turn into an old faithful and for runners that ain’t a bad thing……..
Got to start somewhere…
As always I give a shout out to five of my favourite products, the list is getting longer , … fisiocrem ( https://www.fisiocrem.com.au/ ) is just bloody brilliant and does exactly what it says it does , it just gets the major muscle groups moving again. I use this extensively towards the end of the race when my quads are hammered. It really makes a difference and allows me to move back through the gears towards the end of an event when most runners are stumbling home.
Fisiocrem is a must have in your ultra box of tricks…
Bix hydration is just ace, a product brought to life by Vlad Ixel a professional ultra runner who knows a thing or two about hydration. ( https://www.bixvitamins.com/ ) The best thing about Bix is it tastes good with many different flavours and you never get sick of drinking it, this is a big plus as Maurten and Tailwind (both great products) can be difficult to digest later in the event. From the website :-
As an Australian elite multiple trail running champion, with wins in over 40 ultra-marathon races across Asia, recovery from training and races has always been my top priority.
In searching for a solid recovery and hydration supplement, I recognized that critical vitamins and minerals – both in diversity and quantity – were missing from almost all supplements on the market. I had the feeling that in an effort to maximize their bottom-lines, companies in the hydration space, failed to deliver a product that could meaningfully assist athlete performance.
In order to address this, I began the development of a hydration product. After two and a half years of development alongside a leading German sports scientist, BIX Recovery, an advanced, high-quality recovery drink was born.
BIX boosts 12 active ingredients scientifically balanced to replace lost electrolytes and assist in immune function. It’s designed with quality vitamins and minerals, in quantities that work!
BIX is a recovery solution for everyone, that will get you to the top of your game!
Great hydration.
What can I say about HumanTecar, ( https://athleticus.com.au/ ) it looks great, smells great and is awesome for recovery or even pre-run/workout. Read about the science behind it first and then try the products. The compression bandages are just magical after a long event. Put these on and the next day you are recovered, I have used them on a number of occasions and they never fail to astound me albeit the family poke fun at me as I look like a ‘mummy and smell funny’ !
Fractel ( https://fractel.com.au/ ) have your performance headgear covered. I love the colours and the functionality of these hats, I guarantee there sis one model you’ll fall in love with.
Fractel headgear, just ace.
Shokz headphones, let you keep in touch with the world around while losing yourself in quality tunes or podcasts. ( https://shokz.com.au/ )
I discovered Shokz headphones just over two years ago, bumping into a couple of trail runners at the Perth Discovery Centre, with Adam surprising enough , who were wearing them. I hadn’t really ever ran with music before as I find it quite intrusive and I like to use my time running to ‘think about stuff’, having something in my ear just didn’t work. The thing with Shokz headphones is they aren’t in your ear, because they are bone conduction sports headphones they sit on the bone infront of your ear. I know it sounds ridiculous right but the first time I tried them on I was blown away, they really work and work very well. I remember the first time I used them on the trails I was playing Pink Floyd the Wall and when the kids choir chirped in I actually stopped running and looked around, I was convinced they were on the trail !
So other major benefits are they are incredibly light and you really do not notice when you have them on, of course this can also be a curse as only yesterday I dropped a pair of OpenRun Pro’s on my local trail and didn’t notice. I was taking some time out from music and listening to the serenity of my surroundings, at one point I stopped for a rest and took of my cap, sunglasses and headphones. Unfortunately it seems I forgot to put the headphones back on, only realising a few kilotmetres down the trail. Now I know you’re going to ask why I didn’t backtrack, it was at the end of a three hour run in the scorching West Australian heat and there was no way I was spending another 30 -40 minutes on the trail getting even more cooked, I was done. Fingers crossed someone finds them and hands them in as I’ll be gutted to lose them.
Quality of sound in amazing, reference my last story when I actually stopped convinced there was a school choir on the trail with me, it is that good. Of course they work best without competing noise , as all headphones will. In a busy city setting it’s more important to take advantage of another benefit , the ability to listen to your environment while running. Having your ear clear allows you to be able to listen for possible issues ahead while still enjoying the sound from your shokz headphones. This cannot be under estimated, the safety side of this product. It could make a big difference, situation dependent of course. Personally for this feature alone it’s enough to invest in bone conductive headphones.
For more detailed information regarding the science go to the Shokz website.. https://shokz.com.au/ There’s lot of images and explanations but believe me they are ace. Currently in my family I have three pairs (well two at the moment as I have one of the bibbulum track somewhere currently!) , my Wife and eldest daughter are sporting OpenRun Pro’s , we’re a shokz family albeit my other two daughters are Apple worshippers so have air pods, no accounting for taste.
Checking my music selection for another backyard ultra lap with the Shokz OpenRun Pro’s.
If you want an honest test between the OpenRun Pro and the normal OpenRun watch the video below..
Love my Shokz OpenRun headphones and they are quicker in red of course.
Of course do your own research but I found this site backing up my claims, Shokz are good and probably the best on the market.
Battery life is pretty good as well, ten hours for the OpenRun Pro , with a five minute recharge for ninety minutes listening; or eight hours for the OpenRun and a ten minute recharge to ninety minutes. I personally recharge mine when I’m driving home from my run in the car, by the time I’m home they’re normally fully recharged ready for the next adventure.
It seems the OpenRun is more waterproof then the OpenRun Pro due to the added bass capabilities , and design changes, on the newer model, both are more than adequate for day to day running albeit if moisture builds up you need to dry then before charging, I’ve used a hairdryer in the past quite successfully. The support is outstanding and you get a two year warranty. I’ve successfully claimed myself and the process was seamless and Shokz were very helpful, which these days was a refreshing change.
So to sum up this post Shokz, for me, are an absolute must if you need to listen to music or pod casts while you run, and do so safely while enjoying top quality sound. They are so light as to be unnoticeable but so well made, of titanium, you’d be hard pressed to break them. As will all products I recommend they just do what they say they do on the box, simples.
As always I give a shout out to three of my favourite products, will probably make it four now adding Shokz, … fisiocrem ( https://www.fisiocrem.com.au/ ) is just bloody brilliant and does exactly what it says it does , it just gets the major muscle groups moving again. I use this extensively towards the end of the race when my quads are hammered. It really makes a difference and allows me to move back through the gears towards the end of an event when most runners are stumbling home.
Fisiocrem is a must have in your ultra box of tricks…
Bix hydration is just ace, a product brought to life by Vlad Ixel a professional ultra runner who knows a thing or two about hydration. ( https://www.bixvitamins.com/ ) The best thing about Bix is it tastes good with many different flavours and you never get sick of drinking it, this is a big plus as Maurten and Tailwind (both great products) can be difficult to digest later in the event. From the website :-
As an Australian elite multiple trail running champion, with wins in over 40 ultra-marathon races across Asia, recovery from training and races has always been my top priority.
In searching for a solid recovery and hydration supplement, I recognized that critical vitamins and minerals – both in diversity and quantity – were missing from almost all supplements on the market. I had the feeling that in an effort to maximize their bottom-lines, companies in the hydration space, failed to deliver a product that could meaningfully assist athlete performance.
In order to address this, I began the development of a hydration product. After two and a half years of development alongside a leading German sports scientist, BIX Recovery, an advanced, high-quality recovery drink was born.
BIX boosts 12 active ingredients scientifically balanced to replace lost electrolytes and assist in immune function. It’s designed with quality vitamins and minerals, in quantities that work!
BIX is a recovery solution for everyone, that will get you to the top of your game!
Great hydration.
What can I say about HumanTecar, ( https://athleticus.com.au/ ) it looks great, smells great and is awesome for recovery or even pre-run/workout. Read about the science behind it first and then try the products. The compression bandages are just magical after a long event. Put these on and the next day you are recovered, I have used them on a number of occasions and they never fail to astound me albeit the family poke fun at me as I look like a ‘mummy and smell funny’ !
The finishers left at the after party, Unreasonable East 2022; one of the highlights of 2022.
Right, numbers for 2022. Overall I’d give myself a B+ for distance, good enough to break 5,000km’s for the year, by one kilometre, but what could have been. Earlier in the year I was on target for my initial 6,000km total but after the No Time to Die Frontyard ultra I dropped off the pace and did very little training in between races. Average of 96 kilometres a week but take out the 2000km’s of racing and the training weekly total is a lot less, significantly less, more around the sixty km a week.
Another statistic that sums up my stop , start year is the number of actual runs , only 229 for the year. This is my lowest total since 2010, twelve years ago. Basically I’ve ran less but when I have ran it’s been longer distances, down to running ten ultras of course.
Last three years I’ve been an Ultra racing machine, 21 races in the last three years including 18 in the last two years, and one marathon thrown in. Lots of racing culminating in 10 ultra’s in 2022 alone. I was either tapering, racing or recovering; very little training. It was working until injuries started to affect my training from September onwards. Only downside for the year has been my lack of pace and some personal worst racing results including the Feral Pig 100 miler and the 6 Inch Ultra. I struggled in both of these events but was happy to finish and not embarrass myself.
From my running spreadsheet, you have got a running spreadsheet right ? As a backup for Strava, you never know when the next Russian mafia group will try to blackmail Strava and wipe all their data ! It happened at Garmin and those Russian hackers are always looking for their next pay day. Please note my Mum said I am not allowed to pay hackers any blackmail albeit I’m not sure www.runbkrun.com is high on their list of possible targets.
Another surprise for 2022 is no double digit weeks for runs. Back in the day I’d regularly run 13 or 14 times a week, I say back in the day I’m talking about five years ago. Double days unlock running dreams, one of my favourite quotes. These days I just can’t get that morning run in, I’ve lost that discipline to get up every morning before the sunrise and run an easy 10km before breakfast. I’d then cycle to work on my Elliptigo (or Bionic) , run lunchtime and then Elliptigo home. Four separate exercises a day, I was a cardio-machine. The results followed so if you really want to improve just run more than you are running now, and don’t get injured. Running is simple.
Bionic Gen1 , this thing is a monster !
Ten ultras, three wins, highlighted in yellow, and many top ten finishes. Plenty of running early on in the year but injuries after the No Time to Die Ultra killed off the second half of the year and I limped, literally, to the finish line in 2022. I’ve joined the Valetudo gym ( https://www.valetudohealth.com.au/ ) and go three times a week currently to try and finally get my flexibility back, maybe touch my toes for the first time this century ? It was a tad daunting at first but starting to feel the love for gyms again now and not being as weight conscious as I was in my marathon days I can put a but of muscle on, it’ll keep No1 Wife happier as she was never a fan of my Schlinder’s list extra look.
Its been a few months since I’ve posted my nine golden rules so with the end of 2022 upon us this seems as good a time as ever.. I wrote these six years ago but they are timeless, in my view.
Run Further. Add distance, not speed.As you can see from the table my weekly average has steadily increased year on year with this year being the first I will break the 100k a week average for the year. In 2012 I was injured with a nasty calf knot, that I didn’t treat, which explains the delta compared to the previous year. 2014 my training had plateaued which is why I turned to Raf ( http://www.therunningcentre.com.au ) to train me in 2105 where my distance increased by 10%. I have taken this training forward and will probably increase another 10% this year. Distance first, everything else comes once the ‘foundation of distance’ has been achieved.
Run Faster. This is about adding pace after you have got your foundation after rule 1. 2011 was a break out year for me after 3-4 years of building a good running base. I had ran 3 Comrades campaigns in 2008-2010 ( http://www.comrades.com ) so my distance foundation was well and truly complete. In 2011 every time I put on a bib I was confident of a pb. It was a wonderful year. Unfortunately in 2012 I had a nasty injury which set me back but towards the end of the year I was able to train consistently again and in 2013 I was again rewarded with a magical year of running.
Don’t get injured. This is the hardest rule to obey as you always want to do more of rule 1 and 2 which can result in an injury. (I even hate typing the word!) In 2012 I succumbed to a calf knot which took me out for over a month. I struggled to recover from this and as you can see from the table I only ran 3 pb’s for the year compared to 13 the previous year and 10 the following year when I recovered. If this doesn’t back up this rule nothing does.! Don’t get injured, so easy to type but in reality one of the hardest thing for a runner to do, period.
Nutrition, nutrition and nutrition… Did I mention nutrition. It’s all about the proper fuel. So underestimated by so many runners. The number of times I hear the old ‘I run xxx kilometres a week so I can eat what I want’ . Not true, imagine putting low grade fuel in a Porsche, eventually the head gasket blows and you are faced with a serious bill, not to mention a misfiring engine. The human body is a finely tuned machine and should be treated as such, we all know what is good food and what is bad (normally the nice tasting stuff!), avoid the bad and put in the good, easy really. (bar the odd Yelo muffin of course, we are after all only human.) I’ll be exploring nutrition more next year when I have one more go at a sub 2hr 40minutes marathon.
Weight. So important, use to believe because I ran 100k+ a week I could eat what I wanted. Not true. This is another golden rule so often ignored. Runners can run so much faster is they hit their racing weightrather than a running weight. My go to man , Matt Fitzgerald, when it comes to everything running even has a website dedicated to this. ( http://www.racingweight.com/ ) If Matt has a website dedicated to this subject it must be important.
Baseline, document and evaluate everything. If it isn’t on www.strava.com it didn’t happen. Once you set a goal you have to be able to know how far you have come to achieving this, small steps but constant feedback. So buy a Garmin and start recording , everything !!! Contentious subject here. I’m a Strava addict and I know it but the purest will be horrified. You need a baseline to see improvement, set new goals and realize your goals. Buy a Garmin and to quote a small clothing company ‘just do it’.
Sleep. So underestimated but the bodies way of refuelling and preparing for the next day of running. Common sense but so often ignored. Sometimes the most obvious, common sense tips are the ones ignored. Sleep is when your body repairs itself, the more sleep the more repairs can be completed. It really is that easy, go to bed and dream about running.
Consistency. No point running 100k one week and then nothing. Marathon fitness is built up over time and this works hand in hand with rule number 1. I feel the figures from my running log back this up. I’ve steadily increased the duration consistently year in, year out (bar injury) and have reaped the rewards with 2016 being my fastest year yet as I move towards my fifth sixth decade. (Thanks Dave Kennedy) Running is all about getting out there on a regular basis again and again and again. Time on feet initially and then add pace before targeting certain distance with different run types, most important thinkg to note though is always consistently putting on the trainers and just running. ‘If you build it they will come’ type approach, keep running, build the foundation and the personal records will come. (This also works for baseball pitches apparently.)
It’s all in the mind. After 32k a marathon is down to mental strength and the ability to persuade your body you can still perform at your desired pace without falling to fatigue, which is the minds way of protecting itself. Never underestimate the power of the mind in long distance racing. Finally another massive part of running, the Noakes ‘central governor’. I’ve talked about this at length in various posts on this site. With experience I believe I can mentally finish a marathon stronger now then when I first started. I know what to expect and to this end can persuade my old friend fatigue to stay away for longer allowing me to achieve better finishing times. The mind is such an important part of running and needs to be trained as much as the body. When you race a marathon you will spend time in the ‘pain box’, the runner who can spend the most time in this little box of joy, before opening the door and embracing the old enemy fatigue, will run the fastest. I spoke to Steve Moneghetti after the Perth Marathon this year after he ran the 3hr30min bus and asked him how the professional athletes are so much faster than us recreational runners. His answer surprised me as he replied that a professional runner can stand more pain and this gives them the advantage need to push through and achieve the faster times. Again turning off the ‘central governor’ and spending more time in the ‘pain box’ avoiding fatigue and thus not slowing down. Common sense really, thanks Steve.
Me and a legend, Steve Moneghetti.
So what does 2023 hold for me I wonder. I’ll start the year with the Delirious West 200 miler in early February ( https://deliriouswest200miler.com.au/race-information-2022/ ) and then Hardy’s Frontyard Ultra in March ( https://herdysfrontyard.com.au/ ) , followed by the Lighthorse 24 hour race in April ( https://lighthorseultra.com.au/ ) before the big one in June, all of June actually… Run Brittania. ( https://ratracerunbritannia.com/ ) . After that I have nothing locked in as I’m not sure what sort of state I’ll be in after running 1,000 miles the length of the UK. ? Truth be told I could have done with a ‘down year’ after eighteen ultras in the last two years but when Run Brittania became available I had to take it, you’d be mad not to surely. ?
As always I give a shout out to three of my favourite products… fisiocrem ( https://www.fisiocrem.com.au/ ) is just bloody brilliant and does exactly what it says it does , it just gets the major muscle groups moving again. I use this extensively towards the end of the race when my quads are hammered. It really makes a difference and allows me to move back through the gears towards the end of an event when most runners are stumbling home.
Fisiocrem is a must have in your ultra box of tricks…
Bix hydration is just ace, a product brought to life by Vlad Ixel a professional ultra runner who knows a thing or two about hydration. ( https://www.bixvitamins.com/ ) The best thing about Bix is it tastes good with many different flavours and you never get sick of drinking it, this is a big plus as Maurten and Tailwind (both great products) can be difficult to digest later in the event. From the website :-
As an Australian elite multiple trail running champion, with wins in over 40 ultra-marathon races across Asia, recovery from training and races has always been my top priority.
In searching for a solid recovery and hydration supplement, I recognized that critical vitamins and minerals – both in diversity and quantity – were missing from almost all supplements on the market. I had the feeling that in an effort to maximize their bottom-lines, companies in the hydration space, failed to deliver a product that could meaningfully assist athlete performance.
In order to address this, I began the development of a hydration product. After two and a half years of development alongside a leading German sports scientist, BIX Recovery, an advanced, high-quality recovery drink was born.
BIX boosts 12 active ingredients scientifically balanced to replace lost electrolytes and assist in immune function. It’s designed with quality vitamins and minerals, in quantities that work!
BIX is a recovery solution for everyone, that will get you to the top of your game!
Great hydration.
What can I say about HumanTecar, ( https://athleticus.com.au/ ) it looks great, smells great and is awesome for recovery or even pre-run/workout. Read about the science behind it first and then try the products. The compression bandages are just magical after a long event. Put these on and the next day you are recovered, I have used them on a number of occasions and they never fail to astound me albeit the family poke fun at me as I look like a ‘mummy and smell funny’ !
Running is all about traditions , runners love doing the same thing over and over. That may be training routines, entering the same races or just spending time with friends going to the same location for runs. After a while all these routines turn into traditions, and then they have to be adhered to, it’s tradition. The 6 inch ultra trail marathon ( https://www.6inchtrailmarathon.com/ ) is one of many traditions that the lads and I love to adhere to, albeit it use to be a family tradition (yes, you can involve the family) but the kids all grew up and no longer wanted to spend time with old runners. We took that on the chin and just stopped inviting them, it had now morphed into a lads weekend away. (I say ‘lads’ in the broadest sense of the word, our average age is well over fifty these days. It’s lucky Michael Kowal is still scarred by the escalator on his one and only 6 inch attempt a few years back or the average age would be in the sixties!)
To get a feel for the event I recommend trawling through my blog to get some old posts , I’ve attached a few links here. This will help with the post I’m about to recount.
Right now you’ve caught up with the history of this event it time to way lyrical about the 2022 edition. Due to various reasons we have a small starting line up this year. We lost Marky ‘Mark’ Lommers to a twisted ankle, Adam to gastro, Bart’s to a family holiday he had to take in Noosa and Scotty to long term injury. This left Jeffrey , Jon and I to toe the line at the start with Rob (poorly achilleas) again driving us to the start Sunday morning at some ungodly hour. (Remember it’s a point to point and we stay at the finish) After I persuaded Jeffrey to drive (remember we lost Adam to gastro and apparently if he can’t go to the event his 7 seater Prado can’t go either, a tad selfish me thinks!) we were off , high noon on Saturday, the day before the event. Jon would be joining us down there as he loves to hoon in his BMW and would prefer to do it alone apparently, less eye witnesses is probably safer for all concerned.
6 INCH ..Road trip ! Boys all smiles while I practice my influencer pout.
Right back to tradition, for this lads trip there are a few. First we always stay at the Jarrah Forest lodge , Jon always books the family room , and pays, thereby ensuring he gets the double bed (being the smallest) while the other room is shared with the lads (there’s two bunk beds). This room has the benefit of air conditioning in both rooms. I always stay in room 16 , a single room with a bunk, the farthest from the toilet block. This has no air conditioning, actually just a bunk bed, you get that prisoner cell block H feeling about the place. It’s clean and that’s all we need for one night. We use to go the pub the night but the meal portions are so large that it affected the running performances the following day. Bart’s was still eating his chicken parmi post race Sunday afternoon. I was above this of course and always take my own meal for the Saturday night, it’s tradition.
My favourite tradition is watching run fatboy run after bib collection on Saturday evening, we must have seen this movie at least five times but it still gets the same laughs in the same places, so good. Due to the set up at the lodge it can take anywhere from 15 minutes to nearly an hour to get the video working. There is an amp, a switcher box, a projector , at least two DVD players and cables everywhere. Things were looking good this year when Jon got the DVD talking to the TV, with the right input, in a matter of minutes but , as is tradition, things didn’t go that smoothly and the DVD had been played to death, literally. It was finished so after a brief interlude we selected another DVD, Will Ferrel in Semi Pro which , although not a run fayboy run, was a pretty good alternative. Never fear thought we have ordered Run FatBoy Run on DVD so will be watching it next year and we will bring all our own equipment !
Post DVD the boys scuttle off to their luxurious, for Dwellingup remember the town has a population of population 524, family room complete with air conditioning while I hit my jail cell, alarms set for 3am. This year I was lucky enough to have a very keen runner next door to me (?) who had set their alarm for 2am as they were catching the bus. Great, I get to get up an hour or so earlier than planned. It gets better, I was also next door to a snorer and the walls are paper thing, it felt like we were in the same bed ! When you hear someone snoring you cannot unhear it. Let’s just say I was sleep depraved while I ate my weetbix and drank my cup of sweet tea in the communal kitchen at 2:15am. Not ideal but I’m a big believer in it’s the night before the night before which is the important time to sleep, anything on the evening before the event is a bonus. Once the boys rose, an hour or so after me, we all got into the car as planned at 3:45am for the twenty minutes or so drive to the start and check in. The drive to the start is always a tad worrying as Kangaroo’s aren’t car friendly and if we were to hit a roo it wouldn’t end well for any of us. Luckily we didn’t see any albiet last year we’re sure Bart’s killed a bandicoot on the way to the start, something he still denies.
The drive to the start at 3:45am, looking out for Kangaroos !
As the image below shows we were last to arrive at the pre-race check in but we have a car so the drive to the start was only a few minutes away and we arrived with minutes so spare, more than enough. Unfortunately we were carrying a goody-pack for my mate Tristan who was running the 12 inch. This is another tradition of runners running from the finish to the start the night before (47km) and then leaving with the race at 4:30am and returning for the medal, another 47km; hence the name 12 inch. We managed to get Tristan his drop bag albeit a few minutes from the start, sorry buddy, it obviously wasn’t a problem as he ran the 12 inch in around 13 hours.
Last to leave for the start after the obligatory check in, me , Jamie and the volunteers left.
The plan for this race was to finish under five hours, not walk, bar the monster hills, enjoy the event and keep Jeffrey behind me to keep my 20 year or so winning streak. Jeffrey is now over 60 and running very well, he came close to pipping me to the post in Melbourne in October and had been training well since with Bart’s preparing him for battle. My running had been down the toilet since September due to over training (or over racing?) and niggles including tight hamstrings and a probable tear under my right knee. Weekly I was getting dropped at the Yelo Thursday morning gathering and my training runs in the hills had all been thirty minutes or so longer than last year. The smart money was on Jeffrey for this one. Jon was expecting another sub four hour finish but a nasty cough had me questioning his optimism.
The traditional start photo.
The 6 inch starts with Goldmine hill, a beast of a hill that has destroyed many a runners dreams. If you’re not prepared it can derail you very early in the piece, trust me if you are goosed after two kilometres the next 46 or so are challenging. This year me and Jeffrey decided to walk most of the hill with the masses, saving our running legs for the beating that was ahead. It was quite nice to enjoy the hill for a change, although I say ‘enjoy’ in the broadest sense of the word.? We summited full of beans and changed up through the gears cruising along in a group of about ten of us, mainly women surprisingly ? The event itself is held on the mundi biddi trail, a thousand kilometre offroad bike trail from Perth to Albany, so pretty good running. David Kennedy, the Race Director, reckons you can add about an hour to your marathon time to get an estimated finish time, he’s probably right.
The 6 inch has an aid station at 23 kilometres and then again at the top of the escalator hill, around 35 kilometres. There is also one with four kilometres to go but when you’re that close why would you stop? I ran with Jeffrey until the first aid station where he complained of a sore knee and walked into the aid station. This was my chance and , as all good friends do , when I sensed weakness I pounced or in this case left him. That was the last I would see of Jeffrey , or so I thought. My confidence was knocked by Mick Francis, the aid station captain, who mentioned I was limping and he’d pull me out if he was RD. A tad harsh I thought as I thought I was going ok ?
After aid station one there is another large climb to the highest part of the course, the 3 inch version of the Goldmine Hill I suppose. I half walked and ran this and took a few more positions as I started to warm up, after twenty years in Western Australia I’m now half lizard and love the heat. Once I get to the highest part I tend to flick over into finish mode and chase down the back end of the half runners and fellow full runners. As I mentioned at the start of this report this race was about finishing and having fun, as much as that is possible. I was feeling good enough to up the pace and started to move through the field albeit nothing to previous years but nice to be moving up the field none the less.
I climbed the escalator hill to the second aid station, filled my bottles and then started the last ten kilometres to the finish. It was here Jeffrey reappeared and all of a sudden my relaxed cruise to the finish changed to a very stressful run being chased by a motivated Jeffrey Wang. I managed to maintain the pace for the final ten kilometres and with the experience of twelve previous finishes I knew when you push and when to hang on. It wasn’t easy or pretty but I managed to finish in four hours and forty eight minutes and change. My new personal worse by thirty minutes but mission accomplished, sometimes it’s the journey that’s important not the time taken to complete it. As you can see from the smile below I was stoked.
Finish number #13, still smiling !
All that was left to do was the traditional esky photo, if you know, you know, don’t judge me. Thanks Nathan Fawkes for supplying the ice shower, may add this to the tradition for the esky photo, always keen to add more traditions ?
Traditional esky shot.
One final tradition is all the boys (and driver) who completed the course to put on their finishers shirts and get a photo. I have so many of these and enjoy looking back at all the lads aging gracefully and back in the day we’d even have a few kinds with us, they are all far too cool to have their photos taken with us these days of course. A small gathering this year but I’m confident there will be a bigger group in 2023.
Mission accomplished, what a great year 2022.
So that’s it for 2022, what a great year, ten ultra marathons and one marathon , I’ve been busy with over two thousand kilometres racing with a bib on my chest and another three thousand kilometres training. 6 inch number thirteen completed and I can’t wait until I;m back at the bottom of Goldmine Hill facing another 47 kilometres of the munda biddi trail , sleep depraved but excited about what lays ahead, why wouldn’t you, after all , it’s tradition.
As always I give a shout out to three of my favourite products… fisiocrem ( https://www.fisiocrem.com.au/ ) is just bloody brilliant and does exactly what it says it does , it just gets the major muscle groups moving again. I use this extensively towards the end of the race when my quads are hammered. It really makes a difference and allows me to move back through the gears towards the end of an event when most runners are stumbling home.
Fisiocrem is a must have in your ultra box of tricks…
Bix hydration is just ace, a product brought to life by Vlad Ixel a professional ultra runner who knows a thing or two about hydration. ( https://www.bixvitamins.com/ ) The best thing about Bix is it tastes good with many different flavours and you never get sick of drinking it, this is a big plus as Maurten and Tailwind (both great products) can be difficult to digest later in the event. From the website :-
As an Australian elite multiple trail running champion, with wins in over 40 ultra-marathon races across Asia, recovery from training and races has always been my top priority.
In searching for a solid recovery and hydration supplement, I recognized that critical vitamins and minerals – both in diversity and quantity – were missing from almost all supplements on the market. I had the feeling that in an effort to maximize their bottom-lines, companies in the hydration space, failed to deliver a product that could meaningfully assist athlete performance.
In order to address this, I began the development of a hydration product. After two and a half years of development alongside a leading German sports scientist, BIX Recovery, an advanced, high-quality recovery drink was born.
BIX boosts 12 active ingredients scientifically balanced to replace lost electrolytes and assist in immune function. It’s designed with quality vitamins and minerals, in quantities that work!
BIX is a recovery solution for everyone, that will get you to the top of your game!
Great hydration.
What can I say about HumanTecar, ( https://athleticus.com.au/ ) it looks great, smells great and is awesome for recovery or even pre-run/workout. Read about the science behind it first and then try the products. The compression bandages are just magical after a long event. Put these on and the next day you are recovered, I have used them on a number of occasions and they never fail to astound me albeit the family poke fun at me as I look like a ‘mummy and smell funny’ !
Right, 2022 was a massive year, following on from 2021 which was a massive year. In 2021 I ran eight ultras, Hardy’s Front yard ultra, Light horse 24 hour, KepV2 Ultra 100km, Birdy’s backyard, Delirious West 200 miler, Feral Pig 100 miler, Hysterical Carnage backyard ultra and the 6 inch trail ultra marathon.
2022 was all about doing more and I added the No time to die front yard ultra, the Unreasonable East 200 miler and the Melbourne marathon. I have added the posts for each of these events in 2022 as a review and also just in case you missed the posts.
First off in 2022 was the Delirious West 200 miler for the third time. It was 1-1 with a good finish in 2020 after a DNF in 2019. This year I had the run of my life and finished in just over 68 hours, good enough for a fourth place finish. Can’t wait to take this beast on for the fourth time in February 2023, already have the 2022 crew back on board.
100 miler club, 24 hours done and dusted . My 5th backyard ultra and always managed to get to 24 hours minimum.
In March I ran Herdy’s Front yard ultra for the second time after an assist in the inaugural year in 2021. Not quite the 48 laps (hours) I was after albeit I was very happy with the 34 laps I completed before not making lap 35. Found after two days post Herdy’s I had COVID so explained why it was more testing that I thought it would be ?
Third time lucky, finally joining the 200 kilometre club.
Post COVID and Herdy’s came the Light Horse 24 hour ultra. Another great Ultra Series event. With Rob Donkersloot ( https://mindfocusedrunning.com/ ) crewing me I managed 207km for the win in the 24 hour event, very unexpected and mainly down to Rob not letting me sit down.
Three weeks post Light Horse came the Kep V2 100km. Love this event, steeped in WA ultra running history. I was going to use this race as a long run with a medal at the end, leaving my poles at half way so I could cruise back to the start. Due to a small field I was lucky enough to pick up another win, well first male, so stoked.
Halfway through the year and I faced my biggest challenge yet, a 200 miler in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney. The first 200 miler ever attempted in that region. The Unreasonable East was a beast of an event with stunning scenary, brutal climbs and more stairs than I have ever encountered in an event ever. Add in some seriously cold nights and long distances between aid stations , on the shortest days of the year, and you had a monster to slay.
The 24 hour , 100 mile club. 10am Saturday morning.
Next was time for my third Birdy’s backyard ultra. Plan was to enjoy myself and get to a course PB, anything over 28 laps. In the end managed 36 laps (150 miles) before the impending storm hit and I scuttled off to my car for a well earned sleep. Love this event and can’t wait for number four in 2023.
The starting lineup of the inaugural ‘No Time to Die’ Frontyard Ultra.
After Birdy’s it was another backyard ultra, this time No time to die in Adelaide. Managed to pick up my first , and probably last, backyard ultra win. Managed 33 laps which was good enough to take line honours. After two assists it was so good to get the win and a surreal feeling, running sometime gives back in spades.
My only non ultra of 2022 was the Melbourne marathon , two weeks post No Time to Die. Running a 33 hour long run two weeks out from a marathon didn’t seem like a good idea and as it turned out it wasn’t. Ran with the sub 3 hour bus for 10km and was then unceremoniously kicked off the back, made the last 32km challenging to say the least. In the end finished in three hours and seventeen minutes, funnily enough bringing my average for the 46 marathons I have run to two hours, 59 mins and 59 seconds… a Don Bradman total albeit under my goal not over it. !
Post Melbourne I suffered, my hamstrings seized big time and no amount of anti-inflammatories or dry needling really helped. This was a problem with back to back milers coming up, why wouldn’t you ? The first one was the Feral Pig 100 miler , a beast of an event with over 4,000 metres of elevation. I had not been able to train pre-event and only ran it as I had nothing else to do that weekend and I wouldn’t get my entry fee back leaving it so late to defer. It was going to be brutal and it didn’t disaapoint, finished just over 35 hours, ouch.
Finally, so far this year, I ran the Hysterical Carnage backyard ultra, again in Adelaide, 5 days post Feral Pig. Back to back milers was the plan so I had to run at least 24 hours at Hysterical, in the end managed 27 before timing out on lap 28. Mission accomplished but not something I’d recommend. Lucky I have youth on my side ?
With one event left to run in December, the 6 Inch Trail ultra marathon, 2023 has been amazing, challenging, ace, ridiculous, stupid, inspiring, memorable and more besides. Can I top it in 2023 ? You bet I can.. watch this space…
As always I give a shout out to three of my favourite products… fisiocrem ( https://www.fisiocrem.com.au/ ) is just bloody brilliant and does exactly what it says it does , it just gets the major muscle groups moving again. I use this extensively towards the end of the race when my quads are hammered. It really makes a difference and allows me to move back through the gears towards the end of an event when most runners are stumbling home.
Fisiocrem is a must have in your ultra box of tricks…
Bix hydration is just ace, a product brought to life by Vlad Ixel a professional ultra runner who knows a thing or two about hydration. ( https://www.bixvitamins.com/ ) The best thing about Bix is it tastes good with many different flavours and you never get sick of drinking it, this is a big plus as Maurten and Tailwind (both great products) can be difficult to digest later in the event. From the website :-
As an Australian elite multiple trail running champion, with wins in over 40 ultra-marathon races across Asia, recovery from training and races has always been my top priority.
In searching for a solid recovery and hydration supplement, I recognized that critical vitamins and minerals – both in diversity and quantity – were missing from almost all supplements on the market. I had the feeling that in an effort to maximize their bottom-lines, companies in the hydration space, failed to deliver a product that could meaningfully assist athlete performance.
In order to address this, I began the development of a hydration product. After two and a half years of development alongside a leading German sports scientist, BIX Recovery, an advanced, high-quality recovery drink was born.
BIX boosts 12 active ingredients scientifically balanced to replace lost electrolytes and assist in immune function. It’s designed with quality vitamins and minerals, in quantities that work!
BIX is a recovery solution for everyone, that will get you to the top of your game!
Great hydration.
What can I say about HumanTecar, ( https://athleticus.com.au/ ) it looks great, smells great and is awesome for recovery or even pre-run/workout. Read about the science behind it first and then try the products. The compression bandages are just magical after a long event. Put these on and the next day you are recovered, I have used them on a number of occasions and they never fail to astound me albeit the family poke fun at me as I look like a ‘mummy and smell funny’ !
After the No Time to Die ultra I have been struggling with injuries and motivation. Running the Melbourne marathon in October was probably a mistake and I paid with tight hamstrings, which made any sort of running at pace impossible. The only thing that kept me going was dry needling and strong anti-inflammatories; both dangerous long term ! Coupled with a knee niggle I have only really ran long twice in the last few months and both times were ultra races. Apart from a couple of back to back milers I have run very little and am struggling with motivation.
I have put this down to an aggressive racing calendar and I need time to recoup before more of the same next year. My only race for the rest of the year is the 6 inch ultra in late December. ( https://www.6inchtrailmarathon.com/ ) I’m hoping after the 6 Inch I’ll get my mojo back and head to the hills for my pre-Delirious West training block around Xmas and into the New Year. ( https://deliriouswest200miler.com.au/ ) This block of 4-6 weeks is paramount to success for the 200 miler, hours of trail running in the heat of a Perth summer. Extreme heat is as good as altitude training apparently and I love trail running in summer so its a double bonus. Delirious is also my favourite race of the season so I don’t need much motivation to get up for it. The last few years it has been a very sociable affair due to COVID making it impossible for anyone but WA runners able to get to the start line in Northcliffe. Albeit last year a forest fire almost put paid to the event coming a few days before the start. In the end it was turned from a point to point race to an out and back , which was still awesome as we got to start and finish at the Northcliffe pub , which is a great country pub and does the best food.
So this post is a couple of really cool posts by David Roche of http://www.trailrunnermag.com website . One about does downtime lead to breakthroughs ? and a second post on Kilian Jornet’s 2022 Training Data. This is epic and worth digesting. Kilian’s 8 tips may be a bit polarising for some but his thinking on double days , in my point of view, is spot on. As I have always maintained double days unlock your running dreams. Although I’m never sure why you would lock them up in the first place, anyhow locked up or not running twice a day will help you achieve your running goals. Run slow but run often. Another take away from Kilian’s tips is he runs slow nearly 60% of the time , active recovery he calls it. Again I must concur, when I saw the biggest improvement in my running times I was running between 12 to 14 times a week mostly at aerobic pace. (easy) This is what Maffetone ( https://philmaffetone.com/ ) and Athur Lydiard preach ( https://www.lydiardfoundation.org/ )
Why Downtime May Lead To Breakthroughs Sometimes it feels like the best/fastest/happiest runners never take breaks. But critical fitness adaptations happen when you rest. From an article by David Roche, March 2021 ( http://www.trailrunnermag.com )
Breaks make breakthroughs.
You know that statement is true because you could imagine it on a motivational poster of a puppy in a paw cast. To double-check the puppy-poster proof, I went through a list of the athletes that I coach. Every single one had some sort of layoff preceding their biggest accomplishments.
Injuries? This is running, so … yeah, it can seem like a cereal commercial with the number of snaps and crackles and pops. Some athletes had to stop running for months or years. Some were told they might never run again, only to come back and exceed anything they achieved before.
Here’s an objective, scientific fact: downtime is not a failure. It’s about more than that, though. The theory of this article is that if you play your cards right, breaks can lead to exponential growth processes that reset what you could have ever thought possible before the layoff.
Mental-health breaks? This is sentience, so … yeah, there were plenty of those too. Breaks come in many forms, good and bad, planned and unplanned, pregnancies and pandemics. Whatever caused the breaks, the act of taking downtime was often hard on those athletes. We all have those questions sometimes.
Champions don’t take downtime, right?
Maybe I’m not cut out for this?
Am I losing everything?
Here’s an objective, scientific fact: downtime is not a failure. It’s about more than that, though. The theory of this article is that if you play your cards right, breaks can lead to exponential growth processes that reset what you could have ever thought possible before the layoff.
Let’s start with the principles of fitness maintenance.
We’ll start here as an excuse to discuss how it’s easy to have misconceptions about how fitness changes and grows over time. A 2021 article in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that endurance performance can be maintained for 15 weeks on as little as two sessions per week, or when volume is reduced by up to 66% (as short as 13 to 26 minutes per session). The review article findings were based on a few studies that had untrained individuals do 10 weeks of six times weekly training sessions, followed by a detraining period of 15 weeks where participants were randomly assigned to reduced frequency, reduced intensity, and mixed groups. As long as there was some maintenance of intensity, participants did not significantly detrain.
Similar findings applied to strength training, with as little as one session a week being effective for maintenance in younger populations, and two sessions for older populations. The general conclusion of the review is that both frequency and volume can be reduced while maintaining fitness, with volume in particular being acceptable to drop by substantial margins over 50%.
The general conclusion of the review is that both frequency and volume can be reduced while maintaining fitness, with volume in particular being acceptable to drop by substantial margins over 50%.
I could walk 500 miles, and I could walk 500 more while reciting disclaimers. The studies apply in a narrow context for the general population, not for runners trying to optimize performance. And over longer time horizons, it’s likely that maintenance becomes short-term fitness loss as past adaptations start to fade. But the general principles overlap with the experiences of coaches and athletes about why it’s OK to take downtime.
All tie back to a general principle: once training levels reach a certain point, there might be variance around that point based on training status, but it’s always relatively quick to get back to those levels. Even if you feel out of shape, the past work you have completed is right there at the surface, ready to shine after a quick polish. That’s due to how the body retains training adaptations with time.
Decreases in VO2 max take time and levels rebound quickly.
A 1989 article in Sports Medicine found that VO2 max decreases start to begin after two to four weeks fully off, tied to reduction in cardiac output and blood volume. Follow-up studies generally find around a 5% reduction after two weeks, and up to 20% at eight to 10 weeks.
While VO2 max may drop with time off, it doesn’t take much to maintain it. For example, a 1985 study in the Journal Of Applied Physiology had athletes reduce training from six to 10 hours per week to one 35-minute session, and those athletes had no reduction in VO2 max (but their performance decreased, likely due to changes in muscular output and efficiency). And even after total detraining, VO2 max bounces back with some focused intensity.
However, that initial VO2 max reduction may make running feel hard at first, especially when trying to go harder. After a few weeks off, even slight hills make my breathing sound like a broken harmonica. Don’t worry, you’ll be ready to rock within a few weeks.
However, that initial VO2 max reduction may make running feel hard at first, especially when trying to go harder. After a few weeks off, even slight hills make my breathing sound like a broken harmonica. Don’t worry, you’ll be ready to rock within a few weeks.
Blood volume changes happen fast in both directions.
Similarly, blood volume and cardiac output are highly sensitive to both time off and reintroduction of training. Another 1985 study in the Journal of Applied Physiology found a 9% reduction in blood volume and a 12% reduction in stroke volume after two to four weeks of inactivity in trained men. On the flip side, a 1991 review in the Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise journal found that blood volume increases quickly as training is reintroduced. And a 2015 study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found a 17.8% increase in plasma volume in highly trained cyclists after just four exposures to post-exercise sauna.
Blood volume and stroke volume feed back into VO2 max, so the initial feeling of being underwater and gasping for air upon returning to exercise is likely going to be short-lived. Plus, as demonstrated by the 2021 study on detraining, it takes very little relative training to maintain baseline levels.
Detraining is gradual for the metabolic and aerobic systems.
A 2000 review in Sports Medicine found that after around a week, the body may start to rely more on carbohydrate metabolism, with reduced capillary density too. Those adaptations make the body work harder to get energy to working muscles and limit endurance—part of the reason why you might struggle immensely on runs over 60 to 90 minutes after a longer break. Again, the changes are reversed relatively quickly with reintroduction of training, and can be maintained at lower training levels.
Neuromuscular and biomechanical lag.
Running economy decreases short-term as the nervous and biomechanical systems get slightly less efficient. That could explain why those first few runs after a layoff feel so foreign, even if you have been cross training. In coaching, I often see athletes start to feel less awkward after a week, and downright natural after intensity is reintroduced (usually via hill strides to start). And muscles may lose some strength, particularly after very long breaks (like severe injuries). But as reviewed in 2019 in Frontiers of Physiology, nuclei may not be lost from muscles during that process, possibly contributing to quick bounce-back cycles.
So studies and training theory are generally in agreement: detraining starts after a week or two, progresses for a month or two, and begins to level off, with some ongoing muscular changes. It can feel like you’re so far away from where you were!
But here’s why I’m never worried about that downtime, whether it includes maintenance or not. Athletes usually have a rapid return to previous fitness levels with a small dose of consistency, with it being much easier to achieve again than it was the first time. Restarting training is awakening a sleeping giant.
But here’s why I’m never worried about that downtime, whether it includes maintenance or not. Athletes usually have a rapid return to previous fitness levels with a small dose of consistency, with it being much easier to achieve again than it was the first time. Restarting training is awakening a sleeping giant.
It’s not just that, though. The sleeping giant may wake up with superpowers.
While the science is unsettled, there are so many stories of massive breakthroughs coming off downtime ranging from a few weeks to a few years that there must be physiological resets that raise the ceiling on long-term potential for some athletes. Let’s look at a few possible explanations.
Long-term recovery.
Every training session introduces some acute stress—muscular fatigue/damage, increased cortisol, hormonal disturbance. That acute stress is the whole point of training, allowing an athlete to build back stronger after adaptation. But some of those acute stresses have long tails. Take muscle damage as an example. If we did a blood test after a hard training session, there might be elevated creatine kinase, indicating some muscle breakdown. An athlete may report some subjective fatigue mirroring those results, subsiding in a day or two. Then they’ll do another workout. Heck, yes, adaptation!
Downtime can wipe the stress slate clean. Sometimes, athletes find that they were carrying a chronic stress weight vest around without realizing it.
But wait. While subjective fatigue may be approaching baseline, if we did a follow-up blood test, there would be a good chance that the athlete wasn’t fully at baseline, especially in heavy training. That’s how acute stresses can add up to become chronic stress—the long tails get stacked up over time. While chronic stress can be optimized with plenty of recovery and fuel, it’s always a risk of hard training.
Downtime can wipe the stress slate clean. Sometimes, athletes find that they were carrying a chronic stress weight vest around without realizing it.
Nervous/endocrine system hypotheses.
The interplay of the brain and hormones in long-term growth is weakly understood due to how hard the neuromuscular and endocrine systems are to measure and isolate. For the nervous system, overtraining syndrome is a prime example. A 2020 study reviewed what we know about OTS—a series of dysfunctional adaptations to excessive training and inadequate fueling, with major nervous system impacts.
While approaches vary, the general rule is that a full shut-down of training is needed in severe OTS cases. Athletes often can’t jog their way through OTS, they need to eat and sleep and chill their way through it. Even if downtime is not in response to overtraining specifically, the same rules may be relevant: the nervous system works on longer time scales when responding to chronic stress.
For the endocrine system, sex hormones estrogen and testosterone can be reduced in hard training for endurance athletes, with evidence that the hormones may increase during downtime. As with the nervous system, there may be longer-term endocrine system processes at play when it comes to how hormonal changes affect health.
Gene expression and epigenetics.
Our genetics are not just a set of instructions that we can’t influence. External stimuli change how our genetic code expresses itself via epigenetics, and there is even some evidence that epigenetic changes can be heritable. With endurance sports, relatively small stimuli may start turning some of those epigenetic switches toward endurance. While it’s debated, that could be one explanation for how bodies can undergo such fundamental and positive changes over time even if exercise routines are a few minutes a day.
If I had to venture a guess about why breaks precede breakthroughs, it would be that major reductions in training may have a priming effect on adaptations to future stimuli.
So what happens with downtime? We’re not sure. But if I had to venture a guess about why breaks precede breakthroughs, it would be that major reductions in training may have a priming effect on adaptations to future stimuli. That could involve some mix of all of these physiological processes, plus other cellular-level processes like protein expression or mitochondria changes. Or maybe it has to do with the brain and neuromuscular system.
Whatever the exact cause, breaks are not something to fear and certainly not a reason to beat yourself up. Call it the Dell PC Theorem—sometimes turning it off and turning it back on can solve problems that slow everything down.
Is alcohol the answer? Probably not unfortunately, albeit I don’t drink bar a celebratory pint of Guinness after an event.
What does it all mean in practice?
I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. And that concludes my TED Talk.
Wait, not quite done. Here’s what I do know: the “breaks make breakthroughs” principle is seen over and over again, in every sport. It might just be availability bias, but I don’t think so. What I think is happening is that the principles of maintenance of training interact with detraining and longer-term recovery in a way that compounds interest on underlying athletic potential.
When an athlete first starts training, the body takes some time to build up. You know the feeling—immediate gains followed by slow progress. From that new normal, our bodies can detrain and rebuild relatively rapidly, getting back on the slow progress trend.
But maybe every athlete isn’t designed for slow progress indefinitely. Maybe they even face stagnation or regression no matter how hard they work. Whether it’s due to chronic stress or just our baseline genetics interacting with training over many years, some athletes may find themselves on a trajectory that undersells their ultimate potential.
Break. Injury. Burn-out. Pandemic.
What builds back from that break? There’s no certain answer, but I have my theories. And if you have had to take downtime, just know that all of those theories point to four words when it comes to your future.
A Jon Pendse classic…cross training is one of Kilian’s top tips, albeit he has snow to play about on, rare in Western Australia.
Eight Takeaways From Kilian Jornet’s 2022 Training Data
Kilian Jornet, aka the Greatest Of All Time, just published a summary of his training data and practices for all of 2022. His post is destined to be a legendary guide to thinking about training theory and what it takes to have the best season ever. Let’s break it down. Another article from David Roche, this time Spetember 2022. This is gold.
Last week, I wrote a primer on Kilian Jornet’s training data between his course records at the Hardrock 100 and UTMB (data published by watch-maker Coros). After the article came out, Kilian messaged me a new link. In case you were wondering: finding out I was going to be a dad, my marriage, Kilian sliding into my DMs, in reverse order of importance.
I clicked the link and angels sang. Kilian wrote a post that is going to be a fundamental pillar of training theory, opening up the vault to his data, theory, and mindset. It’s almost unprecedented in the history of endurance sports–an athlete at the peak of their powers being fully transparent about the how and why behind their successes.
The most recent analogue I can think of is Nils van der Poel’s speed skating training. But I think Nils wrote his training manifesto with an understanding that it was unlikely that anyone was going to be able to repeat the wild block-periodization model with workout days that almost seemed impossible.
Kilian’s training, on the other hand, is far more mainstream, the type of approach that almost any athlete could use with modifications for their backgrounds. The GOAT just wants to add to the body of knowledge of endurance training, where he is both a student and a teacher.
The GOAT wants us all to be the GOAT version of ourselves.
Read his full post–it’s brilliant and important. In this article, I am going to provide context for his training, distilling eight takeaways that are relevant for everyone. My wife/co-coach Megan and I interviewed him on our podcast this week (listen here) for more details, one of the ultimate honors of our lives. Is it creepy if we name our kid Kilian? Before you answer, keep in mind that we already printed the sign to hang above the crib.
Even as the ultimate fanboy, it’s mind-blowing to me that one athlete is the best short-distance mountain racer (course record at Zegama) and the best long-distance mountain racer (course record at UTMB) in the same year. The easy response to his dominance is to say he is a genetic outlier. But at the elite level of sports, it’s always a competition among outliers, and the genetic differences alone are not enough to explain dominance like Kilian’s 2022. Reading his post, it’s clear that he earned 2022 with a methodical, process-focused vision of long-term growth across decades of hard training.
On the podcast, he talked about how his training philosophy fundamentally shifted in 2018 and 2019, coinciding with the birth of his first child. Instead of long days in the mountains at zone 2, he shifted toward a different intensity distribution, emphasizing lots of easy volume and focused workouts. He made the changes without a coach (though he does work with exercise physiologist Jesús Álvarez-Herms). Instead, he made himself into an exercise physiology and training theory expert, applying what he learned and making changes based on what worked for him.
The GOAT wants us all to be the GOAT version of ourselves.
So his article is not a genetic outlier talking about the nuances of being an outlier. It’s a brilliant scientist talking about the process of maximizing potential based on universal principles of human physiology, adapted for specific variation in genetics and goals.
Time to get to it! Let’s dive into 8 takeaways from a training summary that will shape the sport for years to come.
One: Training is a long-term process of consistency and aerobic development.
A stunning figure shows Kilian’s weekly training volume since April 2009. While there is variance, most weeks average around 20 hours, split between running, skiing, biking, and other sports. There are big up-swings of skimo in the winter and running starting in spring, with his training following a seasonal cycle.
At the far right of the chart is a microscopic red circle encompassing 2022. It’s a striking visualization of how our brains can think short-term, but our bodies are playing on much longer time scales.
“There’s no such a thing as the magical session that will make you better or a training program that will work for everyone,” he says. “But the adaptations come from the repetition of training stimulus (consistency) and the individualization of those stimuli.”
Kilian has consistently averaged 1000+ hours of training per year, mostly easy, across multiple sports. His aerobic roots run deep. For all of us, the first principle of endurance training is to stack up easy volume over time. The foundation for all performance from the 800 meters up to 200+ milers is how the aerobic system processes energy and associated fatigue. That ability comes from the daily grind of easy training.
So, first? Put your own roots down. It’s a year-long thing, across decades.
Two: Most of his training is very easy, with a Pyramidal intensity distribution.
Now is the moment for every athlete to pay attention to specific guidance from the GOAT. You hear that most training should be easy, but what does that actually mean? Here’s Kilian’s breakdown of training intensity using the 5-zone model:
58% zone 1 (active recovery, nose breathing)
19% zone 2 (aerobic endurance, can keep for hours)
16% zone 3 (tempo, sustained fast and can say several sentences)
4% zone 4 (race pace, can say a sentence)
3% zone 5 (max)
58% in zone 1! That is an astonishing number, echoing the evolution of training theory more generally across endurance sports. Easy volume does not just allow recovery for harder sessions, but it provides the fuel that makes the hard sessions possible.
His intensity distribution is strongly Pyramidal with hints of Threshold, with 77% of his training in Zone 1 and Zone 2. The 16% in Zone 3 and 4% in Zone 4 is a high amount of threshold work, similar to some approaches used by Norwegian runners and triathletes. The smaller amount of Zone 5 work shows that he still develops his top-end speed, but with a much lesser focus.
It’s tempting to get on the trails and assume that faster is better. But stacking up faster work causes everything to decline after an initial period of growth, as the musculoskeletal system wears down, the endocrine system gets overstressed, and the aerobic system erodes via less efficient lipid metabolism and mitochondrial function.
Admittedly, 58% of training in Zone 1 may be Kilian-specific, requiring wonderful aerobic efficiency and very high volume. On our podcast, he talked about moving quickly through the mountains at 110 to 120 beats per minute heart rate, which is my heart rate when getting food from the top shelf of the pantry. But every athlete should probably have a more even split between Zone 1 and Zone 2 than might be our natural baselines, with those percentages adding up to around 80%. All easy is not created equal, and it’s valuable to slow down some of those days for workout quality, longevity, and growth along the entire aerobic spectrum.
Pyramidal training intensity is the predominant approach used by elite athletes whose training has been the subject of studies, meaning the next biggest proportion of training is tempo/threshold, with a much smaller portion faster than Critical Velocity and VO2 max. Lots easy, some moderate, just a bit hard (and make sure that hard work has a focused rationale for improving mechanical output).
Kilian leaves room for disagreement. “I know, for example, that I can absorb a great amount of volume and Z2 and Z3 training, but if I do more speed work for several continuous weeks (Z4 and Z5) I will get injured or metabolically not as efficient,” he says. “For other athletes, it is the opposite.”
What’s fascinating in the research is that an approach with a higher proportion of top-end Zone 4 and Zone 5 work (known as Polarized training) is very rarely used long-term due to its tendency to cause quick adaptations, followed by stagnation (or injury).
Three: Kilian periodizes his training across the year, with a base period preceding specific training blocks.
Kilian’s winter is spent on skis, where he’s a world-class skimo athlete. From December to March, he would do 2-4 hours on skis (mostly in Zone 2) in the AM, followed by a 40-60 minute easy treadmill run in the PM. His training graphs show no hard workouts that entire time. Interestingly, he did a 100-mile race in February to test fueling. As much as I think Kilian’s approach has lessons for all of us, doing a 100-mile race off a ski-focus may just be a Kilian thing. It’s like wearing white spandex at Western States–don’t try this at home.
That base period reinforced an already-monstrous aerobic system. The fact that he didn’t only ski shows a lesson that might be important for athletes that get lots of cross training time. It can be helpful to reinforce mechanical adaptations for running year-round, even if it’s not the primary focus.
Starting in March, he trained for Zegama at the end of May, emphasizing big volume (150-190km / 93-118 miles per week) with 2 quality workouts. In June and July leading up to the Hardrock 100, he increased training volume up to 200km (124 miles) per week, but did no longer sessions, and kept doing 2 speed workouts a week. From Hardrock to UTMB, he primarily focused on recovery and maintenance (read about that period here).
Reinforcing an aerobic base year-round is key for all endurance athletes, and it may help to have a more focused block of aerobic development in the off-season. This winter in coaching, motivated by Kilian and Nils, I am going to focus more on dedicated base periods, particularly for elite athletes. For athletes that don’t have Kilian’s background and VO2 max, it may include a small amount of intensity like in a classic Lydiard model, emphasizing the mechanical adaptations to handle faster work (like hill strides).
Kilian kept that aerobic focus going even when training for short races like Zegama. The benefits accumulate over time, so keep stacking those bricks.
Four: Most of his training sessions were relatively short, but with tons of doubles.
A big change in Kilian’s life was when he became a dad a few years ago. His wife Emelie Forsberg is one of the GOATs herself, and they balance the demands of family life, business, and training as a team. In practice, that means that one gets the early block, one gets the afternoon block, and then their nights are free after the kids go to sleep.
And that seismic shift in life’s demands may have also unlocked a training secret: Kilian rarely does “long” training sessions. Almost all of his runs didn’t exceed 4 hours in 2022 (with most far shorter), a major change from what I had heard in whispers about his training in the early 2010s. However, he still accumulated massive volume week after week. How does that math add up?
The answer is by using doubles–two sessions in one day. On our podcast, he said that he completed doubles almost every day. For all athletes, doubles may improve hormonal response to training, and avoiding excessively long sessions could reduce some of the chronic stress of high-volume training. These sessions can likely be as short as 10-15 minutes, running or cross training, and may have outsized influence on fitness growth. There’s a reason that almost every elite athlete training log includes doubles, even if we aren’t 100% sure on the mechanism of action that makes them nearly universal.
The outstanding question is whether other ultra athletes could excel from so few extra-long efforts in training. Kilian has completed so many ultras and long sessions that he has no doubts about his aerobic abilities, or how his body will respond late in events. Most of us step into the unknown, but nothing is unknown to Kilian. Interestingly, this approach focused on training frequency to accumulate volume rather than supersized single days overlaps with some of the training of ultra champion Camille Herron (and others), so it’s possible that very long efforts are an overrated part of ultra training.
Five: Kilian does workouts that focus on the specific demands of his events.
Now it’s time for some workout porn. I know that Kilian doesn’t want us to read too deeply into any specific session, but these are too good to pass up. He groups his sessions into 3 groups: speed, threshold, and tempo.
For pure flat speed training, he only did 4 workouts all year long. WOW! That includes track staples like 10 x 400 meters, which he says he limited due to risk of injury, a problem he faced in the past when focusing on road training. This may be a place where his genetic ability matters–he is very fast naturally, so it might not be an element that he needs to reinforce much, at least on flat ground. Most trail runners can probably limit their flat ground work, with just enough reinforcement to help hill strength translate into flat speed.
His staple session was an uphill/flat combination workout (like what I wrote about here). He starts with 1 or 2 intervals up a steep climb, with the downhill for recovery. After, he does a flat workout, such as a 10km tempo, 2 x 5km tempo, or 10 x 1k. On the podcast, he said that it improves his ability to run uphill fast and then on flats fast, like in a race. All athletes can likely use combination workouts, but scaled down to current levels.
His third big type of session was a longer steady run. He starts at high Zone 2 before increasing the effort, usually over 20 km to 30 km (12 – 18 miles). These long, steady runs are likely underutilized by many athletes in training, and they are a great opportunity to build specific endurance and musculoskeletal resilience. Just be careful not to turn them into races, since the intensity control is key to avoid an excessive amount of time in the upper intensity zones, undercutting aerobic growth.
The magic simplicity of Kilian’s training is that it’s usually 2 of those workouts a week plus easy running across daily doubles. Rinse and repeat, with specificity before races indicating higher volume preceding long ultras and a greater workout focus preceding shorter events. Finish up with a taper that is very easy and includes rest days for ultras, and a bit less easy with fewer rest days for shorter races.
Six: Most of his aerobic training is on steep and technical trails.
While Kilian consistently does moderate/hard workouts on flat ground or non-technical trails, many of his easy runs are on the trails where he lives in Norway. Just looking at a photo of those trails gives me a stress ulcer–they are steep and technical in ways that are rarely seen in the US outside of climbing routes.
He likes workouts to be on smoother and/or flatter surfaces to “privilege the metabolic and muscular capacities”–optimizing raw output. He likes slower days “on terrain that challenges other aspects (cognitive, mental, technique, visualization…and they’re much more fun!).”
Make sure that you aren’t sacrificing output in your harder sessions. On a steep and technical climb, an athlete’s grade-adjusted pace may be 1-2 minutes per mile slower than on a less technical climb. While the efforts feel equally hard, that translates to lower output, and likely to fewer adaptations. However, on purely easy days, you can have fun with it! Plus, working on technical abilities requires constant reinforcement, like all cognitively and neuromuscularly demanding physical movements.
Seven: Strength work is not a part of his training.
Readers, I know that you know that I am not a big fan of a heavy emphasis on strength training. But my views are far outdone by Kilian’s views. “I don’t do any strength sessions,” he says. “Having limited time for training, I believe that the stress to the body from strength training would be too much to be able to give the best at the running or skiing sessions, where I want to put the focus because they are more specific.”
However, it’s important to note that skiing is a bit like one long strength session, and the way Kilian runs up hills is similar to plyometrics. So he may be playing by a different set of rules than most athletes. I like a minimal-dose program, focused on the least amount possible to get the necessary adaptations, often as little as a few minutes 2-3 times per week.
Eight: It’s all about the process.
Near the end of our podcast, we asked Kilian about the one piece of advice he’d give an aspiring young pro. We had been diving deep into training theory, so I was trying to ask a leading question for him to give away his ultimate methodological secret. Instead, he swerved the conversation.
“Focus on the process, not on the results.”
He described the importance of developing a deep love of daily training, through ups and downs, wins and losses. It’s going to take many years to see where the limits are, and it’s way better when it’s fun.
Kilian talking about training is Kilian talking about anything. He’s a founder of the shoe company NNormal, which is set to be a major player in the future of the sport. Yet even as he’s probably being roped into conversations on growth models and projections, he’s still focused on the process of making a fulfilling workplace for himself and his employees. The same goes for parenting, with his eyes lighting up at the mention of fatherhood and all the new stressors that come with it.
Over the last few weeks, I have learned that Kilian is not the GOAT because of genetics. He is the GOAT because he loves it. We asked him how he reconciled a love of the mountains with all of the data he collects on his training. He had a genius reply: to him, science is a manifestation of his love, of his respect for the sport and the mountains and what they require.
I have never been so motivated to get out there tomorrow and run. I’ll be doing it for the love of the process, and all the messy narratives that entails. I hope you are as inspired by Kilian as I am, helping you get out tomorrow and embrace a love of that messy process.
And I hope that we all can do that year-round for a few decades in a row to find our true limits…with a substantial portion of those days in Zone 1.
Thankyou Kilian Jornet…
Finally as always I give a shout out to three of my favourite products… fisiocrem ( https://www.fisiocrem.com.au/ ) is just bloody brilliant and does exactly what it says it does , it just gets the major muscle groups moving again. I use this extensively towards the end of the race when my quads are hammered. It really makes a difference and allows me to move back through the gears towards the end of an event when most runners are stumbling home.
Fisiocrem is a must have in your ultra box of tricks…
Bix hydration is just ace, a product brought to life by Vlad Ixel a professional ultra runner who knows a thing or two about hydration. ( https://www.bixvitamins.com/ ) The best thing about Bix is it tastes good with many different flavours and you never get sick of drinking it, this is a big plus as Maurten and Tailwind (both great products) can be difficult to digest later in the event. From the website :-
As an Australian elite multiple trail running champion, with wins in over 40 ultra-marathon races across Asia, recovery from training and races has always been my top priority.
In searching for a solid recovery and hydration supplement, I recognized that critical vitamins and minerals – both in diversity and quantity – were missing from almost all supplements on the market. I had the feeling that in an effort to maximize their bottom-lines, companies in the hydration space, failed to deliver a product that could meaningfully assist athlete performance.
In order to address this, I began the development of a hydration product. After two and a half years of development alongside a leading German sports scientist, BIX Recovery, an advanced, high-quality recovery drink was born.
BIX boosts 12 active ingredients scientifically balanced to replace lost electrolytes and assist in immune function. It’s designed with quality vitamins and minerals, in quantities that work!
BIX is a recovery solution for everyone, that will get you to the top of your game!
Great hydration.
What can I say about HumanTecar, ( https://athleticus.com.au/ ) it looks great, smells great and is awesome for recovery or even pre-run/workout. Read about the science behind it first and then try the products. The compression bandages are just magical after a long event. Put these on and the next day you are recovered, I have used them on a number of occasions and they never fail to astound me albeit the family poke fun at me as I look like a ‘mummy and smell funny’ !
Hysterical Carnage 2022 was to be the last piece of the jigsaw in the Ultra Series backyard ultra Grand Slam, running all four of the backyard Ultras in a calendar year. Myself , Jen and Renton were the only three runners who would complete this magnificent task. The image below is the Grand Slam runners and the Race Director, well one of them, Michelle in fancy dress. (Well I am assuming it’s fancy dress ?) The three of us have had many adventures together over the four events and travelled to Adelaide twice ( No time to Die ( https://nttdfrontyard.com.au/ ) and Hysterical Carnage ( https://hystericalcarnage.com.au/ ) as well as Lake Towerinning in regional WA (for Birdy’s Backyard ultra https://birdysbackyardultra.com.au/ ) and inner city Perth for Herdys frontyard ultra ( https://herdysfrontyard.com.au/ ) A special mention to Margie Hadley who had run three of the four as well as the World team backyard Ultra in November (and set a new Women’s Australian record ) and also Nico Watkins who had also ran three of the four but fell at the last hurdle.
I also had another objective for this event after running the Feral Pig 100 miler the previous weekend, I was after back to back milers, a feat I had never achieved or even attempted. To do this I needed to complete 24 laps.
Renton, Jen , Michelle and Myself before the start.
The conditions in sunny Loxton were as the name suggests, sunny. It was going to be a hot one but after Feral the previous week I wasn’t that worried, living and training in the heat of Western Australian summers had acclimatised me to the heat and it was no longer a worry. I have said many times I consider the climate of Western Australia to be just about perfect all year around for running. We haven’t a Winter to speak off , Spring and Autumn are great temperatures and you can avoid the heat in Summer by running early if you so desire or just slower in the heat of the day if that’s your thing.
Shaun Kaesler and his pregnant Wife Sarah were also running and the five of us posed for the cameras before the start of the event, all smiles before the first lap. Sarah had targeted three or maybe four laps while Shaun was keen to smash his 10 lap PB and see how deep he could go. Shaun’s father, Frank, was also running and is as big a character as his son, surprisingly.
Team WA, well a few of them. The Grand Slam runners and Sarah and Shaun Kaesler.
The course had changed since last year which was a pity as it was one of my favourite courses. A large hill you had to walk and then a few kilometres of level running before a road section into a nice trail and then a swamp section before some more level road running to finish. It made for fast laps which meant more time to recover, on the hour every hour. We also had great conditions last year and I managed an assist to Phil Gore, for the second time that year. More than happy with my 37 laps coming two weeks after the Feral miler.
This year, as the image below of last years race village shows, we had water issues. The Murray River had burst its banks and Shaun had to come up with a new course. He did this by adding a big hill and a loop section around the Pioneer Village. On the plus side we actually got to run through the Pioneer Village this year , rather than around it last year. This was pretty cool , especially late at night when you had the place to yourself bar one disgruntled security guard. I’m not sure it made up for the extra elevation but I can’t complain, I still enjoyed the course as the last hill was a good reason to walk for a few hundred metres.
This is where last years event village stood ! You’d need scuba gear to put up a marquee this year.
Another bonus was the Loxton Council had been busy and put in stairs to help the runners climb the first hill. Last year the path got more and more challenging as the event went on with new ruts forming each lap. This year no such problem although I’m sure, as last year, the hill grew during the event, it certainly got harder. We started the event in the caravan park and ran to a improvised trail before the stairs and this trail was undulating and technical, made for some near misses as we tired.
The local council had been busy and put in stairs on the first hill.
The 10am start was upon us and we were off into the heat of a spring day in Loxton. As the images below show it was a beautiful day initially but we all knew the heat was coming and it didn’t let us down. I ran a few laps with Shaun Kaesler who was enjoying his last event of the year for the Ultra Series, I think it was number 18 ? ( https://ultraseries.com.au/ ) This has been a great year for Shaun but I feel he has found his limits and I hope he had put things in place to make 2023 easier on him and his loyal staff. It has certainly been a case of famine and feast after the COVID years and I see a bright future for the Ultra Series moving forward. I highly recommend you get on board and participate in one of the many events offered, there are some seriously good ones. Check out the website for more details.
You can have fun on a backyard ultra. Shaun , Jen and I.
As I mentioned before Loxton in South Australia, where the event is run, is Shaun’s home town and his family even have their own street. It was only a hundred metres off the course so we couldn’t resist sneaking a photo though please note we exited and reentered the course at the same point. I love the photo, me trying to see my iphone over the top of my sunnies and Shaun just being Shaun, sometimes an image can capture the moment perfectly.
Love this photo. Shaun showing off his family street in Loxton.
Right back to racing. I always divide any backyard ultra course into three separate sections, this is a big tip so make sure you digest it. For Hysterical the first part is from the start (obviously) to the top of the hill after the first road section. This encompasses the first hill , the next kilometre or so through the paddock and then the trail section before the road. This was the hardest section as the paddock was sapping on the legs and there was some gradient gain. From the top of the road to the end off the Pioneer Village was section two. Mostly all down hill or level this was easy running although the gradient was steep enough to test the legs later in the event. The final section was from the exit of the Pioneer Village back to the start which included some level running before the road hill you ran down on the way out and a steep final descent back to the event village.
By breaking down the course into three sections you hit targets quicker and can also gauge where you are , time wise, if you are struggling to make the loop within the hour cut off. You also know when to put in more effort and when you can cruise. For me the first section was the hardest and when I got to the top of the road hill I could cruise to the end of the Pioneer Village before putting in some more effort to finish. By doing this the lap passes quicker.
After the hill and before the road section, nice bit of running.
This event was always going to hurt coming so soon after Feral and it didn’t disappoint. I always struggle for the fist 15 or so laps at any backyard ultra but if I can get past 100km then the 24 hour lap becomes a target and I can normally find a second wind to get there. This proved to be the case at Hysterical. I enjoyed the heat of the day but was also relieved when it was time to don head torches and the temperature dropped. Night running is where you can lose yourself on the course and everybody retreats to their small circle of light ahead of them. This is where a good audible book comes in very handy, I was lucky enough to find Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir at Birdys and this makes such a difference. You actually can’t wait for the next chapter and time, and laps, disappears. I also used audible at Unreasonable earlier in the year and the Matthew McConaughey biography Green Light kept me entertained for hours. For Hysterical I had Kevin Hart talking me though his life in ‘I can’t make this up’, another great book and it makes such a difference.
Sunset on Friday evening.
The sunset came quickly on Friday which was a good sign. I was finishing each lap around 45 minutes which is where I wanted to be, towards the front of the field. It gave me time to get everything charged, nutrition and hydration and also a few minutes with the shoes off relaxing in my chair. I was sharing a marquee with Renton and Jen who were both relaxed early on, both experienced enough to pace themselves, remember in this event its’ the runner who finishes last that eventually wins. Time between laps is as important as the running time. Get it right and you’ll be fresh for the lap , fueled and watered, get it wrong and fatigue will start to creep in and as Lazerus says ‘running a backyard ultra is easy until it isn’t‘.
Friday night , running along the fence.
Highlights of the evening was definitely running through the Pioneer Village alone or with a disgruntled security guard. It was very cool having the place to yourself and the bonus of public toilets was the cherry on the cake. The evening laps seem to disappear quickly and the temperature was never an issue, warm enough that you didn’t freeze when you stopped but cool enough you didn’t over heat running. I wore a singlet for the first day and night which was perfect, maybe adding a towel as a blanket when I sat in my reclining chair while I drank my tea, with three sugars of course.
It was cool running through the Pioneer Village in the evening.
Once the sun came up every runner was reinvigorated, the sunrise has that effect on people and you can just about guarantee another 4-5 laps just on the adrenalin rush of making it through the night. The morning was cooler than the previous day as we had some cloud cover and the impending storm was brewing on the horizon. It was predicted to rain on Saturday and boy did it rain later in the day. The storm that was predicted also arrived , with avengence but that’s later in the story.
Saturday morning and its beginning to warm up, head torches soon to be dispatched.
Love this view, below, from the top of the stairs looking back to the start line. The Murray River looking resplendent , it really did put on a show for us over the few days we were there. The locals were saying this was a once in a decade like conditions so next year it’ll probably be dry and dusty , which is the norm apparently. On the Saturday we had a months rain in a few hours and for a lucky few we were able to appreciate it on the course. Luckily my Kathmandu Gore-Tex jacket did its job and even though I was nearly drowning while standing up I was never uncomfortable.
View from the top of the hill.
As you can see from the image below the sky started to turn early morning , around 9am I think I noticed something afoot. You could see trouble ahead. They had predicted a good storm and you could feel it coming. I have other things on my mind though. Once I hit sunrise I knew I was a shoe in for the 24 hour mark I coveted. I began to enjoy the loops and with the aid of fisiocrem and some Panadol my legs were behaving. I know I say this constantly but fisiocrem really does make a huge difference on multi-day events, just puts the spring back into tired muscles. No idea what they put in the product but it works.
Saturday morning and there’s a storm coming.
Seven runners left for the 100 mile lap, not sure where Kevin Muller was ?, anyhow mission accomplished and even better all the three Grand Slam runners made 24 hours, how good is that? Backyard Ultra number four for the year and Renton, Jen and I can still finish high up the field, it looks like experience really does make a difference for this format but I always knew that. A massive congratulations to Renton on a PB and he looked so good , until he wasn’t which happened quickly, lap 25 and he DNF’d. Not a problem he was stoked to finally make the 100 mile club on a backyard ultra. I’m sure if Nico Watkins had made it to the start he’d have also made the 100 mile distance but alas no, he is still on the outer and has to wait outside , probably in the rain, while we bask in the glory of the 100 mile club.
100 miles, leaving on lap 24. Back to back ,milers baby !
As is now tradition I finished lap 24 and adopted the ‘dead runner’ pose , as I call it. Again as usual everybody takes a photo rather than check I’m ok, they could at least pause my Coros.? The photo below is a classic from Michelle and it sums up the day, bleak and lonely with worse to come, the weather gods were about to play their hand and it was a good one.
My traditional 24 laps, 100 miles, finishing pose.
The final laps and thing began to hurt. It seemed my strong anti-inflammatories were starting to give in to the pain from the now visibly swelling ankle. This was an injury I had picked up from the Feral Pig ultra caused by tightening the ankle timing bracelet too tight, rookie error. I had not ran , or even attempted to run, in-between the two events but knew that eventually the ankle would probably say enough is enough. Around lap 26 I mentioned this to the Race Director at the time, Michelle, expecting sympathy, and she responded by pulling up my sock over the offending swelling and sending me back out onto lap 27, priceless.
I nearly forgot to mention lap 26 when the heavens opened up and I mean opened up. It had be brewing all morning and when it came it was a serious down pour. I’ve been on this planet for over 55 years but I can’t honestly remember a downpour as bad, or good if you’re a farmer which at the time I wasn’t ! The course changed completely and I went from running in a dust bowl to running in a river with a strength to nearly take your feet from under you. It was crazy but also pretty cool as as I said earlier I was prepared for the deluge and enjoyed the experience of running in extreme conditions, albeit for half a lap. I managed to get back to the start , dry off and then Michelle kicked me out again, one more lap.
Lap 27 and all was dry again, so quickly, where did all that rain go ? Must be really porous ground in Loxton ? I struggled from the start and was left alone with my thoughts by the other 5 runners. Wayne Chapman was on course clapping us as we passed and he could see I was suffering. Wayne was brilliant the whole time. He managed 5 laps himself then spent the rest of the day and night supporting us, popping up at every corner it seemed at the time. His support did make a difference. I managed to get in around 55 minutes and the five minute warning song was already playing as I slumped into my chair. By this time the foot had gone very troublesome, to annoying and was moving towards very painful with possible long term injury. I had achieved all my goals and was obviously the weakest of the remaining five runners as I was being dropped early each lap.
Undeterred I thought I’d go for one more lap and call it if I made it to the finish. Again I was dropped by the top of the hill but this time I was walking early with little chance of even a stumble. I eventually made the left turn before the road with Wayne patiently waiting for me. This time though there was no words of encouragement good enough to send me on my way. I took up his offer of a lift back to the start after making a quick detour to say my goodbye’s to the remining runners on the course.
Wayne drove me right up to the start line, through the event village, and I popped out of his front seat and ran that bell for all I was worth. DNF lap 28, bloody awesome result. This left five runners on the course but the weather had yet to play its trump card, a thunder and lightning storm for the ages. This was enough to stop the event at lap 30, the right call, and that was it. The last five runners’ DNF’d with Mother Nature the winner, such is life.
Hysterical Carnage 2022 done and dusted. DNF lap 28. Very happy.
So that’s it, four backyard ultras for the Grand Slam, 130 laps, (Herdys 34 /6th /Birdys 36 /5th NTTD 33 /LOS / Hysterical 27/6th ) just over 870km of fun, fun, fun, at least I think it was. ? That’s eight backyard ultras and I hope to compete in many more, it’s an event like no other and when you know, you know. If you haven’t tried one , do you won’t regret it, you’ll go further than you ever thought you could and at some point you’ll enjoy it, remember as Lazarus Lake says ‘ it’s easy until it’s not’…..
I have so many people to thank for this event. My Grand Slam buddies Renton and Jen, we had so many laughs over the events, so many. Shaun Kaesler and his army of volunteers including the three race directors , Michelle, Georges and Kirk. These guys put in a monster shift and coped with all Mother Nature could throw at them. All my fellow competitors who always encouraged me and everybody around them, it really is a brotherhood (or sisterhood?) of suffering but this bonds us. Wayne Chapman for just being there , on every corner, encouraging us all. Tamas for being Tamas.Everybody who made me a cup of tea and there were a few of you. Georges or Michelle’s Mum ?, for the best omelette ever and also the best Anzac biscuits. My Wife for crewing and doing a damn good job, Charlotte and Jasmin, two of my three daughters, for tuning up occasionally and not complaining too much and finally Michelle for the medical advice, I never knew you can fix most running injuries’ just by hiding them.
Finally as always I give a shout out to three of my favourite products… fisiocrem ( https://www.fisiocrem.com.au/ ) is just bloody brilliant and does exactly what it says it does , it just gets the major muscle groups moving again. I use this extensively towards the end of the race when my quads are hammered. It really makes a difference and allows me to move back through the gears towards the end of an event when most runners are stumbling home.
Fisiocrem is a must have in your ultra box of tricks…
Bix hydration is just ace, a product brought to life by Vlad Ixel a professional ultra runner who knows a thing or two about hydration. ( https://www.bixvitamins.com/ ) The best thing about Bix is it tastes good with many different flavours and you never get sick of drinking it, this is a big plus as Maurten and Tailwind (both great products) can be difficult to digest later in the event. From the website :-
As an Australian elite multiple trail running champion, with wins in over 40 ultra-marathon races across Asia, recovery from training and races has always been my top priority.
In searching for a solid recovery and hydration supplement, I recognized that critical vitamins and minerals – both in diversity and quantity – were missing from almost all supplements on the market. I had the feeling that in an effort to maximize their bottom-lines, companies in the hydration space, failed to deliver a product that could meaningfully assist athlete performance.
In order to address this, I began the development of a hydration product. After two and a half years of development alongside a leading German sports scientist, BIX Recovery, an advanced, high-quality recovery drink was born.
BIX boosts 12 active ingredients scientifically balanced to replace lost electrolytes and assist in immune function. It’s designed with quality vitamins and minerals, in quantities that work!
BIX is a recovery solution for everyone, that will get you to the top of your game!
Great hydration.
What can I say about HumanTecar, ( https://athleticus.com.au/ ) it looks great, smells great and is awesome for recovery or even pre-run/workout. Read about the science behind it first and then try the products. The compression bandages are just magical after a long event. Put these on and the next day you are recovered, I have used them on a number of occasions and they never fail to astound me albeit the family poke fun at me as I look like a ‘mummy and smell funny’ !
The Feral Pig 100 miler is a beast of an event. Over 4,300 metres of elevation on brutal trail in the searing heat of a Western Australian spring day. The best is saved for last after returning to the start line and then having to face the hardest terrain of the day in the 38k ‘death loop’ , normally attempted in the late evening or early morning when you are at your weakest.
So it was best of three time and to give the pig a chance I picked up an injury post Melbourne Marathon, in early October, so had ran less than 100km’s in the five weeks coming into the event, not ideal. I had managed to get to the start line thanks to some dry needling from Myree (the most painful experience of my short life!) and some seriously strong anti-inflammatories, prescription strength. Unfortunately the little running I had done in the last few weeks was pitiful at best and the only reason I rocked up to the start was the entry money was non-refundable, as I had left it so late, and I had no other plans so a three day hike on the bib sounded like fun. ?
As you can see from the Stava extract (you are on Strava right ? http://www.strava.com ) I had ran 6 times since the Melbourne marathon and I use the word ‘ran‘ in the loosest sense of the word. With my tight hamstrings , a result of running ‘fast’ at Melbourne, I could only run while high on strong anti-inflammatories and even Myree and her needles of pain couldn’t release the hamstrings fully. The orange activities are time on my Elliptigo ( http://www.elliptigo.com ) which was the best cross training I could muster without inuring myself. I enjoy my GO time but it’s nowhere near enough exercise in preparation for a Feral assault. The last three runs pre-Feral were pitiful at best and I was lucky to average around 6min/k , while the heart pumped at beats per minute reserved for sprinting, things were not good. The ultimate low for me was my last run pre-Feral, an 11km run in the ghetto that is City Beach where I slowed kilometre on kilometre until towards the end I was barely running. I passed two young men collecting from the verge when one of them starts to run backwards with me and asks his friend to video it. He was most excited that he could run backwards faster than this old fella, struggling, could run forwards. The worst part was my hammys were so tight I couldn’t go any faster and just had to take the embarrassment head on. I remember thinking to myself I had sunk to a new low in my running career. As I mentioned in the last paragraph I had no right rocking up to the start of the Feral but with nothing better to do on the weekend a long hike , with like minded runners, sounded ok?
Undertrained is an under statement !
Undeterred by my lack of training and negative attitude from the Yelo running crew, in their defence it was ludacris to attempt the Pig really, I fronted up to the Perth Discovery Centre early evening on Friday to catch the 9:35pm bus to the start line.
It’s tradition before we leave to recite the Feral Pig pledge and once Shaun Kaesler talked us through it were away on the two hour bus journey to the start line over 130km’s south on the Brookton Highway. The bus is a somber affair as all runners are desperately trying to get as much shut-eye as possible knowing it will probably be their last for a minimum of 24 hours and, for most, even longer. I nodded off a few times and was awoken when we left the highway and start to bounce along an off-road section just big enough for the bus. The clock was showing 11:30pm so we have 30 minutes to kill before the start.
This is the time Shaun Kaesler gets all the runners into a big circle, everybody turns off the headtorches and we just bask in the silence and tranquility of our surroundings, trust me people it’s special. Worth running a hundred miles for, probably not but a nice touch and it certainly fills you with positive vibes and prepares you for the task ahead. Mr. Kaesler really is the pied piper of ultra runners and in Shaun we trust.
All aboard the pain bus to the start, with Shaun Kaesler reading the Feral pledge.
The Feral start at midnight is unique and is a double edged sword, on one hand you have less than five hours until daylight but on the other you are starting a 100 mile race already sleep deprived and you know Sunday morning, early, you are going to have pay the piper. Due to the remoteness of the route the first aid station, Sullivan Rocks, isn’t until 41km, and it’s really for drop bag pick up only, not hot food as such , and the second aid station , Brookton Highway, is at 74km. That is a long way between aid stations. After Brookton they start to come every 13km or so until the end and this is much more manageable.
The first twenty or so kilometres is very runnable with no real elevation to speak off, I settled into a group of four runners with the Feral pain train of 2021, Cam D’Silva and Andy Thompson joined by our new recruit Neily Rae. Throughout the night runners came and went but the four of us were pretty constant until just after Mount Cook when Andy took off. Mount Cook was as challenging as always , elevation and also it just gets cold and windy near the summit, funny that. Coming off Mount Cook you eventually hit some good running terrain again , the sunrises , and before you know it you’re at Sullivan Rocks, aid station one.
Saturday morning, the witching hours , 2am to 5am. Nice running terrain.
At Sullivans I was prepared with a drop bog, one of only two for me, filled with goodies including 5 weetbix and milk. I have learnt from the two previous races that this aid station is really just a place to pick up your drop bag. Nothing compared to the smorgasbord we would be presented with at Brookton Highway thanks to Shannon Dale, the aid station King. I wolfed down my weetbix but in the rush to leave (why? It’s a 100 mile race!) I must have repacked or misplaced most of my gu’s. I left Sullivan Rock with very little in the way of nutrition, which was a mistake as the next aid station was another thirty two kilometres away. The image below is me and Cam at the top of Sullivan Rocks about to get trampled on by the 100 km runners and 50 mile runners. They do it every year although this year I think we arrived ten minutes earlier than the previous year so we had a bit of a headstart, ultimately it just delayed the inevitable.
Cam and I just after the first aid station at Sullivan Rocks. Two thirds of the Feral train, after Andy left us !
After Sullivans Cam started to drop off citing an issue with his knee and Neily also faded leaving me with my thoughts and Taylor Swift on the Aftershokz, normal service had been resumed. Cam actually made it back to the Perth Discovery Centre, over 130km, in pain for over 100km of that distance. Bloody amazing effort and together we’ll go better next year. (Did I just type that?) He is a young man with a big future in trail running and ultra distance running. We’ll run together in February when we both take on the Delirious West 200 miler , with his mentor Carl Douglas. ( https://deliriouswest200miler.com.au/ )
Luckily before I reached Brookton I bumped into Tristan Cameron running with another miler and he had some extra nutrition he was able to give me as well as a water bottle. this certainly made the journey easier. To my credit I gave his some fisiocrem which helped his aching limbs. Fisiocrem is an absolute must for these events and I carry a tub with me in my backpack as well as tubes in my drop bags, it’s that good ! At every aid station and regularly throughout the event I would lather my legs in fisiocrem, it is ace !
Early Saturday morning as its still overcast, just after Sullivan Rocks heading towards Brookton Hwy.
Between Sullivan Rocks and Brookton Highway aid stations someone turned on the heat. This isn’t a problem for me as I love the heat , well I love running in the heat, daily life going about my business in the heat I whine like a stuffed pig. Actually I think that should be ‘bleed like a stuffed pig’? but whine is better in this scenario. I very rarely bleed like a stuffed pig when it’s hot, unless I trip ? I digress. I was probably undernourished and dehydrated by the time I got into Brookton but all this changed as Shannon Dale and his aid station oasis recharged my batteries. As you can see from the image below he knows the way to my heart. Bacon, egg and pancakes swimming in maple syrup, there are no words !
Bacon, egg and pancakes at Brookton Hwy.
I left Brookton Highway feeling like a million dollars, bacon has that effect on me. The next aid station was Dale Car Park , a mere 13km away. After the first two aid stations spanning nearly 74km, a 13km hop was childs play. The trail was also special with the spring flowers in full bloom and also the colours from a recent burn-off, stunning. I stopped several times to try and capture the images on my iphone 11 but to no avail. (Note to self, time for a new iphone 14 for Xmas. ) It’s amazing how the world changes after a good feed and this is a valuable lesson , if you’re feeling like you’re done just eat and drink , a lot ! You can then walk it off initially before running again, fully fueled. As I have said many times a diesel van with fuel will destroy a Bugatti with no fuel all day long. Ultra running is all about getting the hydration and nutrition right. Sounds easy right , not so trust me.
Feeling great after my Brookton HWY aid station feast.
Between Brookton and Dale Car Park I ran alone and just enjoyed the serenity of the occasion and the magnificence of my surroundings. The 13km slipped away quickly and before I knew it I was sitting down at Dale Car Park with a great cup of tea, white with three sugars, thankyou Harmony. I had my second , and final drop bag, here and opened it to find a tin of rice pudding, winning. ! Rice pudding is my go to as it is easy to digest, is full of all the good things an ultra runner needs and tastes great. Please note I only ever eat Rice Pudding when racing, as a day to day treat its probably not ideal, probably ? Before I left it was suntan cream time, thanks Heath Watkins, and off I went to take on more trails. Eleven more kilometres before Beraking aid station, another small hop albeit a few nasty elevations in the way. The fisiocrem certainly got a hammering at each aid station, making a massive difference.
The photo does not do this scenery justice, need a new Iphone !
Things were really heating up now and I had been running for well over 14 hours. The hill ( mountain?) before Beraking doesn’t have a name as such but boy it is long and grinds you down. Shaun mentioned at the start of the event that Beraking seems to be the DNF high point for the miler and I can see why. You’ve ran most of the night, and all day , and are now tired, hot and have just faced a monster of a hill. You hit the aid station at 99km into the 163km race knowing you have a death loop (38km ) ahead of you as well as over 60 kilometers, very easy to pull the pin. I felt good at Beraking as the next aid station , Allen Road, is where I start to enter my ‘happy place’. Allen Road to the Discovery Centre is a segment I have ran many times and know it like the back of my hand. I knew once I hit Allen Road I could easily get back to the start before the final death loop, the hardest part of the whole event.
The Bibulumum track turned it on late Saturday afternoon.
The next aid station hop to Allen Road was around 16km, moving from 99km to 113km into the event. Again some serious elevations between these aid stations but the scenery made up for the brutality of the terrain. The temperature started to drop as we neared sunset and I managed to get to the Allen Road aid station just before the sun disappeared. I gorged on chocolate at Allen Road, trying something different to try and boost performance and who doesn’t love chocolate. Fueled on dark chocolate I climbed out of Allen Road and headed back to the start where I had left 18 hours earlier. As I said earlier this is my go to loop and I know it so well, it would be a lot easier running this route with my history on this trail.
Snapped in my natural habitat..
Between Allen Road and the Discovery Centre I ran though the sunset which is my favourite time on the trails. The light is just so special at this time of the day and around each corner you are faced with another breath taking image. Colors change by the minute and it takes all my will power not to stop every few yards and take another photo. I have added an image below but I have so many more, I could have probably have finished a lot quicker if I hadn’t kept stopping and taking photos but when the scenery is this good you just need to stop and take it all in. This is why we do what we do after all.
Just when you think the Bib can’t look any better, along comes dusk.
Upto Allen Road aid station I had been mostly running alone but had been yo-yo’ing with Doug Bartlett for most of the day, we both came into Allen Road at around the same time and I suggested we run the last part of the race together. In the dark company can be a good thing. He agreed but he was too quick and I let him go early although I did catch him as we got to within 4km of the discovery centre and we talked about setting off into the death loop together, after a 90 minute rest. At this point we also nearly caught Andy Thompson, who had dropped Cam and I about 80 kilometres earlier. We heard him and Harmony, his pacer, a few hundred metres ahead of us but never managed to catch him. He also had a power nap at the Discovery centre and left with Doug.
We got into the Perth Discovery Centre around 9:30pm, 132km into the event and nearly twenty hours . There was no way I could face the death loop, the hardest 38km of the whole event, without some rest. Doug and Andy also tried to get some sleep and I scurried off to my car , got changed into some pajama’s and dived into a sleeping bag. I set the alarm for 11pm and tried to sleep. Normally I drop off to sleep very quickly but for some reason I couldn’t get comfortable and lay there thinking about what lay ahead of me. This is the hardest part of the Feral pig, lying in your car with the opportunity to drive away and end the suffering or starting on the death loop knowing you’ll be out there for probably around nine hours. Two years ago I left at this point , driven home by Adam around midnight, albeit I was pretty broken. Last year I breezed through the aid station and left after a quick pot noodle, chasing a buckle finishing time. It was one for the pig and one for me, this was the decider, it all came down to my next decision.
After working with Rob Donkersloot from Mind Focused Running ( https://mindfocusedrunning.com/ ) there really was only one option. Change of clothes, change of mental attitude and into the night I would go, unfortunately at this point alone as Doug and Andy has already left. It would have been better to run with them but I felt they were both running quicker and I didn’t want to hold them back. It was me, my shokz headphones and Taylor Swift again, the deadly duo reunited. I walked to the aid station letting them know I was off into the death loop alone when I saw Neily Ray get some work done on his feet. The last time I saw Neily was exiting Sullivan Rocks, a lifetime ago. I was going to wait for him when Shaun Kaesler informed me Tristan Cameron had just left minutes earlier. Company was too good to turn up, I left the aid station and chased Tristan down which didn’t take long as he was playing with his light about 100 metres down the trail. This was good news, we agreed to run (hike?) together but in all the commotion I had forgot to grab any water or food. I had a 8km hop to the next aid station with no nutrition or hydration, great ? Again Tristan had more than enough for both of us so it wasn’t a problem.
The death loop (or DNF loop) is a real nasty piece of work. You have to run normally at night and after running a 132km warm up with a midnight start the previous evening. You’re tired, very tired and probably worse and you know you have a really long night ahead of you, and early morning. Last year I ran most of it and still took nearly 8 hours, this year there would be little running. Tristan and I just broke the loop down into four separate sections, what I recommend you do with any ultra distance event. Don’t concentrate on the finish , which could be days away, instead aim for the next aid station. Get there and then reset with your next goal being the next aid station, leap frog your way to the finish, one aid station at a time.
For this loop we had just over 9km to the Camel Farm aid station, then a similar distance to Jorgensen park, Kalamunda, before retuning the same way , via the Camel Farm, to the finish. The first 18km was the hardest as we climbed from the Discovery Centre to Jorgensen Park. Once we go to Jorgensen Park we could turn and roll home, well that’s how we sold it to ourselves. We staggered and I mean staggered to Camel Farm where we stopped for a cup of tea albeit with no sugar, sacrilege, and some cold sausage rolls. As we sat there mulling over the next section Neily Ray came into sight and the duo became a trio. The three of us would finish together and the company made the journey so much more enjoyable.
We left the Camel Farm to take on the hardest section of the death loop, the 9km to Jorgensen Park. There are two massive climbs within this section on just about un-runable single track. Add to this we go lost on a descent following an old trial on the Gaia app, and when I say old I mean old, I reckon the last people on this trail would have been early settlers. ! We eventually made the summit at Jorgensen Park to an oasis of an aid station. Hot food, hot tea and great company. The only problem was we were all so tired myself and Neily actually nodded off in our chairs. It was time to get moving or we’d never leave. The mental boost from knowing you are on a descent to the finish and with a full stomach, cannot be under estimated. Now every step was a step towards the finish line and mostly downhill. It got even better when the sun rose albeit it brought rain with it for good measure. Undeterred we kept moving forward and breezed through the Camel Farm on the way back, not even stopping, we could smell the finish.
I have no photos of this stage bar the two images below. The first the three of us at Mundaring dam at the top of the stairs, all smiles, and the last one at the finishing line. I was just fatigued to take out my phone and take photos, and if you know me that is a big deal. This race destroys you, it’s as simple as that.
The three amigos at the dam, a stones throw from the finish.
Mission accomplished. We staggered home from the Camel Farm and even broke into a trot on a few occasions. Overall just over nine hours for the last 38km and I’m happy with that. Tristan and Neily made it bearable and I’m sure we’ll all sign up again. In the end we finished in 32 hours 19 minutes and change. Given the build up to this event it goes down as one of my greatest achievements’. A week before the event I was struggling to finish a 10km , to complete the Feral was a miracle and a testament to Rob Donkersloot and his work on my mental strength. No more talk of DNF’ing just enjoying the moment and reminding myself that this is what I signed up for and enjoy it. He’s got a point you know.
So what’s next ? Well you’re probably not going to believe this but Hysterical Carnage backyard ultra ( https://hystericalcarnage.com.au/ ) is five days after the Feral Pig. I love Hysterical and this year am taking the family along so it’s recovery and then racing again. No time for training due to the quick turn around. Only fly in the ointment is a very badly bruised ankle due to the timing chip ankle bracelet being too tight, rookie error. It’s back onto the anti-inflammatories for one more adventure, promise.
As well as the strong drugs I also use my Human Tecar compression bandages and spray to aid recovery. ( https://athleticus.com.au/ ) I have used the compression bandages after both of my 200 milers this year and they really work. We’ll see how they go this time, pre-Hysterical.
Finally as always I give a shout out to three of my favourite products… fisiocrem ( https://www.fisiocrem.com.au/ ) is just bloody brilliant and does exactly what it says it does , it just gets the major muscle groups moving again. I use this extensively towards the end of the race when my quads are hammered. It really makes a difference and allows me to move back through the gears towards the end of an event when most runners are stumbling home.
Fisiocrem is a must have in your ultra box of tricks…
