The Australian Day Ultra ( http://australiadayultra.com ) is less then 2 weeks away which means it’s taper time. Of course the taper should start today but I reckon I can fit in one more 30k with the boys tomorrow before I ease of the distance and try and remain sane as I grapple with the usual hunger pains without the exercise. This is then compounded with the 3 days carbo loading, I wonder as I’m running an ultra do I start carbo loading earlier ? Hell, should I beat eating a muffin right now as I type this post ?  I would ask my mate Jon who is also running the ADU but I worry that his answer will always be ‘to eat’ , regardless of the question !

On the subject of nutrition I still haven’t totally worked out my plan. I think I’m going with the Comrades ( http://www.comrades.com ) diet of a gu/carbo-shotz every hour. It got me through three Comrade campaigns in a reasonable fashion and at least this time I don’t have to carry them as the ADU is a 12.5 loop so I’ll have an esky of goodies at the side of the track to delve into every 6.25k if needed. Carrying 10 gu’s using a belt sounded like a good idea but in practice it was a disaster as the weight of the gu’s made the belt jump up and down on my back. I only realised this at the start of the race and as you can imagine I wasn’t that excited having 89k ahead of me. On the bright side the more I ate the less of an annoyance the belt became. At around 80k I hardly felt it, albeit at 80 k I could hardly feel anything, truth be told.

Reading articles on ultra marathons there really is a wealth of information on all sorts of different diets and I’ve posted a few lately on this site as I study different approaches. I feel the best way forward is to eat when I hungry and stay hydrated. The race starts at midnight so the sun won’t be an issue initially but after the sunrise this could all change if we run into a Perth scorcher. A hot morning will certainly add to the challenge of the event as I’ll still have around 30-40k to run, and as I mentioned in a previous post when you hit the wall in an ultra you could still have 30k to go.

Hydration wise I’ll be alternating between one small drink bottle of water and then one of electrolytes for the duration of the event per lap. (probably 600ml an hour) Before the race of course I’ll carbo load (muffin time!) and that also includes drinking water and electrolyte drinks a lot,  so normally at the start of the race I’m hydrated enough. (For a marathon of course, I’ll need extra for the ultra.) Maybe some flat coke on the last lap or some red bull to give me a final boost. I’m lucky to have an ‘iron stomach’ so have never suffered any issues but then I’m normally done racing in less than 3 hours so maybe the extra food, combined with another 5 hours of running, may become an issue. This is something that will not become apparent till about 60-70k I suppose. ? About the same time as hitting the wall. It seems that around the 60-70k mark things will become clearer and no amount of blogging is going to help my cause now. On the bright side whatever happens there’ll be a post in there somewhere.

Great article here on hydration worth a read :- https://www.hammernutrition.com.au/info-centre/hydration-what-you-need-to-know/

Training wise I’m still running twice a day but taking it easy bar the progressive hour run on Thursdays. Probably manage another 160k week this week (100 miles) before dropping down next week by about 40-50% and then just a couple of slow 10k’s the week of the ultra. After that a week or two of blogging and then straight back into half marathon training for my one of my favourite races the Darlington half, before possibly having a tilt at the 50-55 year old age group Australian record for the 50k at Bunbury. (assuming it is AURU registered; if not could be off to Canberra. ) Then the races come thick and fast for the rest of the year, no rest for the wicked, racing is what keeps me quick, the fear of returning to the pack keeps me honest and the fear of slowing motivates me to go faster. There must be a quote in there somewhere…..

Finally I need to share the T-train’s approach to ultra-marathons . To quote Tony ‘eating is cheating’ ,now I can remember saying this as a young man during many nights on the ‘pop’ in sunny Penzance but never in an ultra. The T-train being the T-train has his own ways of doing things and the running community may go one way the T-train normally goes the opposite. That being said he just ran over 125k for a 12 hour race a week after racing a marathon so he is doing something right. I have yet to read anywhere his ‘eating is cheating’ mantra on any running website , no matter the ultra ones,  so feel he is in a community of one, just the way he’d like it.  I’ll keep an eye on him in the race and let you know if I catch him cheating.