Marathons
I wrote this post four years ago in 2016 so thought it would be a good opportunity to recycle as I’m on another training block heading towards another sub 3 at the Running Works Marathon at Bibra Lake, Perth August 30th. My Golden Rules are unchanged over this period and still ring true, follow them and I guarantee success.
The extract from Strava (you are on Strava right ? http://www.strava.com shows the last 5 weeks training I have put myself through as I prepare for the Running Works marathon in 6 weeks time. I will have given myself a good 12 week training block by the time I start my taper a week before race. This should be enough to sneak under three hours. (Rule 8 : Consistency) (The grey circles indicate when I commute on my Bionic (stand up bike) to work as well as run. )
Funnily enough my ramp up started as soon as I started working from home , middle of March. The extra time allowed me to start to look at my training regime and slowly add distance , consistently. (Rule 1 : Run Further) I started at 40k a week and moved up through the gears to 162k last week which also included a trial half marathon on Saturday and a trial full marathon Sunday. When you can look at these graphics it gives you the confidence to lock in your marathon pace. (Rule 9: It’s all in the mind)
As I mentioned earlier I commute to work on a stand up bike. My stand up bike of choice is the Bionic B-Runner but unfortunately the company went broke due to substandard Chinese manufacturing (funny that?), so if you need a stand up bike go to the Elliptical website and get yourself the next best thing. I have had an Elliptigo and they are ace, they are truly running without the impact, and they are also so much fun. ( http://www.elliptigo.com ) I sold mine to my good friend Mark Conway and regret it daily, just got to find a way to buy another one and sneak it into the garage without No1 Wife finding out ? These stand up bikes are perfect for extra training without the risk of injury (Rule 3 : Don’t get injured) I have used one when I had a calf tear a few years ago and was able to come straight back to racing with times duplicated before the injury, this would have been impossible without the training I was able to undergo on the Elliptigo.
Anyhow here is the post from 2016, worth a read..
This weekend I made a bold decision and stopped running at 29.5k when I got back to the City Beach car park after our long run into the Bold Park hills. It was a conscious effort to take control of my running from the evil that is Strava ( http://www.strava.com ) that has taken hold of many a good runner and turned them into a run recording web junkies. Truth be told I already had 121k banked for the week and knew I was over the 150k weekly total with another 10k planned in the evening to take me over the 161k (100 mile) threshold. So really who was I kidding stopping at 29.5k? It did impress the rest of my running group who ran in ever decreasing circles around the car park to get the extra 500m needed for 30k.
How did this happen ? Social media has a large part to play and these days every run is accompanied by a Strava upload as a minimum and a social media post if the run justifies it. Compare this to when I started running before the Internet and GPS watches (Yep such a time did exist and to tell you the truth it wasn’t that bad. ) when a runner who have to record all their information using a thing called a pen and paper. (To the young followers of my post these things are now defunct and serve no purpose bar to be used a weapons in disposing of zombies and other evil creatures in the mindless video games you spend hours playing. Note. That is the pen, the paper would be used as fuel to set fire to said zombies if the pen failed to do it’s job.) I’ll put my hand up with most of the running population as an avid Strava addict who has 4 Garmin watches and an iphone to make sure that every kilometre I run is documented and shared. I did try and run without a watch once, on the advice of a ‘friend’ (?) to try and recapture the feeling of that bygone age. I hated it and all the time kept thinking how I was going to record this and document my findings to the world. It is like if a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound, if you run without recording it on Strava did it happen ? Not sure about the tree and forest scenario but for the Stava question the answer is ‘no’, if it ain’t on Strava it didn’t happen.!
This brings me to the point of this post this morning. We do live in a digital world (this may or may not be a good thing?) but you still need , as backup, a non Strava recording of all your totals. I have attached mine below for the last 8 years and with the table as backup will use these totals to complement my golden rules of running.
- 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 weight rather 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
fifthsixth 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.
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After speaking to my number one , and only subscriber, Mum, it seems the links to the videos didn’t come across in my last post; albeit they were available on the web. Anyhow I’ve added some Bogan Race footage which is well worth a viewing and also links to the videos if they don’t come across on this link with mobiles. Best way , if the videos don’t display is to pop along to the website and view them there. Thanks Mum.
Rather than write about the experience I thought I’d add some video. My Daughters both got GoPro’s for Christmas so I ‘borrowed’ one and recorded some footage throughout the day. What do they say a video tells a thousand words ? (Forgot to mention I put in a bit of a dent in No3 Daughters GoPro on one of my many stacks during the day, it’ll come back to haunt me no doubt !)
The day before the race is the smaller version of the Delirious called the Bogan race, the race that stops a town. Truth be told with Northcliffe it’s very difficult to tell when its stopped or started ? The race is a foot race holding a barrel after sculling beer along the way, in bogan fancy dress of course, sort of a beer mile on steroids. The first two videos are the Race Director explaining the rules and then the start of the race itself. ( https://vimeo.com/396639530 )
and the start of the bogan race, the race that stops a town….allegedly. ? ( https://vimeo.com/396642998 )
Right , back to the race, here’s the start. You’ll notice we actually deliberately go the wrong way as it’s tradition after last years navigational cock-up when the whole field went left when they should have gone right. Not a good start to a 200 mile race when you get lost in the first 1o metres ? It’s amazing any of them even found the finish line !! I was actually following Jen on this footage and we ran together for most fo the fist 70k before she dropped me and ran an amazing race to finish second female and top 5 finisher. I should have hung on for longer ! (https://vimeo.com/396109352 )
Next we are an hour or so into the race , still smiling . I think at this point we were top 10, mainly because everybody in front of us got lost. Discussing our breakfast which consisted of waffles with bacon, ice cream, poached eggs and lots of maple syrup. The joys of ultra running. With hindsight more bacon would have probably saved my race ? (https://vimeo.com/396110335 )
Fours hours in and still enjoying it, lots of walking and running, it was starting to heat up at this point, just before midday and after aid station 1. Certainly underestimated the distance between aid stations and this was eventually my downfall. Not enough nutrition or hydration early on led to the quads seizing up later in the race (around the 70k mark) and a long bus and train journey home for me. (in my race gear as my bag of clothes was at the finish line in Albany but that’s a post for another day !) I have said many times on this blog an ultra is really just an eating and drinking competition with running between aid station a secondary activity. Get the eating and drinking wrong and the engine runs out of fuel, when that happens it doesn’t matter what car you’re driving, you stop ! End of story! In an ultra a well fed diesel will always out perform a Porsche with an empty fuel tank ! ( https://vimeo.com/396112207 )
Four and half hours in and we’re starting to have second thoughts !!! Scenery is still awesome but I regret not putting on sunscreen around this time ! (https://vimeo.com/396113019 )
Around eight hours in and we’re both goosed ! Really hot at this point and some serious walking ! ( https://vimeo.com/396108801 )
Eight hours in and we’re starting to worry ! Realising we’re not even 10% into the race… oh dear.! (https://vimeo.com/396113815 )
This was after the 75k aid station, not happy , quads were locked solid. !! Around the 10 hour mark, still loving the scenery but dehydration and lack of nutrition was starting to take its toll. (https://vimeo.com/396109049 )
An hour later legs were good, pancakes and bacon finally kicked in. Probably around the 80 mark, eleven hours. ( https://vimeo.com/396114361 )
Sunset , feeling pretty good at this stage, 6k into the next aid station and had managed to put together a good 10k of running. Legs had recovered at this point but unfortunately I went through one more aid station before pulling the pin. Quads totally seized around the 100k mark and I stumbled into Mandelay , at 112k , in a sorry state. Rookie errors, namely not eating and drinking enough between aid stations and getting totally dehydrated due to the midday sun exposure with no suntan cream, what was I thinking. A couple of stacks on the last stage left me alone in the dark with a fading head torch, stumbling about lost. Running a race this distance is 90% mental and I gave myself so many reasons to stop but none to carry on. With hindsight a massage and a few hours sleep may have been enough to loosen off the quads but even the next day I found walking just about impossible and when you run a 200 miler the numbers can destroy you. I remember sitting in the chair at the last aid station , after running for 17 hours, totally goosed, thinking I still have over 230k to go. At that point it was very easy to pull the pin when I found it painful to walk 10 metres ! (https://vimeo.com/396114936 )
So what’s the lesson learnt here. The race itself is just awesome and I can’t wait to try again. To that end I have entered another 200 miler in June called the Irrational South , another Shaun Kaesler special, what could go wrong ? ( http://irrationalsouth200miler.com.au/ ) Entries are open for a few more months if you want to join me, and maybe even get on the GoPro footage ? I even persuaded Jon to join me (albeit it is now sponsored by Trail and Tribe https://www.tribeandtrail.com.au/ so gets free entry)! and I’m working on Georges, it wouldn’t be the same without him and his ‘white t-shirt”? The only fly in my 200 mile ointment is a nagging, niggly knee injury that has stopped me running since Delirious so it looks like I’ll be going in undercooked again, wouldn’t have it any other way !!! Giddy up.
Rather than write about the experience I thought I’d add some video. My Daughters both got GoPro’s for Christmas so I ‘borrowed’ one and recorded some footage throughout the day. What do they say a video tells a thousand words ?
First offering is the start. You’ll notice we actually deliberately go the wrong way as it’s tradition after last years navigational cock-up when the whole field went left when they should have gone right. Not a good start to a 200 mile race when you get lost in the first 1o metres ? It’s amazing any of them even found the finish line !! I was actually following Jen on this footage and we ran together for most fo the fist 70k before she dropped me and ran an amazing race to finish second female and top 5 finisher. I should have hung on for longer ! (https://vimeo.com/396109352 )
Next we are an hour or so into the race , still smiling . I think at this point we were top 10, mainly because everybody in front of us got lost. Discussing our breakfast which consisted of waffles with bacon, ice cream, poached eggs and lots of maple syrup. The joys of ultra running. (https://vimeo.com/396110335 )
Fours hours in and still enjoying it, lots of walking and running, it was starting to heat up at this point, just before midday and after aid station 1. Certainly underestimated the distance between aid stations. ( https://vimeo.com/396112207 )
Four and half hours in and we’re starting to have second thoughts !!! Scenery is still awesome but I regret not putting on sunscreen around this time ! (https://vimeo.com/396113019 )
Around eight hours in and we’re both goosed ! Really hot at this point and some serious walking ! ( https://vimeo.com/396108801 )
Eight hours in and we’re starting to worry ! Realising we’re not even 10% into the race… oh dear.! (https://vimeo.com/396113815 )
This was after the 75k aid station, not happy , quads were locked solid. !! Around the 10 hour mark, still loving the scenery but dehydration and lack of nutrition was starting to take its toll. (https://vimeo.com/396109049 )
An hour later legs were good, pancakes and bacon finally kicked in. Probably around the 80 mark, eleven hours. ( https://vimeo.com/396114361 )
Sunset , feeling pretty good at this stage, 6k into the next aid station and had managed to put together a good 10k of running. Legs had recovered at this point but unfortunately I went through one more aid station before pulling the pin. (https://vimeo.com/396114936 )
After little training for 2020 I took on the 350k (218 Mile) Delirious West Ultra, it was never going to end well truth be told. As regular followers of my blog (Mum?) will know I have struggled with my running mojo since August last year, actually probably longer. I managed a few reasonable results last year but overall I was struggling with form and motivation. This culminated in a total of 108k for 2020 up to the race, ( 7 weeks of running!) I’d normally call this total ‘Thursday‘ , so I knew the Delirious West Ultra would be a big ask. ( http://deliriouswest200miler.com.au/ ) On the Monday of the race I was lucky enough to get a lift down to Northcliffe from Perth with the Race director, his right hand woman, Mel, and three other runners. We had a convoy ! After stopping at a KFC because Shaun, the RD, loves his bucket , Donnybrook for a pie (in the local bakery we found a pie-pizza, that’s right a pie with a pizza topping ! Genius ! ) a Woolworths in Manjimup , where Shaun dropped nearly $3000 getting food for the 22 aid stations !! (there was a lot of food, my running buddy Georges reckoned he put on 5 kilograms after finishing the race !) we eventually made it to Northcliffe late afternoon Monday. The race itself runs on the Bibbulmun track from Northcliffe to Albany, through some of the best scenery WA has to offer, apparently. ( https://www.bibbulmuntrack.org.au/ for anyone living and running in WA you need to get on this track !)
Right , Northcliffe is about 347km from Perth and about as country as you can get ! The hotel doubles as the pub, convention centre, holiday park and generally the catalyst of everything social in the town. The pubs landlord, Duncan , and landlady, Helen, are true blue Aussi’s who, if you cut them , would bleed green and gold. ! Such wonderful hosts and perfect for the event, they embrace the Delirious and for that few days in February become a runners dream location. The only downside to their wonderful establishment though is the rooms are a tad basic and my room, number 3, was right above the bar. On Monday night it felt like I was with Shazza as she dominated the pool table ! Luckily it was all quite Tuesday when I had ear plugs at the ready incase Shazza returned to kick some more pool table ass. The food at the pub is outstanding, steak on Monday , pasta on Tuesday and waffles both days, you got to love ultra running where you really can eat what you want this close to the event, no worrying about putting on a few pounds when you’re running over 200 miles. What a difference to running a marathon where you’re calorie counting weeks before the event and you spend more time on the scales than with your family. Ultra running really is the event that keeps on giving, one waffle at a time.
To show you how small Northcliffe is I had attached a photo of the train station, is that not the smallest train station EVER !! I’m assuming thee platform is for first class and the rest have to stand behind the painted line, brilliant.
Northcliffe train station, standing room only apparently?
Last year , it’s inaugural one, there was just over 30 runners for the event, this year that number doubled to over 60 starters and 15 , or so , defers to next year. Next year I’m sure it will sell out early and maybe even before it goes out to the public if Shaun offers entries to past runners and volunteers. I’m hoping that I’m on the list of past runners albeit a past starter rather than finisher as I’m going back 100% ! (with a full support crew , pacers , poles , better legs and a decent head torch!) Anyhow as you can see from the photo the start is epic , surrounded by like minded, nervous runners who are about to challenge themselves like never before and have an adventure of a lifetime . (or in my case DNF horribly about a third of the way in !) Its a wonderful place to be.
The photo below shows the race winner , Jon far left, who ran the race of his life. Destroyed the field on the first day, destroyed himself on the second and then came good to battle to victory on day four , before driving to the local parkrun and running the 5k. He has gone down in folklore for that trust me ! Will anyone ever repeat that ? I’m not sure but I’m pretty sure there’s a few people (myself included) who will try next year, the Delirious +5 !!! You have to finish before 7am on Saturday morning to make the Albany parkrun by 8am. Jon did it hard , with Peter Duff as his support crew driving his white BMW sports car through some seriously dirty outback roads, needless to say it was the colour of George’s shirt at the end of the adventure. Next to Jon you have my barista Georges. He, or his son Ben, make me and my Wife our morning coffee most weekdays. Over the last year I had been trying to persuade him to enter the race and he relented on the last day. Georges is recovering from shoulder and knee surgery a few months ago and, like myself , was undertrained .A cortisone a few days before the event got him through and he revelled in the adventure. I haven’t told him we’re going back next year, me to try and get into the Delirious +5 club and Georges for his double plugger, plenty of time for that and plenty of coffee to drink discussing it.
To my left in the photo is my good friend Amy who had been suffering , pre-race , with shortness of breath and also a tight calf. Unfortunately a few kilometres into the race the tight calf turned into a calf tear and although she stumbled on there was no way you can run 350k with a tear, impossible. Things went from bad to worse after Amy stopped as her calf swelled up and lots of blood blotches started to show up , as the calf continued to swell. The medic called an ambulance and off to Albany hospital Amy was whisked, rapidly. Turned out she had blood clots in her lungs , which explained the shortness of breath, and both her calfs. She is one tough mother though and already talking up next year. My goal is to try and recreate this photo at the start in 2021 and also at the finish……
The course is well marked and up to 112k you shouldn’t get lost, assuming you have a good head torch and the course on your watch . After that I don’t know as I was on a bus home to Perth, tail between my legs.
Theres a tradition , after one year, at the Delirious where you actually deliberately turn the wrong way 100metres into the race and run for about a kilometre before turning back. This was because last year this actually happened and most of the runners ran around 5k the wrong way before realising their mistake and returning,. Imagine the spectators watching all 30+ runners disappear running North instead of South and then, 20 minutes later, seeing them all come charging back and go the right way, priceless ! Shaun decided that because of this from now on all starters run the wrong way for a couple of kilometres, I suppose when you going to run 350k and extra couple should not be beyond you ? There was lots of giggling going on during the detour and the track, truth be told, was awesome. (I had actually walked that part of the track the day before believing I was going the right way myself, it’s easily done.)
The start of the race is biblical, you are full of beans and if you see a photographer you have to strike a pose. In the image below me and Georges are moving freely though the field, loving every step and excited about the journey ahead. This my favourite part of any ultra, well this and the finish, the hundred of kilometres in between can get a bit tedious ? I jest of course, in an ultra you really can enjoy the whole journey and still avoid the pain box if you have trained well and make the right nutrition and hydration choices along the way. Remember an ultra really is an eating and drinking competition, with running between aid stations.
More fun and games below, about 100 meters from the last photo, at this rate it’ll take weeks to get to the end , not days ! Can’t avoid a camera though, it’s be rude !
Right that’s it for Delirious part one.. I need a break and I’ll leave you with the image that will start the story tomorrow… some races are so long they need two posts !!
This weekend was the 45th City To Surf race and the eleventh running of the marathon for this iconic Perth event. I’ve been lucky enough to run nine of the ten marathons, missing out last year due to plantar fasciitis, a runners worst nightmare. This year I set my expectations a tad lower than usual as I was using the race as another indicator for the Perth Running Festival Marathon in October. Together with the Rottnest Marathon, earlier in the year, the goal was to run a comfortable and controlled sub 3 marathon saving something in the tank for later in the season.
Conditions at the start were perfect, around 10 degrees with no wind. This made for a fast start as the first three kilometres are slightly down hill. Normally I don’t recommend banking time but in this case , when the opportunity is this good, you just need to go for it. Running with the T-train and a turbo charged Jon we were soon rattling along at half marathon pace. Now hurtling along at half marathon pace in a half marathon is a good thing, in a marathon , not so much. My plan was to stick with the boys until half way and then back off and cruise home for a sub 3 finish. Going through 10k in less than forty minutes I decided discretion was the better part of valour and let the lads disappear into the distance , while I dropped a few gears and set the auto-pilot to 4.10min/k pace, far more civilised.
If you have never run the Perth City to Surf marathon you really are missing out on a treat. It must be up there with the best marathons in the world , with views to die for. The start is 6am , so its still dark , as you wind your way through the deserted CBD before moving along the Swann River on Riverside Drive and then passing the iconic Swan Brewery , as the sun rises, into Nedlands, one of the most affluent suburbs in Perth. I enjoy the Nedlands part of the course as you move from one street lined with mega-mansions to another, and then through pristine parks , before cruising through the deserted University of WA grounds and starting your 10k of hills in Kings Park.
Kings Park is another iconic symbol of Perth and running through it, while it showcases its natural beauty, is an honour , to do it as part of a marathon is a privilege. Of course there are hills but they are also part of the challenge and a reminder that a marathon is both a mental and physical test. This part is very much physical, the mental bit comes later of course as you move into the post 32k ‘death zone’.
Exploding out of Kings Park you are then rewarded with 3-4 kilometres of undulating, downhill section as you move through Subiaco, another one of Perth’s best suburbs. This really is the marathon that keeps on giving. Finally you run past Bold Park and over Oceanic Drive to be faced with City Beach, in my view the best beach in Perth. The marathon is more a guided tour of all the best Perth has to offer, with a medal at the end, priceless.
So back to the race. I left off earlier with me dropping down through the gears, leaving the T-train running towards a top 5 finish and a 5 minute PB to finish in 2:45. Jon was five minutes behind him just missing out on a sub 2:50 finish, 8th I think overall. Personally I had targeted a 2:55 finish, a 2 minute improvement on my 2:57 at Rottnest in June this year. Truth be told it all went to plan and, after banking time and going through 15k with a 4min/k average , I allowed myself to slow to a 4:09min/k average pace and crossed the line in 2:55:27, mission accomplished. How easy was it typing that, very easy, how easy was the marathon , not so easy. If you race a marathon it’s never easy, its not meant to be.
A marathon needs to be broken down into manageable chunks. The first 10k should be where you set out your stall, so to speak. Start depending on the terrain, for example the City to Surf is slightly downhill for the first three kilometres and normally very cold, this is perfect to bank a few minutes to be used later in the race. Faced with a hilly start you need to do the opposite and start slower than marathon pace to save energy for later in the day. A marathon is all about choosing your battles. The next 10k or so , too halfway, is about locking in marathon pace and preparing for what I consider the hardest part of any marathon, the 10k between halfway and 32k.
From halfway to 32k is when it’s going to hurt. You’ve ran a half already and you’re now probably maintaining a pace at a distance that you rarely, if at at all, run in training. Your long runs are normally long and slow, more of a time on feet run and your tempos are not normally past 21k. Thus you rarely run over 21k at marathon pace and between 21k and 32k you will start to feel the pain, that is long distance racing. This is where you need to dig deep and just get to the final part of the race, the finish quarter. At 32k , personally, I switch into finish mode.
With less than 10k to go I know I probably hold on and if the first 32k have gone to plan I’ll be there, or there abouts, to my predicted finish time. Mentally I can feel the mind relaxing a bit and the central governor releasing its hold on the body. One of my runnings hero’s David Goggin’s once said that the central governor protects the body by only allowing us to use 40% of what we are capable of. By working on our mental strength we can find another 60% , imagine that , 60% improvement ! Endless possibilities, beats spending $350 on a pair of Nike Vaporflys for a 4% improvement, David Goggins can get you 10 times that by using one of his ‘suck it up pills‘ or eating concrete to harden up, you get the picture. ( https://davidgoggins.com )
So the marathon went to plan really. First 10k felt good and I banked time to be used in the hilly second half. Up to halfway I set auto pilot to just over 4min/k pace and enjoyed the ride. The 10k in Kings Park was challenging , as expected but the following 10k to the finish was easier and although the last few hills beat the hell out of your legs the end is in sight. All in all another great marathon , in perfect conditions with good friends. It doesn’t get any better truth be told and as the photo shows below running with good friends is what its all about.
Right the point of this post isn’t about my last marathon, my 45th in total, the point is to try to show you that whatever you consider your best really is just 40% of what you can achieve. Spend some time on the David Goggins website, get inspired and learn to loosen the grip the central governor has on your ability. It’ll be a whole lot cheaper than a pair of Nike Vaporflys and ten times as effective. Goggins is also the master of motivating memes and a favourite with me and my friends, it’s worth reading his books just for some of these little gems.
I’ve been very quiet on the blogging front and, truth be told , I’m still suffering from my first DNF at the Light Horse 12 hour race at then end of May. Since then I’ve only been to the keyboard twice, most unlike me. So what have I been doing for the last 4-6 weeks ?
Luckily I had the Rottnest Marathon to prepare for. This is without doubt one of the most idyllic , beautiful and brutal marathons in the West Australian Calendar. I have run this bad boy eleven times and managed to sub3 on six occasions. (The last 6 funnily enough). Over the years I been at the pointy end of the race many times and ran second on two occasions, as well as all positions upwards to 7th and a few other top 10 finishes. In my defence it’s normally a small field of less than two hundred runners as marathon runners are not big fan of hills and at Rottnest there’s four, that’s four per lap of course and there’s four laps, you get the picture!
One of the main reasons for Rottnest this year, bar a confidence booster ahead of the 2019 marathon season (which would include the Perth City to Surf Marathon for the 10th time and the Perth ‘Running Festival’ (ex-Perth Marathon) for the 13th time) , was also to take the record for the number of sub three marathon times on the Island. Currently I share this with Mark Page, both having run sub3 six times, this was to be my seventh. So the goal was a 7th sub3, age group win and the cherry on the cake would be a top 5 finish.
Jon had organised accommodation and I was staying with his family, minus his ex-Wife, the T-train and the mighty TB; that’s trailblazer not Thomas Bruins. (Although Thomas Bruins is mighty but there’s really only one TB, the one, and only, original Trail Blazer, Jon Phillips) There was the obligatory pasta meal, pre-race, cooked by Jon this year due to his ex-Wife not being invited on the trip. In Karen’s absence Jon did a good job so I feel her days are numbered, actually they are well and truly finished!
The first lap was controlled with a big group of runners settling into a sub 3 bus and moving along comfortably at around 4:10min/k pace, faster in places when gradient allowed and slower when faced with the hills. For the first lap we went through averaging 4:06min/k, right on track. We had splintered into a group of five runners by this point with Tony, and two other runners, leaving the pack to go on and finish in the top 5.
On a side note I must add that this was without doubt the best conditions we had ever encountered at Rottnest. Moving the race from its usual October slot, which is spring in sunny Perth, so normally a tad warm, was certainly justified. The sun rising as we moved along the causeway, between the salt lakes, is an image that will go with me to the grave, it was inspiring. One of those ‘wish I had a camera moments‘, I can only hope someone did have an iPhone and took a photo because it was biblical. Normally there’s a howling wind with ‘foam balls ‘ rolling towards you, not today, it was perfect. If we weren’t racing me and Jon would have stopped for a hug ! Right, I digress…..
The second lap was similar to the first with the pack dropping down to four and Jon pushing the pace through the start line onto lap three. Again we were right on time still averaging 4:06min/k, maybe not as comfortable as last one but still nowhere near the ‘red zone‘, yet. Now if you race Rottnest you know that lap one is comfortable and you breath in the scenery and the occasion. Lap two and things are normally heating up , literally, and you’re not so bothered with the scenery just the concrete road infront of you. By lap three you are well and truly over Rottnest, big time, and dream of long, flat, courses . Lap three is what makes or breaks you at Rotto. Survive and you tee yourself up for a great Rotto, fall apart and that last lap can last a very, very long time.
On this occasion I was lucky enough to find another gear and my third lap was my fastest. I jettisoned the last two members of the sub 3 bus and was now alone with my thoughts , the bus had become more of a personalised Uber ride ? I knew I was outside the top 5 so concentrated on my sub3 finish, my primary goal. I had 3-5 minutes up my sleeve but knew I would be paying the piper sometime very soon, both figuratively and literally . My fears were realised at around the 35k mark where the legs decided they had had enough for the day and started to misbehave. I probably dropped two minutes over the last 5k which cost me a sub 2:55 finish and a top 5 placing.
As I crawled up the last few hills I was handed a gold coin which you then have to hand to the pipe a few hundred metres up the road, this is a WAMC tradition and one I always look forward. Paying the piper means you have less than 4k to the finish and, with my experience, there’s no way I ain’t finishing that close, it’s just a case of what state I’ll be in. A top 5 finish was there if I could have kept my pace for the final 5-6k but today I was just beaten by the hills. I predicted somewhere around 2:55 so two minutes over was acceptable. I had gone through half way in 1:27:30 so a positive split off less than three minutes , on Rottnest , is just about perfect pacing.
So, after paying the piper, I held it together to finish just under two hours and fifty eight minutes with a 4:10min/k average. (The course measured 42.7k on Strava http://www.strava.com. so the average reflects that.) Mission accomplished, sub three number seven on Rotto, 31 overall , and my sub streak moves to 28 in a row, a perfect day really. To say I was stoked is an understatement. This may have been my 44th marathon but given the last two years of injury it meant as much as my first in 2003. Overall I had ran a ‘controlled’ race with only the last 5 kilometres between me and a perfect finish. I’m not too overly bothered about dropping the ball , slightly , over the last 30 minutes as I’m sure with more training I’ll get my finishing kick back. Remember ‘distance unlocks your running dreams‘ and I just need to run more, simple really.
So lessons learnt for all you sub3 runners.
- Do the hard yards first, and that means distance and plenty of it. Research Phil Maffetone (the running bit and the diet if you can stomach a diet with very little carbs, initially?) , Arthur Lydiard and Matt Fitzgerald. Theses three preach the distance is king mantle before adding the turbo charger that is pace before finally fine tuning to your chosen event.
- Indicator races are a valuable source of confidence. Coming into Rottnest I had ran 10 three times in 2019 , each time faster than the previous. I managed a 36:17, 35:55 and 35:38 in the weeks leading up to the marathon and these times gave me the confidence that I could sub3, even on a hilly course. Add in a 1:22 and a 1:19 in my two half marathons this year and I knew I could go out at 4:10min/k pace comfortably.
- Trust in your training. If you’ve done the hard work you will get the reward. There is no secret to doing well at races, it really is about putting the work in, with your training, for the pay back with a bib on your chest. No surprises. This is another mantra I live by and I use sometimes when I am deep in the pain box, questioning the way forward.
- The race is your time to shine, don’t be afraid of it but instead embrace it. The final part of your training is the race itself and this is where all that hard work pays off. The final 42.2km’s of any 12 week training program should be the most enjoyable. This is when the previous 12 weeks of hard work is suddenly worth the price you pay, sacrificing your social life, family life and work life. The race itself is pay back for all of this, enjoy it. !
- After you finish and achieve one goal, start on the next. Without a goal we become joggers and start saying things like ‘ I don’t run with a watch, I run by feel’, ‘I just run because it makes me happy’; you’ll be hugging trees next. We run to challenge ourselves to be a better person today than we were yesterday, and even better tomorrow. The only person we are really racing is ourselves and you need to continually work to better the old you , or get as close as you can to the old you as Father Time starts to add seconds to your race times and pace.
- Search the runbkrun website for my Golden Rules. These are my nuggets of information that will help you bring down your times. Not real surprises here but just good old fashioned advice from someone who knows, or at least thinks they do ?
After the obligatory warm shower it was off to the pub for the awards ceremony, I told you Rottnest was a magical place. After being presented with my 50-59 age group medal by my good friend Visna Jareb it was onto another one of my goals for the weekend, to drink the pub dry of Guinness. This sounds a lot harder than it actually is as the sub only serves Guinness in cans and one year there was only five and I managed to drink them all, hence the street goal every year since. This year I saw there was eight cans so had to get my good mates Zac and Steve ‘Twinkle toes’ McKean in to help me. I put in a good effort by demolishing three cans but that was me done. I staggered down to the 4:30pm ferry and back to the mainland I went. Bye bye Rottnest, as always it was a blast and I’ll see you in 2020….
On the 27th April I ran my first DNF at the 12hour Lighthouse ultra and it has taken me this long to even think about typing a post on the experience, well over a month. This is a post I thought I’d be writing many years from now and never envisaged penning this particular post so soon in my young (?) career. Right some background to the event. The Lighthouse is a 2.5k loop that starts at midnight and continues through to midday, as 12 hour events do of course. The plan was to podium at minimum and maybe even sneak a win, this , with hindsight , was to be my undoing..
I have said many, many times that marathon and ultra running , actually any distance racing , is to a large proportion a mental struggle with oneself. If you haven’t questioned yourself in a race you ain’t running fast enough. The human body can go so much faster than we allow it but the safety barriers, we put in place to protect it, prevents us from reaching our true potential. Training allows us to move those barriers and thus we run faster. Trust in your training is a mantra I live by and better training always equals faster racing. I believe this is because we have persuaded the mind (the main instrument in protecting the body) that we can run that little bit faster and not do too much damage. This is why better training equates to faster racing, simple really.
Coming into the 12hour ultra I was unprepared mentally. I questioned the reason for the event even upto driving to the start line, not a good idea. The previous two weeks I had moved house and this had mentally , and physically, exhausted me, not ideal preparation. Also this was to be my first ‘time rather than distance race‘ where the idea is to run as far as possible in a given timeframe, again not a good sign. The few days before the event my running had been substandard with my heart rate higher than it should have been given the pace, another sign I ignored and this culminated in a nasty cold after the event. Typing this I’m surprised I actually lasted as long as I did.
Right , lets cut to the chase and describe the race. I arrived tired, remember it starts at midnight which is way past my bedtime, and set up my esky full of drink bottles and Gu’s. Jon joined me and we decided to go off around the 5min/k pace and try and hold this for the 12 hours. Simple really but when we started Jon found another gear and we were motoring along at around the 4:40min/k pace and leaving the rest of the field behind very quickly. This should had been a sign to me that this was too fast as there was some great running experience behind us, and along way behind us. I tried my best to calm Jon down but he was having the run of his life and I was hanging on for dear life, a situation which could not go on.
To add to my tale of woes I was struck down with toilet issues and had to make an unscheduled toilet stop at 18k. This was also an excuse to let Jon go on his merry way and give me some respite from the relentless pace. The only downside to this pitstop was it was totally dark in the toilet cubicle as I was using Jon’s headlamp when we raced, sitting behind him. So here I was, just before 2am, rummaging around in a dark toilet cubicle questioning why I was there and not even thinking about the 9-10 hours ahead of me. Eventually I did the ‘paperwork’ and started on my merry way , alone. As you can see from the image below I did manage to hold 5min/k for around 7 kilometres before another unscheduled stop, this was now becoming an issue.
Jon lapped me around this time and all thoughts of a podium were well and truly finished. I managed another 6k before my third, and final, toilet stop and trust me I was now in a world of pain. Pace was steadily decreasing while the heart rate was rising, not good indicators so early in the event. The final straw when when we changed direction at 3 hours, turning back to the finish line I knew I could not continue for another 9 hours, as it was the I was lucky to make another 9 minutes. So at 3:19:22 into the 12 hour event I packed up my gear and stumbled off into the night to drive home to bed, destroyed. I must admit it was long and lonely drive home but it was the right decision at the time but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, big time. Getting home around four in the morning one of the dogs had decided not to wait for their scheduled toilet stop and left me a nice coming home present on the tiled floor of the kitchen, things really couldn’t have got any worse as I cleaned up their ‘gift’, it seemed to be a recurring theme of the night !
So what to take from this tale of woe. For me it highlighted how mentally unprepared I was for the race but, more importantly, how badly I had started , setting unrealistic goals that in the end destroyed me. Being my first time over distance race I should had prepared myself for the long haul and setting off at 100k pace, when I was not in the form to do so, was always going to end in failure. With hindsight, and this is so easy to type, I could have taken an hour to compose myself and got back out there, hell I could have gone for a 6 hour sleep and still ran for another 3 hours ! The possibilities were endless with the nine hours I had left in the event but in the end I did nothing and just sculked off home, a beaten man. Could I have carried on ? It’s a question I ask myself on a regular basis and I truely believe I couldn’t at the time. Three in the morning suffering from sleep depravation, toilet ‘challenges’ and a heart rate rising quickly, I was in no condition to continue, yep, stopping was the only answer but it could have been so different. Will I go back next year ? Hell yeah, for redemption and to prove to myself I can give the 12 hour a good tilt.
What will I do differently ? Just about everything. I’ll mentally prepare myself for a start, really want to finish and finish strong. The pace will be dialled in early and it’ll be sustainable. Jon will be running the 24 hour version so I can stay away from his suicidal pacing and finally I’ll avoid my home cooking as No1 Wife will be home, so no toilet stops ? I’m really looking forward to it, truth be told, but of course there are plenty of other fish to fry before I return to the LightHorse next year.
Confidence wise , mine took a beating of course. My first ever DNF hit me very hard, it’s taken me weeks to even think about typing this post. On the bright side I have taken so much from this , I will never take on an event unprepared and always give the ultra events the respect they deserve, not just turn up and think it’s may right to finish and finish high up the field and strong. In ultra running nothing can be taken for granted and just assuming you are going to go well on past performances is threat with danger. The only thing that semi-guarantee’s results is training, trust in your training not historical data from past experiences.
From the Sciene of Ultra website this paragraph sums up the while DNF thing for me .. https://www.scienceofultra.com/blog/zion100k
They say that the opposite of love is not hate, but rather indifference. That is exactly what I was experiencing. I was completely indifferent to the event. I didn’t love it or hate it, I just had no interest at all, indifference. I asked myself whether this was just frustration; it was not. I had been replaying all the times I’ve heard people say they regretted dropping out of a race and that their advice is to just walk if possible…finish it. But, finishing was not part of my reason for entering the race. I’ve completed 100k races before, with nearly twice the elevation change. I had nothing to prove with finishing. I knew I could finish and that held no absolutely no meaning to me. So, I dropped out.
I was totally indifferent to the event at three hours, I was not enjoying myself and the thought of another 9 hours filled me with dread. It was this I suppose which in the end made my decision for me. I was not in the race to finish but to podium or at least finish high up the field, when this started to slip away (when I DNF’d I was sitting 6th) the race held nothing for me.
‘You learn more from your failure than you do from your success‘, is that true, maybe. I have certainly spent more timing thinking about what happened and working on ways to make sure they never happen again, so from that point of view you do take more from failure. To sum up how early I pulled the pin on the race I ran 33k the next day at 4:37min/k pace , comfortably. Mentally I was in a better place and the legs felt great, imagine that after a 37k race I was running a quick long run faster than race pace. What a difference a day makes, or even a goodies night sleep. I’ve managed to string together a semi-reasonable few weeks which culminated in a 35:38 10k last week and this is a confidence booster with the Rottnest Marathon in two weeks. I certainly feel a lot better going into a race and distance I know and love and there will be no mental challenges on Rotto. (Bar the normal marathon ones of course?) The goal is to run sub 3 for the 7th time and set a new record which I currently share with Mark Page. ( The two of us have six sub3 Rottnest Marathon Finishes). For those of you who don’t know Mark Page has finished Comrades second on two occasions, which is a pretty big deal. He was a pretty handy runner in his time and set numerous records so to go one better than Mark will be a massive honour. Looking at my training I’m in with a shout and I’ll certainly give it my all.
I found a great article from Nic Errol, originally from Perth funnily enough, on his first DNF, far superior to mine. Worth a read people… https://nicerrol.com/2018/02/26/live-and-learn-anatomy-of-a-dnf/
Right it was good to get that post out of the way and I can continue to motivate rather than depress people. With what I have learnt from this race I hope to avoid writing ‘My second DNF’ for a very, very long time, remember I’m at the beginning of my career and time is my friend… yours in running…
Last week I spent most of my time watching 40 or so dots move along a map from Northcliffe to Great Southern Distillery Company, Albany, on the Bibbulmum track, a distance of nearly 350km’s. ( http://deliriouswest200miler.com.au ) The race started at Wednesday 7am and there was a 104 hour cut-off, yep you read that right, 104 hours !! There was a sweeper but it looked like he was more a pacer than a sweeper and the few people that did drop out where not ‘swept up‘ but chose to bail on their own terms for a number of very valid reasons. The scenery was stunning running along the West Australian coastline and the elevation was brutal, chuck in some serious heat and you have all the ingredients for a life changing experience. I was so close to entering so many times pre-event and in the end decided discretion was the better part of valour , at least for 2018 anyway. Watching the dots move along my screen (there was live tracking via a competitor and their ‘spot’ which was compulsory) I was very envious and regretted my decision but consoled myself with the knowledge that 2020 would be even bigger and maybe the 100 cap could be nudged, which meant more competitors and better racing.
Ultra running in WA is going through a bit of a boom at the moment with the Shaun Kaesler inspired Ultra Series WA ( http://ultraserieswa.com.au ) , the Perth Trail Series ( http://www.perthtrailseries.com.au ) as well as Ron McGlinns Australia Day Ultra ( http://australiadayultra.com ) and Dave Kennedy’s various events including the 6 inch ultra ( http://www.6inchtrailmarathon.com ) ; there would probably be an ultra a month available if you were mad enough to take them all on. Of course the Delirious West is a step up from all of these events being over double the distance of the longest alternative but the stepping stone races are now available and you can work yourself up from 25k (from the Perth Trail Series) through the distances to the 335k (335k is an estimate; the final distance of the Delirious West will probably change annually on Shaun Kaesler’s whim; with the number probably always going up !) ) Delirious West main course.
Ultra running has some benefits as I have mentioned before in a post below, the main one being people are impressed by the longer you take and the distance. This means if you were to finish last you get more kudos than the eventual winner. Ultra’s really are the events that just keep giving…
Running has become more and more popular , not seen since the days of the Sony Walkman revolution of the early eighties when for the first time you could run with music. (To the young generation amongst us we used a thing called a ‘tape’, analog not digital music. ) People new to running inevitably join a running club or run with more experienced friends and before they know it they’ve signed up for their first race. This is a good thing as I believe you never push yourself as much as when the competitive juices start to flow with a racing bib on your chest. One thing leads to another and before too long you’ve entered your first half or full marathon.
Invariably this distance is conquered and you’ve informed all your friends via Facebook and normally your work colleagues via daily updates on your progress. The problem arises though when the marathon doesn’t seem to cut it for kudos like it use to. In the office there seems to be quite a few marathoners and worse most are faster than you. You start to get compared to John in accounts who ran sub3 or even Sheila in Purchasing who ran has ran 10 marathons while juggling family commitments and a busy career. So these days to get some real kudos it’s time to take this running to the next level, the ultra-marathon.
The ultra has the added benefit of the slower you run the more kudos you get, where as the marathon is, these days, about not only completing it but also setting a good time. Non runners are getting use to people telling them they’ve ran a marathon and have responded asking how long they took. Again they are wise to what they consider a good time and if you reply ‘4 hours’ they look at you with pity and ask ‘what went wrong’? Not so with the ultra-marathon. Because it is still not mainstream a non runner has no idea what a good or bad time is for an ultra and even if they did the distance can be varied to confuse them. Remember an ultra is anything longer than a marathon distance, it can be 42.3k upwards.
The ultra gets even better, they tend to be in far flung locations and have pretty serious titles, again earning kudos points. How good does an ‘ultra-marathon in Death Valley‘ sound. Death valley, c’mon, if that doesn’t get serious kudos around the drink fountain nothing will. Ok, Sheila from Purchasing has ran 10 marathons but she’s never ran an ultra-marathon in Death Valley. They have no idea where Death Valley is or even what an ultra-marathon is but who cares, you are now the running god in the office, someone who wouldn’t waste their time with silly ‘girl distance’ like marathons. The universe is realigned and you can ‘strut’ around the office yet gain.
The only downside to this new running adventure is the office folk then look to you for more and more longer distances and/or exotic locations. After your first ultra you can never repeat that distance as non-runners , although initially impressed , soon become impervious to distance running unless there is a serious upgrade or the location adds some spice. e.g. The Marathon Des Sable ( http://www.marathondessables.com/en/), the toughest footrace on Earth. ! ( ..On Earth? are they saying there’s a tougher footrace not on earth, the Moon 100k maybe? Now that would be worth talking about !??)
A word of warning of course, you may come across the non runner who knows a thing or two about ultra-running and while you strut around the office sprouting off about a 100k race on the local trails, basking in the adulation of the finance department, they walk past and grunt it was ‘no Marathon Des Sables’. Instantly your credibility is destroyed and you sneak off back to your desk plotting your next adventure.
So to sum up, an ultra marathon may fill the void in the office kudos states. It has the benefit of still being relatively hardcore, in the view of the uneducated, allows you to focus on distance and not time (to counter that nasty sub3 runner in Accounts) and even allows you to slow down and take your time as the longer you take will actually earn more brownie points. I won’t even start to mention the extra equipment you get to buy and use on ultra-marathons. The wardrobe options are endless and include camelbacks, gators, water belts and my mate Mark’s favourite, a cappuccino machine. ! (He doesn’t actually bring along a cappuccino machine but he wore a water belt once that had so many accessories he might as well have!) This can become more of a hindrance than a help as I always remember feeling my mate TB’s camelback at the end of the 6 inch ultra-marathon ( http://www.6inchtrailmarathon.com ) and it must have weighted 10k; and that was at the END of the race not the beginning !!
The 6 inch is a good example of the small step up needed from the marathon distance. Remember anything longer than a marathon is classed an ultra. The 6 inch is 46k (assuming you don’t get lost, which I have on a number of occasions!), so for that extra 4k you get to shoot down Sheila in Purchasing as you’ve ran an ultra-marathon and ,as everybody knows , so much harder than the silly marathon…
So lookout Sheila, we’re coming for you ?
Am I mad enough to tackle the Delirious West in 2020 ? Hell yeah, I’m gutted I missed the inaugural running but I’m certainly looking to get to the start line next year. As soon as entries open I’m in, the only fly in the possible Delirious West ointment is the possibility that it will the same weekend as Daughter No2’s ball, I’m sure she’ll understand, eventually and the best bit is I have Daughter no3’s ball to go to assuming I don’t run the Delirious in 2025 ? (I am a creature of habit as I missed Daughter No1’s graduation meal when I was running the Rottnest Marathon!)
I have a friend who lives life to the max, on a 1-10 scale he is the ‘Spinal Tap’ 11. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xgx4k83zzc ) A few months ago he got in touch and described his new health kick using arbonne products. ( https://www.arbonne.com/discoverau/) . Now I’m not endorsing these products just saying, as part of the post, how Gary was transforming his life, and lives of those around them if they liked it or not ! He suggested we went out for a run together so we arranged to meet outside my office and off to Kings Park we trotted. Now Gary is new to the running game and we jogged along at a reasonable pace for the first 5k or so but then the pace slowed as Gary’s cardio fitness started to write cheques for his earlier exuberance. Anyway along the way I mentioned I was hoping to run in my 10th in-a-row Perth City to Surf Marathon in 4 weeks time but was hampered by a bad case of Plantar Fasciitis, which is the end would put an end to my streak unfortunately. On hearing this Gary piped up that he would join me and we would start together at the front of the pack.
Now I have known Gary for many years and when he says he’ll do something he normally does, well actually he always does so I did make an effort to poo-poo his idea citing the old adage of , call me old fashioned, training or is his case , lack of training. He was not for the turning and insisted I help him in his goal. Begrudgingly I agreed as I was worried that he would injure himself or worse ! So of he trotted and started the journey from nothing to marathon ready in 4 weeks. In his corner was his new found devotion to everything arbonne and an unwavering believe in himself and his ability to run a marathon on limited training. Intermittently he would get in touch and ask for advice on his next block of training. He was a keen student albeit a tad out of control, in a nice way, and did everything asked of him and more.
Towards the end of his mammoth 4 week training block he rang me very excited with himself, which if you know Gary is the norm. ! This time though he was even more excited than usual and after he calmed down he explained that he had just ran 42k in training just to see if he could do it. It was a spur of the moment decision to keep running on his planned 20k Sunday morning long run. When he hit 42k he rang an Uber and then got them to take him to a garage and buy him some nutrition as he had no money on him, only Gary could get away with this trust me ! I then persuaded him to taper after his 3-4 week training adventure and he got to the start of the Perth City to Surf ready for his first marathon with a bib on his chest.
Unfortunately I didn’t make the start line so was unable to see Gary take off like a rocket and head off into the unknown with a big smile on his face which, by the look of the photos below, was the standard look for the rest of the day.
So how did he do ? Pretty bloody good if you ask me. His splits are things of nightmares though, going through halfway in just over 2 hours and then finishing in 4:39:35, nearly 40 minutes positive split for the second half of the race. Although not ideal, in Gary’s defence, the second half does have more hills compared to the first half but not 40 minutes worth. Looking at the photos though it seems his pace challenges did not dampen his enthusiasm and he was smiling from the start to the finish.
Not deterred after Perth Gary entered the Melbourne marathon and takes it on in just over a week. So two marathons in less than 3 months after starting at zero training kilometres. You’d thought that would be more than enough right, wrong ! Remember what I said at the start of this post about Gary living life at 11, well he has already decided marathons are not challenging enough so has also entered the Bussleton Ironman in December. ( http://ap.ironman.com/triathlon/events/asiapac/ironman/western-australia.aspx#axzz5T8EyTvYC ) Yep, that’s right a full ironman on probably 3 months training, again starting from zero; he only brought a bike last week !! He probably can’t swim. You really have got to admire his tenacity and the reason I know he’ll complete the Ironman, and also smash Melbourne next week, is because mentally he is so strong and his attitude , in my view, is worth months of training for ‘normal‘ people, i.e. people who live life on a scale of 1 -10 .
The point of this post is never underestimate a good mental attitude when it comes to sport, personally I feel it is over looked by so many people. You have to believe you can achieve your goal and see yourself doing it in your mind pre-event. Of course there needs to be that feeling of trepidation as well as you can’t be over confident, that leads to a fall apparently ? It’s getting the right balance between nerves and confidence, both are needed for you to perform at your best. Of course I’m more of an old fashioned athlete preferring to trust in my training (one of my mantra’s) as well as concentrating on the mental toughness you need to succeed.
Finally as I have said many times the actual event itself is the fun part of all your training. Everything that has gone before is for that time you creep up to the start line, bib on your chest and look forward into the unknown that is the race before you. Tell yourself ‘this is why I get up early in the morning, push myself in training and sacrifice so much time and energy, this is why I do what I do and today it will be all worthwhile, today is my day’……
In WA at the moment we are blessed with a smorgasbord of ultra events put on by the Ultra Series WA ( http://ultraserieswa.com.au ) as well as the famous 6 inch ultra in December, ( http://www.6inchtrailmarathon.com ) Dave Kennedy’s year ending event of choice. Looking at the Ultra Series WA website I found there’s also a four race Forest WA series as well as the races listed below. !! Thats 11 ultra events before you start to factor in the Perth Trails Series. ( http://www.perthtrailseries.com.au ) These guys have 17 events over the year, so now we’ve got nearly got 30 trail/ultra races in WA including a track ultra. How did this happen ? Five years ago WA was a desert of ultra running with the only oasis being the 6 inch ultra, which was in its infancy. Bernadette Benson then started the Trail Series but it was also in its infancy. There was the famous Hoka OneOne Kep Ultra which in my opinion had the possibility of becoming as big as the 6 inch is now but for the powers that be not granting the clearances needed. Rob Donkersloot ( http://whywalkwhen.com/ ) was another trailblazer of race directing in WA but his time was cut short by red tape !…
Now we are the shining light of ultra and trail racing in Australia and this was certainly the case when two of the biggest names in ultra racing, globally, have just entered the newest, and longest, WA ultra in its inaugural year.
The Delirious West is another brain child of Shaun Kaesler, the godfather of WA Ultra running. ( http://deliriouswest200miler.com.au ) A 200 mile (and then a few extra as Shaun is famous for adding on ‘free miles’, bless him!) trail run on the world famous Bibbulum track. To quote the webpage :
It is finally here!! After more than 18 months of planning, we are beaming with pride to welcome you all to Australia’s first annual point to point 200 Mile Trail event.
The Delirious W.E.S.T. is run almost entirely on the Bibbulmun Track in the South West and Great Southern regions of Western Australia from the old logging settlement of Northcliffe, to the Historic port city of Albany.
The event will take place from Wed 20 February with a 7am start time and with a 104hr cut off, runners will have until 3pm Sunday 24 February to make their way to the finish line at the Great Southern Distillery Company in Albany.
The Delirious will traverse you through some of the most remarkable forests, unforgiving coastal scrub, stunning beaches, water crossings and some of nature’s finest landscapes along the World Famous Bibbulmun track. Although not the vert of many of the other World’s great 200 Milers, don’t be fooled by its charming elevation profile as the Aussie landscape can be unrelenting in its punishment of unsuspecting victims!
So who is crossing the pond to come to this new event, well the one and only Catra Corbett for one and her bestie Candice Burt, ultra runner and race director of the ‘Triple Crown’ of ultra running. A prettier version of Shaun Kaesler in my opinion, sorry Shaun but it’s true. With these two already lined up for the event next February you are going to get some worldwide attention and I’m sure the 100 spots will start selling fast so I’d recommend start thinking about this bad-boy of an event sooner rather than later. I may even take the plunge myself, just got to persuade No1 Wife to let me spend four figures on a race entry!!
