To describe
my preparation for the WTF 50 miler in WA on Saturday, the best phrase I can
think of is “not ideal”. My A+ goal is
sub 8 hours, which would have put me on the podium in 2013. The field is a bit bigger and a lot faster
this year (the race director reckons the winning time will be solidly sub 7
hours), but I’d still be very happy with an average speed of a little under
6 min/km.
After the
North Face 50 km in May, I was feeling pretty good. I was uninjured and was very happy with my
run in that race. After a reasonable
rest, I was getting back into it and was happy with how I was running. Because Megan was planning to do her first
marathon, my plan was to do a long run on Saturday with her, and double up with
something solid on Sunday too. July was
a tough month, with two weekends having no long run at all. One was a farm trip, which was a double
whammy in that in included the associated sub-optimal nutrition and excessive
beer intake. The following weekend we
moved, and while the Saturday was hardly restful (the removalists we hired were
waiting for me to get tired, and were a bit miffed when I was still running
back and forth from the truck until they left), but moving stuff is not the
same as a good long run. Moving also
meant that all my training runs that I’d worked out in Neutral Bay weren’t
useful any more, and I had to start from scratch with exploring and mapping out
distances. Lane Cove is also a lot
flatter than Neutral Bay.
In its
defence, Lane Cove may well be the best suburb to live if you like running
trails. They’re everywhere! The rest of July and the first half of August
I got in some good runs, both with Megan and by myself, culminating in a 35 km
run on the 21st, the day I was due to fly to Germany for three weeks
for work. I had convinced myself that
sitting on a plane for more than twenty hours would be a good chance for my
legs to recover. Should you be wondering
– it’s not. I’ve never really had an
issue flying internationally in economy, but it was a bit of an uncomfortable
experience. I arrived in Luebeck on
Friday afternoon, and got in a good 24 km and 22 km on the following Saturday and
Sunday for an 80 km week. Sometime during
the next few days, I developed a pain in my left knee that came and went, and
seemed to be caused by extended periods of it being bent. It wasn’t an issue when I ran though, and I
got through another solid 80km the next week, capped off with a 38 km run on the
Sunday. However, my knee didn’t seem to
be getting any better, so I thought I’d give it a little time off.
Travelling
in general is disastrous for routine. I
couldn’t eat how I wanted, my sleep was all off and there wasn’t anywhere I
could do the squats and deadlifts that I’m convinced help me feel healthy. Added to that, while I could get in beautiful
long runs by the river in Luebeck, there were absolutely no hills. While the WTF course is not as hilly as the
6FT or TNF50, neither is it flat. None
of these things were ideal.
After
taking a good few days off to let my knee heal, I decided to try a 10 km to see
how I was feeling, and was happy and a little surprised to find I felt
great. So great that I decided to do a
quick 10 km, which went fine until about 9.3 km when I felt a little twinge in my
left calf. I’d felt something similar in
October last year, and that turned out to be a small calf tear, putting me out
for about six weeks and leading to me missing the Point to Pinnacle in
Hobart. This wasn’t nearly as bad, and I
stopped as soon as I felt it, but it clearly wasn’t 100 %. I went out nice and easy two days later to
assess the damage, and felt fine for about 5 km or so, after that I was
definitely aware of it, and nursed it for the remaining 3 km back to the hotel.
At this
point I had about ten days until I was due to run the Sydney Marathon with
Megan. Doing this so close to my first
50 miler was not ideal, but I didn’t want to miss the chance to run with her,
and various other commitments meant that there weren’t really any alternative
qualifying races for UTMB next year.
Nervously, I took the next nine days off completely, and worried that I
wouldn’t be able to complete either race.
The day before the marathon I went out for a little 2 km trot, and was
happy enough with how I felt. I’d at
least be able to start the marathon.
As it
turned out, the marathon was a lot more uncomfortable than I would have liked. It was rainy and freezing at the start, then
got hot and humid. My calf was OK,
although I could feel it at times, and my right knee started to hurt. Oddly, 42.2 km was a lot more painful than the
38 km I’d done in Germany just two weeks before, even though it was a little
slower. As bad as it was for me though,
it was much worse for Megan, whose knees decided not to play nicely from about
21km or so. As much as it hurt though, I
wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It
was an amazing experience to share and I’m incredibly proud of Megan for the
work she did to get it done, as well as her determination to push through and
finish. Sometimes you do everything
right, do the training and preparation and your body still lets you down on
race day. There’s not much we could have
done differently for the preparation – sometimes shit just happens.
So now I’m
less than 48 hours from starting, and while I’m less well prepared than I could
be, I feel like I’m going to at least get it done. I think I’ve got a pretty good fuelling
strategy, based around Tailwind and some solids. I’ve used Gu in the past, and it’s
horrible. It’s going to be tough, no
doubt – 50 miles is a really fucking long way.
However, to quote a Black Diamond telemarking sticker: if it was easy,
they’d call it snowboarding.
