Tuesday 19 March 2013

Tarawera Ultra Race Report (60km)

*Apologies - this is a really long post and I don't have time to do an abridged version atm - i've bolded some of the interesting stuff for those that just want to scan through*

Tarawera Ultramarthon 2013 – 60km

Preparation

With race day on Saturday we planned to make our way to Auckland on Thursday, pick up Sophie & Calebs spare car and drive down to Rotorua on Friday morning. Leaving plenty of time to relax and attend the running seminar and registration on Friday afternoon. Jesh only just got a standby to Auckland on the Thursday and spent all day at the airport which wasn’t ideal… but thankfully made it in the end. I had a minor hiccup with some poor strapping on Thursday before leaving for the airport but this was quickly resolved by posting on the race f/b page about my dilemma. Within 5 mins I had an 85k’er, a physio from Hamilton (thanks Scott) offering to redo the job for me on Friday.

We had an awesome sleep on Thursday night – blackout curtains and some seriously good insulation at the Sudima hotel at Auckland airport! Having a good sleep the “night before the night before” is often the best thing as many people don’t sleep well prior to racing. Particularly when you have to set the alarm for 5am!
Friday was fairly relaxing as planned and I tried to drink lots of water and eat lots. Don’t think I really ate more than normal though – just more carbs. Running seminar with the elites was great – albeit a bit nerve inducing!

Here's our nutrition selection for the following day.


And me trying on the five finger socks we got - a little weird but surprisingly comfortable.



Attempted to go to sleep around 10pm after packing everything for the following day, but sleep was fairly elusive. I never got into a decent deep sleep and maybe had about 4 hours the whole night. Jesh had an awful night, waking at 2pm with very bad stomach pains. This has happened a few times before, causing rushed visits to the doctor. Blood tests have showed increase in levels of pancreatic enzymes but it’s never turned completely acute.  Something we need to follow up on this week.

Race day

Alarm went off at 5am and I made a rushed trip down to the BP for some panadol and nuerofen (why on earth didn’t either of us have this!) which he took along with some gastro pills.

Very rushed breakfast at hotel was not ideal and I definitely didn’t eat enough. Jesh could barely even eat and I think even then we weren’t sure he’d be starting the race.

By the time we got to the visitor centre the painkillers seemed to have kicked in so we kitted up and set off for the start line. Final toilet stop for me and then we went to take a photo…. Doh, I’d left the flippen card for the camera in my laptop! Now we (and when I say we I mean Jesh) were stuck carrying the damn thing for no reason! Pretty disappointed as I’d planned to take lots of pics of the race. 

6.30am on the dot we set off… near the back of the pack.

Redwoods Visitor Centre – Tikitapu (Blue Lake): 13.7km

Very slow start to ‘race’, walking a lot of the first 3 or so km’s as we had the first of the biggest, steepest hills straight away. Additionally there were some nasty narrow stairs which saw us going into a funnel and slowing to a stop at several stages. It was very warm and muggy, cloud cover and 430 bodies mixed together made for a sweaty start! It was pitch black in the forest so 90% of us had headlamps on – it looked pretty amazing going up the hill! I was feeling very very nervous about the lack of visibility but was also confident in the awesome job Scott had done taping my ankles.

Here's us around 8km's in - looking happy atm!

Copyright © 2013 Shaun Collins


In some ways it was good to be forced to go so slow at the start of an ultra… however it wasn’t going to help us get to the first aid station in our goal time of 1:40-1:50. We finally made it to Tikitapu (Blue lake) after 13.7km just after the 2 hour mark. Grabbed a banana and a piklet, and off we went again.

Tikitapu – Okareka: 5.8km

The next section was only 5.8km and included a very loooong uphill gravel road which we felt obliged to walk at this stage of the race. You are told time and time again not to ‘over-run’ the first hills, and it was comforting to see others around us slowing to a walk at the hills too. I’m pretty sure this section also included the only couple of km’s of road we had. I would have KILLED for a bit of road later on in the race.

Still feeling pretty good now but as we approached the 19.5km mark at Okareka we were slowly realising our time goals may have been a wee bit lofty! According to the race results we got there at 2:45, which was not too bad, and bang on pace for the 8:25 finish. However knowing how much slower we were going to get later in the race I was starting to feel much less confident about this ‘plan’. Not knowing what the trail was like ahead though I still calculated that if we could roughly keep this pace we’d be in around 9 hours.

Copyright © 2013 Shaun Collins

Okareka – Millar Road: 2.7km

This next section to Millar road aid station was really short. But boy oh boy those 2.7km’s were starting to feel really long by now with all the ascents. Can’t remember much else through these few km’s, we grabbed quite a bit of food at the Millar Road aid station as we know the next leg was the longest stretch without aid. I made a mistake here by being in too much of a rush at the aid station and not taking the time to fill my camelbak fully. Paid for this in the last 40mins of the following leg.

Overall, really loving it at this point. Such beautiful scenery and so glad to be finally out doing this race we'd been building up to for so long. 

Millar Road – Okatanina Lodge: 14.8km

This was a looooong stretch and I started to hurt a bit towards the end. A couple of river crossings here saw us clambering up and down steep river banks. The last short section and this 14.7 took us 3:25 so quite a bit slower pace now. We had so many sections uphill that had to be walked, and it was difficult to get into a good rhythm as the hills just kept on coming!

My left quad was starting to give me issues towards the end of this leg. I still don’t know what causes this – it’s a horrible feeling like my leg is going to give way on me. Even though I felt i’d consumed enough calories and electrolytes I knew I was starting to get pretty dehydrated. I decided to have 2 gels within 20mins of each to try and give me a boost. It seemed to work fairly well and the quad didn’t give in completely.
The very cool thing about the end of this leg is we started to see some of the fast 85km teams pass us – heading to the finish line! So we knew it wasn’t too long before the 100km elites would pass us.

We arrived at Okatanina Lodge aid station at 6:11, 45mins slower than what my race plan dictated. However in the grand scheme of things I still felt positive we could get through the next 20km’s in around 3 hours. Oh how naïve I was.

We handed our camera to Margo and she said she was leaving that aid station at 4.30pm… I remember saying ‘no worries we’ll be back by 3.30’. Oh dear, why was I so confident.

We stocked up on quite a bit of food here – hells pizza had arrived but neither of us really felt we could stomach that. I definitely wanted savoury though, the thought of having to have one more gel was making my stomach turn. I grabbed a huge piece of bacon and egg pie another half banana and off we went for the final 20km – the out and back bit of the new fire course.

Here's us leaving this aid station - not so smiley now.

Copyright © 2013 Shaun Collins


Okatanina – Humphries Bay: 10.4km

To say this 10.4km was technical is a huge understatement in my world.

A little background – when we did the 100km Oxfam run 6 years ago we were pretty unprepared for the off road parts of it (around 60-70% of it is off-road). I always regretted not doing more trail running in preparation for that. However it was NOT all trail, let alone technical trail. There was a lot of running through farms, big fields etc, as well as trail bits.

Knowing tarawera was mostly trails we did most of our training on the Abel tasman. The Abel Tasman (at least 20kms in from Marahau) is EASY compared to what we had to deal with for this last 20km.

The trail was single track, climbed up high, and consequently had some nasty cliffs to run along. And when we weren’t running along this narrow Cliff side we were running through the jungle. Yes, the jungle. Tree roots totally littered the ground making it impossible to navigate at any pace for fear of tripping and falling. And by now the fatigue was well and truly set in, making concentration very difficult. Your brain just stops doing anything but the basics to keep you moving forward. I remember trying to figure out roughly how many calories I’d be burning that day. It took me about 30 mins to calculate 500 x 10.

In addition to this we were running the part of the course that was out and back. We had to give way to everyone coming towards us. This made it impossible to get into any sort of rhythm. The only saving grace of this aspect was that 99% of people we gave way to were so gracious and were encouraging and smiling. And to have the elites run (fly) past us was absolutely tremendous. They too made a point of making eye contact and saying something. We were feeling very awestruck as Sage Canaday (the winner) and Timothy Olsen (Jesh’s hero) flew past. At the time they came through Sage had about a 20min lead on Timothy so Jesh let Timothy know what he had to gain.

I wanted to add one pic of an elite here - mostly cause this pic shows the terrain we were dealing with. See the roots on the ground here!


This is Mick Donges from Blue mountains, Australia who won the 100km last year. 

We arrived at the Humphries bay turnaround and I remember having a laugh, thinking how much of a joke my ‘race plan’ was now. So similar to the joke most women's 'birth plans' turn into after 30 mins in labour. It had just taken us 2 hours to cover 10km!!! In addition to this the pain was now getting pretty unbearable going downhill. My quads were absolutely screaming at me. I downed a couple of panadol and some electrolyte pills with the food. The volunteers at this aid station were awesome. There was no way I could concentrate enough to fill up my camelbak so they just take it off you and do it. They were asking us what we needed and offering encouragement. Such a top job.

Copyright © 2013 Shaun Collins

Humphries Bay – Okatina Return

Feeling a bit frustrated and disappointed leaving this aid station – as we knew now that we’d be lucky to make it back inside 10 hours. But we also knew we just had to get it over and done with.

Met a girl running back who was running in barefeet, the whole last 20km. She said she’d grown up in barefeet and had run the first 40km in fivefingers. I could not fathom how she was managing over all the roots and stones but she seemed to be doing fine!

By now the combination of the fatigue, pain and frustration were reaching a peak. For almost the whole 10km back I felt like I was going to cry. But it was a weird physical reaction more than emotional. My face literally starting to crumble, chin wobbling, mouth downturning… but I actually forced myself NOT to cry. There was no way I was going to waste energy doing that! Or risk getting further dehydrated.

For the last 5km we were passing the final people on the course. This included an amazing 80 year old man. He was running with two pacers for the last 20km for fairly obvious reasons. As they came towards us, on one of these steep cliff side tracks, he lost his footing and fell over the side. Jesh literally dived after him to grab his hand. I then had to go after Jesh to grab his other hand, and someone was pulling my other hand. Apparently not only in the movies. This was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. There is no way he would have survived if he’d fallen all the way. We pulled him up and the only injury appeared to be a badly scratched arm. He was of course very shaken and his pacers made him sit down and told us to carry on. Dying to know what happened to him so will post on the f/b page to find out. But what a flippen legend  80 years old and running an ultramarathon. And he was running too!

Which was more than I can say for our last 10kms J. Actually the last 20km we ran more uphill than we did down. It just hurt way too much to run downhill!

Those last few km’s seemed to go on foooorever. But we finally reached the end – 10:27.

Copyright © 2013 Shaun Collins


Straight into the lake for 5-10mins to try and soothe the legs. And then aid station for some food. I can’t believe I ate pizza that had been sitting out for four hours! Flat coke has never tasted so good. Unfortunately we had forgotten to pack cash so could not partake in the delicious food stalls that were at the finish line. The $5 we did have went on a hot chocolate for Jesh who had started to shake with the cold. He didn’t warm up all night and reckons the lake dip stuffed his core temperature.

We hung around at the finish line for the next few hours. Great fun, encouraging those runners who were coming through to finish at the 100km. I was hoping to see my friend and former PhD office buddy, Rongo, come through this aid station on his way to finish the 100km. But talking to his partner he was having some real difficulty and running way behind time. She was pacing him for the last 15km and was unsure he’d even be able to finish. They also had moved the cut off time for coming through this aid station forward an hour because people were taking a lot longer than anticipated and they couldn’t cope with an influx at the finish line at 2am. So Sophie ran out to meet Rongo to try and get him to run faster and meet the cut off. They ran an incredible 5km in 25mins on the most technical part of the course to make it through so he could finish the 100km. Absolute legend.

Very tired, but happy, we boarded the bus back to town at 7.30pm and heading to the hotel for some well-deserved room service!

A very very tough day at the office and while I’m still slightly disappointed in our time I’m mostly very proud to be an ultramarathoner – for the 2nd time.

I will definitely be back to Tarawera to get the rest of the set – 85km next and 100km after.

For the rest of this year I’m hoping to knock a decent bit of time off my half marathon and run my first marathon!

Thursday 14 March 2013

Surprisingly Calm....

So despite being nervous and anxious all week i'm feeling very calm and relaxed today. What will be, will be.

After a stressful day yesterday - my ankles getting taped very badly, and Jesh only just making it to Auckland - today things seem to have gone very smoothly. I've had my ankles re-tapped by a lovely 85k'er who is a physio, and we've had plenty of time at rego and the hotel to prep for the morning. Ok I also lost my race number... but quickly found it... the only blip in a good day :-)

About to chow down on burger and fries - decent stuff - not macca's... and try and get to sleep by 10pm. Alarm will be set for 5am, up, check we have everything, eat breaky at 5.30am, leave for start line at 5.50am. Eeeek.

See you on the other side!

p.s. next year i'm definitely doing the 100km... 60km is EASY

Monday 11 March 2013

Tapering...? oppsies

I've avoided posting since the training peak update. Partly because i've had nothing much to report on due to tapering... mostly cause updating my blog reminds me of the impending race that i'm feeling increasingly anxious about!

My taper started the week after the peak run (3 weeks prior to race), where I only put in 15km of running! Last week my total wasn't much higher - 22km. But with this week including the race and topping out at 80km again I'm very happy i've had 2 low mileage weeks.

Although my body is starting to get jittery with all the built up energy and i just ran first run of race week WAY TOO FAST! I had planned for it to be a bit fast... was aiming for 5.45min/km. Ran 6.3km in 33.38 - so actually 5.21min/kms! I feel ok but need to make sure i foster good recovery for the rest of the day.

My week's plan looks like this;

Monday: Swam 1.5km, Centergy class
Tuesday: Ran 6.5km speed work
Wednesday: Run 7-8km very easy, centergy class
Thursday: REST
Friday: Run very easy 5km
Saturday: Race - 60km

I'll post the race plan later today... and some ideas for the next adventures, including a PB 1/2 and my first every official marathon!

Sunday 24 February 2013

Epic weekend, done and dusted...

This weekend was our last big training weekend before the race (3 weeks away). Time to taper a bit now with a 20km thrown in for good measure next weekend...

So here's the low-down of the two big runs we did over the last two days;

Friday

Didn't set out till 1pm as Jesh worked till 3am the night before so needed a full nights beauty sleep before the run.

The first few km's we went very slow. This is going to be critical in the first 5km of the race in order to ensure we have the energy to finish. It feels very weird cause you are already going slow because of the terrain... and now forcing yourself to slow down further. But I can testify to this strategy paying off big time at the end of this 40km...

Didn't take in first gel until 60mins - about 9km. Some people do the first one at 30mins but this always feels far too soon for both of us. However, as i've learnt it's going to be important to be sipping electrolytes in that first hour rather than just water.

The first 15-17km were pleasant, felt good and going at nice pace so were able and willing to talk lots. This tends to change later on when you are too tired and grumpy to be bothered with conversation! I found the few km's between about 17 and 20 the hardest of the whole run. Kind of weird but i think this was purely psychological. My legs were starting to feel a bit tired and I was just keen to get to halfway. Plus I always find it hard going through new territory. We'd only run about 15km into the park previously so the last 5km (through and past Torrent Bay) to halfway was all new. Nice to see a new part of the track but mentally difficult because you don't know what to prepare for!

Quick dip at a very conveniently located pool...




Well Jesh got right in... i put my legs in. Wasn't keen on being completely soaking for the rest of the run!

Stopped here for about 10mins and then set off eating our sandwiches as we walked for first 5mins. I needed another gel at this stage too. I hadn't timed my breakfast overly well and was feeling very hungry by this stage!

The next 5kms (to around 25km) seemed to go really fast and felt nice and easy. We seemed to have settled into a good rhythm.

We decided to have a 1km walking break before we hit the waterfall - which i thought was at the 32km mark. So we started walking at 31km... but the waterfall was more like 33km so after walking for 15mins we realised we'd need to start running again to get inside our goal of 6 hours.

At this stage it's actually the changes between walking and running that are difficult. It's often really hard to get running again after a walking break and actually just easier to keep jogging slowly.

In terms of injuries/niggles - my left ankle (sprained 11 days prior) was a little achy but overall feeling fine. I was very glad to be taped up though as another roll at this stage would make the likelihood of me getting to the starting line pretty low! Other than that i had a very sore toenail for some reason. Jesh was trying out new shoes (despite my advice not to) and was having problems with something digging in on the inside of one foot.

Km's 32-40 were actually ok as long as we could keep going at a relatively even pace. We even jogged up the few last hilly bits between 38-40km!

Went home exhausted but happy, and feeling alot more confident about completing the race in a few weeks time.

Saturday

Started out at about 5.30pm, as we wanted to allow for 24 hours between our b2b's. And this way we would only be running in heat for about 30-45mins. Plan was to do 20km. I did not strategise this well and went out thinking we'd do it in 2hrs. Jesh tried to slow me down saying we should just be aiming for 2.5hours. But we still went out too fast. During the first few km's i felt a niggle in my left quad. It seemed to come right for a while and although my legs felt tired and a bit sluggish i felt pretty good.

That all changed around the 13-14km mark. We had a walking break and when we started up again my left leg literally gave way on me. It was like i was carrying a leg with no muscle in it. I kept trying but it kept giving way. I finally got going... a limp/jog for a wee while before having to walk again. This continued and everytime i tried to run after walking my leg would give away. I'd never felt anything like this before and was completely bemused.

Jesh picked up that i hadn't had enough electrolytes/energy. He carries water with electrolytes all the time, while i've always carried just water and gels. It had worked for me the day before for 40km...? I'm not very good at getting the right nutrition in at the right time though. He had also had a whole bottle of Loaded when we finished the 40km, whereas i'd only had half.

So I figure what i was experiencing was 'hitting the wall'... which i've never done before. Maybe because i've never done a marathon before? The closest distance i've come was 37km in a road relay. I don't count the 100km run here because you naturally eat ALOT of food over this distance and i clearly had alot of powerade or similar during that run.

So i've learnt my lesson and will now be carrying electrolyte charged water from the beginning of the race. If i want plain water i'll have to wait until the aid stations. I'd say that's a pretty vital lesson to learn at this stage as i'd be getting a DNF if that hit me during the race!

Onwards and upwards - less than 3 weeks to go now.

Thursday 21 February 2013

Epic weekend begins

I'm about an hour away from heading off into the Abel Tasman for approximatley 6 hours. 6 hours for 40km would be pretty good and i think makes the likelihood of a sub 8 hr possible in 3 weeks.

Feel very unprepared for today. Camel bladders are in the freezer and that's about it so far! We have some gels and protein bars... and will take some cheese and ham sammies! Sometimes savoury after all the sweet gels is soooooo good.

Ankles are strapped and ready to go but i'm a bit nervous about the strapping being too tight after a few hours on my feet. Taking small pair of scissors just in case i need to get it off!

Hope to include some pics of the run on next blog as we'll have both phones with us.

Starting to feel nervous about the race in 3 weeks.... and don't want 3 weeks of nerves so better get that sorted quick!

Tuesday 19 February 2013

My journey to STRONG ANKLES!!!!

A week after #4 sprain I have had a physio appointment. I've become very cynical about using physio's over the last five or so years. Too many who just give out lists of excercises and send you on your way. I know - excercises are important - and i'll be the first to admit i'm pretty useless at following up with these regulary. But excercises are just part of the toolkit that should be used in order to rehab effectively AND prevent further injury (oh gosh I actually sound like i work for ACC, which is unusual!). And perhaps it's just that i haven't found the right therapist.

Today however, I visited the Sports Clinic in Nelson and saw an excellent physio. She was very clear about the steps to getting my ankle back to 100%, and instead of giving me a long list of excercises, just gave me the most effective ones that will hasten the strengthening time. Here's the low down of my plan;

  1. Tape both ankles on ALL trail runs until (and during) the race (taping to be done by a physio)
  2. Desist taping after the race as taping limits the amount of strengthening the ankle can do
  3. Practice one legged standing whenever possible, ie. when waiting for the jug to boil, waiting to cross road.
  4. Progress to one legged pose (similar to tree pose), from firm surface to bed, from eyes open to eyes closed. Aim for 50 secs. Acheiving 50 secs is a good measure of strong ligaments.
  5. If after a resonable period (maybe 3 months) of consistent strengthening, the rolling/spraining is still happening, see the shoe clinic AND a podiotrist.
  6. I have minimal arches and mostly a neutral foot. May benefit from small arch support.
  7. I am pretty close to 'hyperextension' in all joints so this predisposes me to this type of injury (but makes yoga easier!)
  8. If after shoe/podiatrist/strength based remedies don't help, refer to orthopedic surgeon. This is the extreme measures if it appears that over time my ligaments have loosened ALOT and can only be helped by tightening through surgery (ick!).
Phew, quite a few steps in there but with such a long history of varying degree sprains on both ankles it's time to seriously do something about it if I want to continue trail running.

And i do.... yesterday I took to the trail that led me up the center of NZ, very short, but fairly steep (150m climb), and i was reminded how much i love running trails. Its bliss being away from the roads and cars and in amongst the trees and birds. So peaceful and makes me feel very connected to God - regardless of how much praying i might do! (i actually find cycling more conducive to prayer!)

Anywho... I have a plan. A master plan to dominate my weak ankles!!

Onwards and upwards. 15km road run tonight. Just aiming for a steady 1:30. Thursday is a day off running, to prepare for huge weekend. This will be the peak of our training, a back to back session, 40km on Friday (trail run into the Abel Tasman), and follow up with 20km on saturday. It's gonna hurt, but it's the best way to prep for Tarawera.

Thursday 14 February 2013

Ankle Sprains: the bane of my current existence!

The last 3 weeks training have been completely hijacked! First by the dreaded gastro bug that wouldn't go away. And this week, the fourth sprained ankle in as many months. Yes, you read correctly, sprain #4!

To be fair the middle two were more of a 'roll' and there was very little swelling/bruising. This time round I did a fairly good job (similar to sprain #1 of the season) and had signficant swelling and pain on weight bearing.

It all started out so good... Tuesday morning I had great motivation - which is often hard to come by at 6.30am - and headed out for a couple of loops around the botanical gardens. Great little training run for the ultra as it's partly trail and has a few steepish sections, including some stair work.

Great intentions turned to custard after about 10 minutes. It may not have been the wisest choice of route considering it was still pretty dark, especially under tree cover. But you can't tell me that when i'm determined and motivated. I need to seize the moment!

Interestingly enough i had just been thinking what a good 'run' i'd been having, several big trail runs with no rolling (on a roll? ok, i'll stop now). Literally about 5 seconds after that thought popped into my head I stepped on a stone the wrong way and over i went. Left ankle. I could tell straight away it wasn't going to be pretty. I pity anyone else that was anywhere near me, trying to enjoy their morning excercise, they would have been rudely interupted by some rather unsavoury language.

I finished my one loop - very slowly, and headed back to work to ice. It's kinda funny that the clumsiest most injury prone person works in a pod with 2 trained physiotherapists and an GP!!! Comes in handy though. Thanks to the help of the lovely Natalie, who strapped me up and gave me great advice, i'm back to running today!

Fast recovery was essential as i'm only 5 weeks out from the race, and have only 3 weekends to get in some last big runs before having a bit of a taper. The plan for tomorrow was to do 40km of trails. However i'm really not keen on doing any more damage so the plan has been scaled back to 21km road run - a bit of a time trial for the half marathon i'll do in May.

The following weekend will be a huge one. 38km dun mountian loop on the saturday, followed by a 20km on sunday. Biggest mileage over the next 3 weeks so here's hoping I have all the injury/illness out of the way!