thenext.run - Be prepared!
Be prepared!
Those of us from the generation that grew up in the Disney movie golden age will know this mantra from the Lion King song in which Scar (simba’s uncle) waxes lyrical about how the hyenas are going to help him and shows his true intentions towards Simba and his brother the king.
I never thought hyenas essential
They're crude and unspeakably plain
But maybe they've a glimmer of potential
If allied to my vision and brain
With a classic disney bad guy timbre from Jeremy Irons it concludes…
Yes, my teeth and ambitions are bared
Be prepared!
Scar played by Jeremy Irons
But before it became subject to copyright law “Be Prepared” was a mantra for another pack - the Boy Scouts.
It was in fact an utterance of the scouting movement founder - Robert Baden-Powell (BP). When someone asked the the inevitable follow-up question - “Prepared for what?” “Why, for any old thing” he replied.
This motto was published a year later (1908) in the book “Scouting for Boys”, where BP expressed it further by saying “you are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty”.
More than a century later, preparedness is still a cornerstone of scouting and I have reprised this memory from my youth and applied to my training last week as part of my training for Birdy's Backyard Ultra.
The stop start nature of the event has been a focus of my training with my regular runs being broken into smaller pieces allowing 2 or 3 shorter runs on a training day during the week and then long runs on the weekend. I did a “gut check” on how effective this has been last Saturday night by running 7 laps under Birdy’s race conditions down at Pinnaroo Point.
I preempted this session with a Saturday morning run with BT Run Club around Perth’s river foreshore and then also added USWA’s 3rd train line collective run on Sunday morning to ensure I could get some feeling for how the body would react when tired.
Granted it’s a lot of running early in my training program, but the point was to see how the logistics of stop and starting running and exhaustion worked. Every lap is going to include a break of 10 -20 mins dependant on how fast I am running. That’s a lot of time to be standing around in what will be very cold temperatures. I’ve come up with a routine that allows me to keep warm, rest and hopefully not seize up too much before it’s time to start again.
My food prepping skills kicked in as well so eating on the run got tested. I tried several food options - strawberries, bacon, cookies, peanut butter and banana sandwiches and more.
Vegemite and cheese sandwiches seem to be the winner. I crave these as recovery foods and I have discovered that I can eat them and macadamia nut bars on the run too.
Everything you need for a late night snack..I mean run!
So what did I learn from my test run?
Firstly my respect for ultra runners has gone up a few more notches - once the legs are fatigued, it takes a lot to get going again after sitting and fueling. The first 1- 2 km in the later laps will prove decisive and I will need to steel myself for the pain that is coming. I will be definitely rolling or massaging my legs at every break, also adding specific stretches to my recovery time.
Coming into my aid station (the back of my ute) I found putting my jacket on, a quick stretch then sitting in a chair with my legs in a sleeping bag worked well. From this position I then fuelled, massaged and rested before getting up to start the next lap. Running with variations like weaving or running sideways or backwards also seemed to help with getting going again.
Last but definitely worth more review was the power of food and coffee to improve my mood. Whilst I finished the Saturday night 50km feeling fresh and wanting to run more the same could not be said for the following Sunday morning run. On only maybe 2 hours sleep I started the extra credit run and for the first 9.7kms I was feeling pretty rubbish and starting to regret my choice to take on the Fremantle train line.
I don’t normally stop for coffee halfway through a run (we all know why ;) ) but I spotted a cafe and convinced the front runners of the group to stop so everyone else could catch up. Throwing caution to the wind, I smashed a double shot latte and ham and cheese toasted bagel and after 15 mins I was feeling good again. I felt like pushing the tempo for the second half of the run and even had energy to chase the galahs sitting beside the track!
I must mention a big thanks to Nick and Shaun for keeping me company on my Saturday night run to the small hours.
So I’ll admit it’s not something to do every Saturday night and my wife thinks I’m even weirder now, but I learnt lots about what else to consider when training for thenext.run.