Simulation Day
This past week was pretty busy, both on and off the trails. While ticking of the usual runs, gym and physio, I also attended to a bit of wellness in the way of a facial and hot chocolate walks with Luke, who is on holidays. Saturday we did a bit of filming for the documentary, this is always a little mentally exhausting for me, but the guys make it comfortable as possible.
This all led me to Sunday, simulation day… a 6 hour run to see how I am travelling.
My plan was to run from home to Seacliff to pick up the Day 1 track, Sea to Summit and follow this through to Belair. I then would peel of into Brownhill Creek and once at Mitcham head home through the streets for 11km. I did not know if I would reach home but thought I could cover somewhere between 45 to 50 kilometres in the timeframe.
I started a little too keen and backed it off where I met Jase at Brighton who joined me for the following 20km. We set a comfortable pace for me, which included hiking the hills and reining it in on the flats so that I was not expending too much energy early on. One of the biggest mistakes I could make is to run like I don’t have to run for the next nineteen days after.
At 15km I had a support stop to replenish water and food, this was a good refresher for TIm, and we picked up Justin, who is filming our documentary. Justin put in a hard 10km of sprints on some pretty rocky, undulating, technical single track, whilst filming! It’s definitely a talent.
The boys left me at the 3hr halfway mark, at Joan’s Pantry, and I headed towards Belair National Park. I gave Tim a quick call to check in and arrange a final support stop once I was out of Brownhill Creek. Belair was also the last of the real climbing I had for the day so that was nice to sit in my head.
So far everything had gone to plan, including my nutrition, which sometimes can be tricky to judge. Recently I have been getting the early signs of a headache on my longer runs as I wasn’t drinking enough, I think because it’s been cold, but no sign of a headache meant my fluids were good.
I met Tim at Mitcham reserve, I had 37kms in the legs and an 1hr 15m to go. I did a quick change into a tee and swapped to my road shoes, as I was taking the suburbs home, topped up my water and headed off. Tim hadn’t been able to get my usual croissant but said he would find me once he got his hands on one! True to his word he popped up 3km later with goodies in hand.
My next mini goal to keep me moving was knowing I would be hitting a marathon distance soon. My watch ticked over to 42.2km as I reached a set of lights, where I didn’t need to congratulate myself as a good friend (Mrs Bock) just happen to be driving past and yelled encouragement from her car. Amazing since I was on a road I have never been on before! But this helped put a spring in my jog for the next couple of kilometres.
When I hit Bray Street at Morphettville (44km), with 25 minutes to go, I called TIm to give him the heads up that I may not reach home in the 6hrs as I was starting to get a bit of hip tightness, so backed off a little. This is what happens when you start to get mentally fatigued, it gets hard to calculate time and distance in your head and all of a sudden I am thinking home is a lot further away then it actually was.
However, I did make it home, in fact I had to run past the house to kill the last minute, no cheating here, and I was done… 48 kilometres in the bank, and as my coach, David, pointed out, an Ultra distance in training :)
Straight into the pool for me to start my recovery.
Today I am happy to report that I am feeling good, and if you had woken me and said it’s Day 2 lets go, I would have been able to wind up and get on with it.
Thanks for reading xx