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THE COUNTDOWN IS ON!
Hello and welcome back for the 2nd edition of the CAL-FIT blog!
Ok so it’s race week for my last event of the year, the Proença Cross Trail, a 51k 2776D+ Ultra trail. This might be the shortest event of the season but at a no fucking point does that mean I should take it lightly. The last race was in the Alps which is a tough environment to compete in terms of altitude, technicality and elevation, but it’s stunningly beautiful. This on the other hand is in the eastern Portuguese hills in December, a completely different ball game. Chances are it’s going to be grey and wet and a bit all around miserable, a shit fight some might say!
Rite, so how has the preparation been? It’s been pretty good, definitely not perfect but I couldn’t really have done much more in terms of mileage. My biggest weeks were up at 64 miles/103 km and 67 miles/107 km respectively, the total mileage for November was 236 miles/ 379 km with 32000 ft/ 9753 meters elevation, combined with 3-4 strength sessions a week. That was enough for me! Trying to keep my chocolate body (it’s in bits) in one piece during this amount of training is a challenge in itself! Getting enough mobility and stretching is obviously really important, if you neglect this you’re fucked. I can’t stress enough how being off the piss has helped too, feeling fresh on a Saturday morning and not like a massive bag of dicks before embarking on a 20 miler with 1000m d+ helps for sure.
Nutrition has been pretty good, a bit boring though. I keep it clean during the week with lots of rice, watercress, tomatoes, chicken, bread and plenty of olive oil. Saturday after long runs I’ll order a dirty domino’s pizza and smash that, a bit of guilty pleasure but your body craves those calories after such heavy loads, that’s one of the upsides to this type of training! Sundays are my rest days, I’ll make a Sunday lunch of some description. The rest of the day I’l chill the fuck out and probably pound some frozen jaffa cakes, they’re so good if you put them in the freezer beforehand!
That sounds all good, but there are some pretty wank side effects of doing that amount of training that people don’t talk about. Sleep – so you would think after a nice long run up in the hills and plenty of fresh air you would sleep like a baby wouldn’t you? Well how about a big fat nah bra to good quality sleep! Endurance training leads to an increase of cortisol which is a stress hormone, this affects sleep and can hinder the body’s function to produce testosterone which affects other things like sex drive etc. There was a period during my high mileage phase everyone I bumped into would say “you look tired” to which I thought how good… I feel it’s important to give a truthful insight into all aspects of what this type of activity does to the body, so many people like to paint a perfect picture of how good all of this type of stuff is, but it can have some negative effects too. Luckily these are relatively short term and easily combated by some R&R. Don’t be scared to get out and have a crack!
With regards to training phases I’m now very much into the ‘taper phase’ this is the last block of training before the race, some say it’s the most difficult block to get rite. Personally I was looking forward to this, I felt pretty drained after the heavy loads in the previous training block so I had no qualms about reducing the training. The all important question is though by how much to reduce? I’ve gone by the 25% rule roughly over a three week period, so from my highest which was 107 km I first went down to 80 km then 50km to 26 km in race week (not including the race itself). That’s a fair reduction but I would personally rather be slightly undercooked than over. I must admit though I’ve got very itchy feet and would rather like to get this thing done and dusted, after the race there’s only about 11 days until re-hydration day!
Race goals? Well the previous one which was in Verbier Switzerland was to get to Kingey’s pub before it closed which I did, great success!!! This time though the pub isn’t really a factor for me as I’m still off the booze until the 20th of December. I did give myself a concession though. If by some miracle I got on the podium I would 100% have a celebratory drink as you have to celebrate your victories in life no matter how big or small. Otherwise what’s the fucking point. My goal for this race is to get around in one piece with no injuries and enjoy the event, which is always the goal really.
I try to keep this relatively lighthearted and not too scientific as I get that most people couldn’t give a flying fuck about the ultra marathons but that’s what’s happening in my life this week. I’m not here to preach that everyone should start running because a large amount of the population detest it! I would say though, get out and do something, whether that’s playing football, biking, tennis, going to the gym or surfing, the most important thing is to be active to some degree. No matter how big or small, something is always better than nothing!
Have a great week,
Enjoy the festive period!
Beers soon!