Leg Breaker.

So I had a very successful DNF at 75 kilometers of the GR10Xtrem ultra trail race in Valencia (3800m up, 3000m down, 93k total). More on that below, but first…

Thank you!

A big hug and thank you to my support crew: my wife, Sonia and son Alex and her parents were out at every aid station to cheer me on. I don’t recall seeing too many other folks out at all of the stations, as they were not easy to get to. Thanks guys! Extra love to Sonia for stepping up before and after the race as I trained and recovered.

Secondly, a big cheer for the organizers. It looks like a logistical challenge given that fact that its 93 kilometers over very challenging terrain. The trail had to be maintained in places (ovegrowth) and marked up in many others. Never mind all of the kind race related support folks who lined the race in remote and not very warm locations when the sun wasn’t out.

Also a big shout out to a bunch of folks who came out on Facebook. On the morning of the race, while the family slept in I was on my own at the race start. So I popped a photo of my race number and posted it to Facebook with the iPhone. Minutes later messages of encouragement were posted. Thanks to all those who chimed in, it made a difference!

End of the race; this is the 15 hour mark and time to shut it down.

And the race

So to the race. I say a very successful DNF as I learned a lot about ultra races and myself, and will be able to put this to use for July’s Al Andalus UT (AAUT).

Early in the race I realized that I should have paid more attention to the fact that this was an ultra trail and not just an ultra marathon. My physio and trainer both told me to hit concentric and eccentric leg work back in October and although I did some, I focused more on the cardio aspect: being able to run for a long time at a decent heart rate. While the latter is important too, the former proved to be my weakness, as this race (one which the Spanish call a “rompe piernas” or leg breaker) needed strong muscles and tendons. Lots of steep uphill singletrack and then steep downhill technical decents with very few portions that lend themselves to aerobic running (or jogging). As I said to my neighbor who texted me the day after the race, this was a leg breaker and I was lacking in legs to break!

By the 61KM aid station my knees where feeling it but I was feeling good. It was 14KM to the next station and getting dark. I had about an hour to run before bringing out the headlamp and luckily the terrain was good for running. So I ran until it got dark and then found that I could still jog on the gravel roads. Once the trail moved back into singletrack it was walking and route finding for the most part.

When I pulled in at the 75K aid station I faced the hardest climb of the day, 7k up and then down a steep sector of singletrack and then an aid station before a further up and down 11k to the finish. It was clear at this point that I was going to be walking the whole way and facing 5 hours; more or less a midnight to 1am finish. I decided that it just wasn’t worth it. I had already run more then I have ever gone in my life and with the AAUT coming up (my A race for the year) it wasn’t worth pushing on in the dark and risking injury. This was a great training event and at 75K I had enough stimulous in the system that anything more wasn’t really needed.

Before getting into the more boring bits below, some quick thoughts on 93k as a distance, two days after the race…

Its not a hard thing to do, if you are cool with walking much of it and running little. I came in with very little training and could have finished if I needed to. That said, for me this type of thing would only be worth it if I could run the runnable portions right through to the finish. So if you are very strong and fit, it would be very fun, in my opinion. If you have trained for and run a marathon, this distance can be done, albeit you have to dose out your efforts.

Some facts from the race/training/post-race:

• I went into the race with a little layer of, umm, “stored energy” on my stomach. Maybe its just me, but this seemed thinner after the race.
• I brought ~4000 calories in gels and drink (mostly gels). I ate about 3000 of that and added some bananas at aid stations along with some rice.
• I switched from sports drink to straight water after the first 30k.
• No blisters or chafing issues.
• I trained very little for the race, logging 41k in January and 138k in December with 35k in November. There was some riding in there and time in the gym (maybe 10 hours on the treadmill).
• Two days post race and tendon pain is gone; still muscle pain though!
• I woke up 36 hours after the race quite hungry, and that after having woken up at 2am and drinking a recovery drink.
• I noticed that if I were to plot mood against the profile for the race, things were often darker just at the top of a long uphill slog. This seems obvious now but during an event it may not be so easy to see as there are many other things on your mind.
• Post race massage (~45 hours later) from my phisio who informed me that my legs were in good condition considering the work I did, bar my hamstrings which were “peor con diferencia”, which means “worse with a difference”.

Things that worked:

• My cardio fitness was quite good. Watching my heart rate (HR) I recovered quickly after the climbs and was able to jog at a moderate HR even at later stages of the race. The day after I didn’t feel overtaxed when climbing stairs or carrying gear around.
• I managed my stomach very well and many times ate despite not wanting to stuff down another gel (thanks Mike!). Here and there I unbuckled my waist belt and did some belly breathing to let my stomach and its friends to their job (thanks Jessica!). This worked well after the main feed station (750ml of water + 250cal gel, bananas, rice). Despite jogging some on this stretch I couldn’t elevate my heart rate above 145 for about 1.5 hours. After that point things returned to normal.
• Compression gear works. Long Skins compression tights for the race and then after the race their recovery tights along with compression socks were amazing.
• The addition later in the race of a compression top made a noticable difference in core stability when my trunk area was pretty tired.
• Sometimes my brain would say “run” and my body would comply, other times it wouldn’t. When it didn’t, I would override that impulse and run anyways, being uber-mindful of technique. This worked well.
• Following from above, changing running styles (techniques) helps to give some muscles a rest. Moving from a (albeit slow) proper running stride to a jog or shuffle gave some bits extra rest and allowed for clearing of lactic acid.
• Deadlifts work wonders for prepping to climb steep terrain. I have been doing sets of 100 deadlifts at about 35 kilos and I am very glad I did. Given what my physio said (above) about my hamstrings, I need to step up this aspect of my training.

Things that didn’t work

• My legs! Well, mostly muscle. I need more muscle in my legs and this showed on the descents. Arriving at a descent with a group of people I would often find myself making way as they flew down and I grimaced my way down. More eccentric single leg work is needed.
• Specific training. I did not train on terrain as steep as this race had. Nor did I work downhills like this race had or spend much time on singletrack. Its very important to scope out the terrain and train on similar terrain to prepare for the race.
• Running with a cold. This was a tough one but I had a pretty bad cough and cold going into the race. The couging fits were not fun at the later stages in the race (core is tired, head felt kinda explodee).

Takeaways/What’s next?

Context here: the next race is a 5 day, 220km stage race in 30-40+C heat in July.

• One week of down time from running and the gym, but some easy spinning on the road bike on the trainer at home to keep things loose and the cardio system from losing gains.
• Since I stopped using sports drink rather soon in the race, I need to start using Eletewater (a no flavour water additive that has important stuff).
• I Need a proper phase of concentric and eccentric leg work.
• I need to do a good recon of the terrain and stages of AAUT.
• Lots of proper rest and eats to drop this cold! To that end I will be tracking what I eat for a few days to try and get a better idea of what I may be doing wrong with nutrition.
• Post race legs feel like a hard gym workout. In training for this race I tried combining light leg workouts with time on the treadmill to simulate tired legs. I now think those leg workouts were too easy; maybe a hard morning workout and then later day run would more closely mimic what I’m going thru. Or try a leg workout, then stairmaster in the gym and then run.
• More mod-hard level work to aerobic threshhold. I spent too much time training <140BPM for this race.
• Given word from my physio about the post-race state of my hamstrings, I need to work them quite a bit more.

And that’s about it. This blog has been rather patchy up to now more or less because, although I find value for me when I write, I wasn’t sure that it needed to be out there on the web. However in the days following this race a few folks indicated that they would like to read about these adventures, so I think I will be setting up some regular posting from here on in. If you happen to be interested, try subscribing in that box on the top right. Then, whenever I write something it will be sent to your email. You can always unsubscribe later! In addition to my friends and the like, I know that I would have found it interesting to have come across more rookie/low training volume ultra experiences like mine on the web. That said, in future posts I will endeavor to keep the language understandable.

Okay, if you made it this far, thanks a lot for reading. I’m off to recover and get moving towards the next adventure!