October 18, 2020

Training diary – Spartan Gold Coast 2020

I have registered for the trifecta weekend but there is no guarantee I will get to go. I do not know if I will be in SA or the ACT at the time. Borders can rapidly close even if they are currently open. I do not have approved leave to attend. I know a lot of other people are in similar situations. In the spirit of optimism I am preparing as though I will race. I will update this post weekly with comments on each week’s training.

7 weeks to go – Monday 12 October 2020 to Sunday 18 October 2020

I raced the 16km Devil’s Nose trail race last Sunday so the first part of this week was recovering from that. The two most important sessions were the OCR running session and long run. Around these sessions I also did two swims, one cycle and plenty of easy running plus strength training. My coach Caine Warburton programs one of the swims to be OCR specific where hard efforts are alternated with burpees outside of the pool to jack the heart rate before doing more efforts. I like these swim sessions because I know that if I can do this when I am super exhausted in the water and feel like I am drowning, the hard running with burpees feels like a piece of cake in comparison (on land you can breathe whenever you want). The other swim session is a more traditional 2-3km swim set. Although swimming works well for me, you need to have a certain competency in swimming before these can be useful as cross training. You will get better results using other forms of cross training if you are not a strong swimmer.

This week was my first OCR specific session since March, as I have mainly been working on aerobic capacity due to my plantar fasciitis injury. The OCR session alternates hard running with obstacles or obstacle alternatives to mimic the high heart rate experienced in OCR and practice running on legs fatigued by obstacles. This session I was meant to run at Beast race pace but definitely did the first 3km run too fast which set me up for quite a bit of pain. In between each run I did combinations of burpees, sandbag thrusters, box jumps, push ups and pull ups to raise the heart rate and make the running immediately afterwards nice and uncomfortable. This was a good reminder of how difficult OCR is because you are doing everything with a high heart rate. However this difficulty is also why I love it so much. Like all training you need to build up to these sessions. In the weeks leading up to this session I did plenty of fartlek running (hard efforts with jogging between on trails) and strides (some people call these ‘pick ups’) within easy runs to prepare my tendons and muscles for the additional load of running hard and I have continued to train strength and grip throughout the year ensuring I don’t injure myself for the obstacle parts of the session.

My long run was 25km of trails which I did on Saturday. I felt pretty average to start. I have recently made some changes to my diet and sometimes that means I have not been eating enough and so I just have to get up earlier to eat more food before long runs. I had gels at 1:10 and 1:50 and felt better after each, so just shows I needed a bit more to begin with plus start eating gels sooner. After starting with the gels I felt really strong and am pretty happy with my aerobic base so likely long runs coming up will be slightly shorter but with more vertical gain or intensity within the run.

Preparing for the trifecta weekend, the long run is probably the most important session of the week. You not only get to develop your capacity to run the distance required before adding a lot of intensity but you also get to practice your fuelling which is fairly crucial particularly in hot climates like Queensland where you burn more fuel just trying to keep yourself cool and your heart rate is higher due to increased body heat. Dehydration significantly effects performance so I am likely to be wearing my hydration vest for the Beast race, as any speed benefit gained from not wearing a vest is outweighed by the drop in performance due to dehydration. Due to covid-19 measures it is also likely that usual water stations (which were scarce normally) will be very different (not offer cups of water). I take my vest on almost all my runs so it is really normal for me. However, if you don’t tend to do that you might want to start increasing the number of runs you wear your hydration vest to at least your long runs.

To mimic the order of races on trifecta weekend, the day after your long run should be another run (10-15km) to get your legs used to running on fatigued legs. So that is what I did today, a backup run at Mt George CP. I made it interesting by choosing some more technical single trail climbs up the Mt George loop and mixed that in with some muddy firetrails for fun. Then I could enjoy myself despite the fatigued legs.

At Cleland CP for 25km long run

OCR session set up. Pull ups on the wooden frame. You do not need fancy equipment to prepare for OCR races.

6 weeks to go – Monday 19 October 2020 to Sunday 25 October 2020

This week was a higher running load week with a running speed session instead of an OCR running session. I tend to get a lot more from running sessions in terms of improvement and fitness than OCR sessions so I tend to leave OCR specific running sessions to close to races. This is similar to how triathletes train for their three sports. Most of the time they train running, swimming and cycling separately to maximise their efficiency in each sport. Occasionally they do brick sessions that combine two or more of these modalities. An OCR session is the equivalent of a triathlon brick session so should generally not form the basis of your running training. This approach works for me anyway, and is an approach a lot of elite obstacle course racers take. Anyway, the end result of this is that I do not do an OCR running session every week.

The key running sessions were the long run and speed session. Long run was reduced from 25km to 21km from last week to allow for some steeper hills to be added in. I did this at Cleland CP up Chambers Gully, with steeper climbs up and out and back into the gully. This loosely replicates likely elevation profile at the Gold Coast Spartan Beast. In the past the festival area has been in a grassy valley with the course alternating between flatter running in the valley and steeper running up and down the valley walls. I love to do mountain style long runs with long gradual climbs for 10-12km followed by a long descent in the second half. This, however, does not replicate the average Spartan Beast where there is ordinarily not any long climbs but instead short to medium length steep uphills and downhills interspersed with flatter running. Although there is no need to be too specific in training at this point, it is good to try and loosely mimic the likely vertical patterns so your legs and heart can get used to ascending after flat running, transitioning from steep ascending to steep descending and then run fast on the flat again after smashing quads on the downhill. The day after the long run I did a backup 12km at Kuipto forest. I am not sure if my plantar fasciitis will let me do the trifecta at Gold Coast as it is very likely I will be in a lot of pain after the Beast, but I am training for the whole trifecta in the event my foot is not agitated by the Beast. Who knows maybe finally I will get some luck this year. I will be physically ready for the full trifecta in the event the starts align and I get to the Gold Coast and can run without severe pain after the Beast.

Speed session was in the middle of the week and I chose to do this on gradual uphill trails at an 8-10% gradient which still allows for very fast foot turnover but with additional benefits of increasing strength and power due to the extra force required on the uphill. The 5x3min efforts were separated by a 2min easy jog continuing uphill. The rest of the running sessions were easy aerobic building kms which I generally did on gentle rolling single trail or in suburbia on urban trails.

This week I also started getting more specific with strength training incorporating more heavy carries and ring work (such as pull ups, dead hangs, hand switches, knees to chest in L hold) in addition to normal strength training.

I also booked flights for the race which is exciting. I still have no certainty over where I will be living come the end of November and whether I will be able to attend due to border restrictions. If plans get cancelled, then it is just another of many cancelled plans this year and a bonus training block preparing for 2021.

Running at Kuipto forest Onkeeta loop

Long run views from Long Ridge Lookout, Cleland CP

5 weeks to go – Monday 26 October 2020 to Sunday 1 November 2020

At this point in preparations most of the aerobic base building has already been done, so now it is all about maintaining that fitness while adding more intensity to that base and building in more race specific sessions. This is the more exhausting part of any program but also the most exciting. My plantar fasciitis is still around and so to cater for that Caine is programming running on a two days on one day off pattern with cross training and strength on the non-running days. Running multiple days in a row is very important when training for any multi-day running event including the Spartan trifecta. Two weeks ago my long run distance peaked at 25km and then last week was 21km with more vertical added in. This week’s long run built on that with a 22km this time with longer and steeper climbs. I started at Bridgewater and ran up Mt Lofty from the East along the Heysen Trail before looping down into Cleland CP and up Carro track for the second long 20% gradient climb. This replicates one of the likely Beast courses in the Numinbah Valley where the running alternates between gentle gradients in the valley and one or two longer and steeper climbs up the valley walls. I was really fatigued from the start of this long run as the night before I had done a 14km speed session with 3 sets of 3,2,1 min efforts. Although this combination of running days was exhausting it nicely replicated the exhaustion felt on the second day of the trifecta weekend.

The most fun session this week was an OCR swim session that incorporated five sets of a 50m freestyle sprint, 50m bear crawl, 100m freestyle sprint, and 50m walking lunges using a 17kg sandbag. After you have done OCR training in the pool, OCR on land seems so much easier. Once you have experienced swimming fast with a high heart rate after an obstacle and not being able to get enough oxygen in, running with a high heart rate after an obstacle is a piece of cake in comparison.

I had a lot of new things going on this week including going back to the office for the first time in six months. Commuting by bike actually adds to the total training load and I ended the week feeling fairly exhausted.

Waite CP trails where I did a 16km run with 3x10min efforts.

Fern lined single trail on the Eastern trail up to Mt Lofty taken during long run 22km 700m vert

4 weeks to go – Monday 2 November to Sunday 8 November 2020

Race week! Woohoo! On Monday I had the first day off training since September to try and shake some fatigue so I can have a real go at the 20km Sturt Gorge race on Sunday. The race is mainly on single trail but on gentle gradients but is a very fast course and should be a very competitive field.

The deload week is working nicely. On Tuesday I did a 14km run on rolling single trails with 4x3min efforts. Despite it being 35 degrees and a sweat fest I felt so fresh. On Wednesday I did an easier trail run with one steep hill then rolling single trail. My legs were also very fresh. It is really nice to start a run and feel awesome straight away rather than waiting for about five kilometres to stop feeling so fatigued and warm up sore tendons. It also makes me realise how great it is to run without so much fatigue, as the fatigue becomes normal and then you forget what fresh feels like. This is all I am going to write for this week, as I will do a race report after Sunday’s race.