Go Hard

I took the weekend for some race simulation two weeks out from the GOW100. How do you simulate a 100km trail race? The obvious answer would be to run a whole lot of kilometres over similar trails at around race pace. However, I didn't quite take that approach. I didn't think it was going to give me quite what I needed, and based on my training this year had too big a risk of leaving me flat for the real race. I didn't want to grind my body right down, but I needed to create ways to replicate some aspects to know how my body would respond and train the mind. Acclimation versus acclimatisation. The simulation involved two days worth of work. On the first I day I went with the concept of condensing 12 or so hours into 3 hours 45 minutes. For gear and I wore my race kit, packed the race pack with all the mandatory gear (including the adverse weather kit) and used my race nutrition. I kept the opening pace at the same effort level I planned for race day and turns out my paces ...

After 9 years of blogging I lost some interest in it. As a result I haven't put up a post since the start of July. Doesn't mean I haven't been running. In fact, I've been pretty happy with my running lately. Coming into the final weeks of preparation for the Great Ocean Walk 100km (GOW100) has sparked my interest into putting a few more words back out onto the net. Training over the last couple of months has been reasonable. I've definitely missed a lot more sessions than I planned, but in the mix have been quite a few good runs. I was getting pretty nervous as the clock ticked down to the GOW100. Luckily I had a confidence boost a couple of weeks ago. Taking part in a relay team at the Surfcoast Century 100km was given the 3rd leg, 28km kilometres of hills in the Otways. I ran well and impressed myself with how quickly I was able to move through some of the rougher sections. It had me feeling like I might actually be on track for the GOW100. Only a couple o...