Arrowtown Backyard Ultra
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View on Strava- 110.04km
- Distance
- 15:59:58
- Time
- 1021m
- Elev Gain
10 days removed from my first backyard ultra!
Flew over the ditch to NZ to run in the Arrowtown Backyard Ultra. This would be my first attempt at the format after crewing a mate the year before and was excited to give it a whirl.
Came into it feeling pretty good. I had put together 12 decent weeks of running in the lead up. I certainly hadn't done any crazy kms but came into it feeling good and body was feeling fresh.
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Race went really well. I ran the first 6 laps with Mat and it was great to have someone to chat to and keep the pace responsible. Lap 7-9 the body was feeling good and now on my own I pushed the tempo a little bit to give myself a bit of extra down time between laps. Looking back that probably wasnt my smartest move considering these were probably the hottest laps of the day (a cyclone ice cream helped though!) Once the temperature dropped though so did my heart rate and I got into a bit of a rhythm.
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I felt like I was handling issues well and the body was feeling on top of it. As Mat so eloquently pointed out though the hardest part about a backyard is it is SO easy to quit. By lap 14 I was still coming in with 7-9 minutes to spare but I had definitely lost my "why" to keep running. I was keen to click over the 100k mark (+ 1 yard) and made a deal with myself thats what I would run. The quads definitely started to go in those final two laps and when I came in on lap 16 with 3 minutes to spare after feeling like I had pushed hard the whole lap it felt futile to try push out another one.
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Finished up with 110kms on the watch and a race total of 107kms. Must admit looking back I have no regrets with the race and it was a great way to notch up some decent kms. Will i do another? I think so at some point. I think I would need to really work on my "why" if I wanted to push it out further but I think it would be a great B race training for something else in the year.
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I pulled up really well from the race. The best I have felt after 100km effort by far. In fact I pulled up so well I thought I would be fine jumping in for my 5 a side soccer team 6 days later when numbers were tight. Apparently... Switching to zero drop soccer boots on artificial turf 6 days post 100+km isn't a great idea. Who knew?
A gastroc med, fascia and post tib tendon tear later... looks like no running for me for the next 12 weeks.
Comments
Lame about the tear.
Interested about your backyard experience though - Anything you wouldve done differently looking back?
Very lame - probably 2 main things I think I would change.
Training - focused my training on mostly really flat slow kms. Wasnt the worst prepped Ive come into a race but also wasnt really prepared for the not insignificant amount of elevation on the course and my quads paid for it as the kms racked up. I think putting more intervals in during training wouldve helped me as well to hold a quicker pace as the laps got harder to allow more walking time.
I wore an old pair of trail shoes for the first 3 laps that I thought would be well worn in and have no issues (run in them plenty before and didnt get blisters). Didnt factor in that I hadnt worn them in ages and almost immediately got blisters I had to manage for the rest of the race - At that point I switched to the shoes I had been training in (the plan was lots of switches but went out the window once I had the blisters by lap 3 and had to manage them)
Sucks about the leg! Hope its a speedy recovery and you can get back out there soon.