An Ambitious 10 Week Challenge.
I nearly dropped my cuppa tea when I was asked if I’d be interested in running EIGHTY FOUR kilometres. That’s two back to back marathons.. It’s the equivalent of running 182 laps of an AFL oval or 263 of a world cup soccer pitch. Within the first 20km, we climb the equivalent of the eiffel tower 5 and half times. No matter what way I look at it, it’s not a small challenge. With such a lofty short term goal it was inevitable that I was going to notice significant changes in my life.
Since signing up for the run, I have a kept a running journal – detailing every run, who I ran with, how I felt and things I did before/after. I’ve written quotes in there that have motivated me or ones of support from friends that I will hold close to me on the day.
A culmination of factors lead me to signing up for The Bali Hope Ultra Marathon, the motivation factors included: providing education to underprivileged children, the physical adaptations, mental challenges/adaptations and meeting incredible new people.
Throughout the rest of the article I’m going to talk predominantly about the physical adaptations and the mental side of things. These are the questions you asked, here are my answers! Thank you for your interest and support. As I write this, I just surpassed $2500 in fundraising – half of my fundraising goal! ** Rewrite, from starting this blog post I’ve gone from $2525 to $3474! My heart buzzes with all the generosity.
QUESTION TIME..
What do you like to eat before, during and after a race? @bronaturley
Before a race I like to keep it pretty simple. The go to lately has been some plain toast with peanut butter, honey and sliced banana. I’ll also have a glass and water and a black coffee too.
During a race, it really depends on the distance. I haven’t ever done a race long enough before this to need food during it. Hence, the nutrition side of this race is going to be very interesting.
Post race, I love a smoothie! Throughout training, it became a tradition to grab a chocolate milk directly after, that always hit the spot 😉 Anything that gives the blood sugar a little spike up again.
What motivates you to be a good person? @kev_89
This is a huge question. For me being a good person is motivated by so much. I don’t even know where to begin, but I’ll start with other people. A perfect example of this is the generosity of the people that have supported me in the lead up to the ultra marathon. I thoroughly believe this world is full of so many wonderful people and personally I have a great network of people around me. My friends are extremely hard working, caring, kind, giving, intelligent and do many extraordinary things every day. I always find myself gravitating towards extraordinary people doing magnificent things, so they motivate me to be the best version of myself in every aspect of life. Furthermore, when you are good to others (or not so good) the effect butterflies, so for me it only make sense to be a positive as possible.
Behind the scenes or in the scenes? A flick from a job I did with Uber Eats. Of course I ordered an acai bowl.
What motivates you to be healthy? @kev_89
I have seen too many times the first hand effects of poor health, both physically and mentally. I often think that we focus so heavily on physical health, however, we should place as much or more value on our mental health too. When you’re healthy, it resonates out of you with everything you do. You have more energy and can do so much more within your day.
The question that sums it up for me; If you can choose between being uncomfortable because you’re overweight and sick, or uncomfortable because you’re sweating at the gym three times a week, why do so many people choose the discomfort that leads to complete physical failure? – Tim Grover
If you feel good, I have no doubt others around you will feel better because of it too.
What motto would you live by? @kev_89
“It’s the one percenters” – For me this is putting in that extra little bit of effort along with always appreciating the smaller things in life. I can apply this to any area of life. I go into detail with this a bit more at the start of my book WHY DON’T YOU? Which will be out in the next two weeks.
The only blue sky day last week, but wasn’t it just delightful.
How did you plan your training? How many miles per day did you start with? @samlarr96
At first I wrote an extremely ambitious 10 week plan by myself. It was assumed nothing would go wrong, and that my body would be near bulletproof. This really wasn’t the case. The basic principle I used was to increase my weekly mileage from 10% a week from where I was at the start of March. If I went through with the initial plan, I would have been running 140km by the end which is a massive spike in training load. At the start, I was running about 10kms (6 miles) a day 5 times a week. By the end, I was running on average around 10 miles a day 5-6 times a week. Do bare in my, that I don’t do the same run each day. Some days may be an easy 30 minutes (4 mile) or days where I nearly do 20 mile. The main goal was to get me to the start line injury free, so to do this we decided to eliminate me running anything too crazy like a 30-35mile run.
Do you ever let your mind think that you won’t make it? What do you do to stop these thoughts!! … Just wondering if your mind ever wanders there? @worldviewss
At one stage, I had a some rather troubling ITB issues. When this happened, I couldn’t even finish my 2km warm up one session. I was at the local oval crouched over nearly in tears. This was with 6 weeks to go and I was like thinking ‘how the hell am I going to get through 84km..’ After spending time with my podiatrist, we talked through how we would manage the issue and what we had to do to move forwards. At this stage, there is nothing in my mind that is telling me I’m not going to make it. I’m sure at stages of the race my mind will be exploring new places.. but I’ll report on that at a later date.
How do you motivate yourself to keep on running that distance? What’s your mindset during the run ? Usually for me it’s your mind that starts to doubt or give in way before your body does.. How do you prevent that? @diandra271
One of the biggest motivators for me is the children I am doing it for. If it was just me setting out for an 84km run, I’m really not sure if I could do it. However, because I am running for someone else, the disadvantaged children of Bali, it makes it all worthwhile. Even on runs of my own, days that have been difficult, I know that for every ‘hard’ or ‘bad’ day, they’ve probably had 10 more. When there is somebody involved, it’s powerful how much more you can push yourself. It’s kind of like, when you go for a run or to the gym with a friend, you will always be there on time and get the whole work out done because you don’t want to let them down.
Where do you get the energy to do this? @tropical_boys_
The challenge excites me!! I always write for people to push themselves or do something bigger than themselves, so this is me sticking to my word (walking the walk). The unknown really fires me up and scares me a little, so preparing myself for these situations fills me with energy.
What’s your background in sport like? I’ve seen that you dabble in tennis every so often, but would love a recount of your involvement in sport.
My love for sport started at a very young age, I remember on my 5th birthday receiving my first tennis racquet. From here I fell in love with the sport and played it for the next 15 years. I would travel around Australia playing and would often train with players from overseas. I think this also inspired my travels early on as I was practicing with guys and girls from Canada, Guam, Malaysia, Europe and India. At age 12-15 I would spend at least 2-3 hours on court every day, and some times 5 hours on a Sunday. Asides from tennis, I also did a lot of swimming and dabbled in surf life saving, but I had to make a choice between the two and commit all my effort to one of them. Throughout school I was squash captain and tennis captain, but also played table tennis and did cross country. Any racquet sport I love. At some stage I would like to play some tennis again on the immaculate clay courts of Europe, that’s on the bucket list for me. Only the last 2-3 years did I get into running, I just loved the community and the friends I made within the sport. I enjoy the culture and how many people are out there to help you improve.
What were you challenged by, your biggest fear in training and what were your greatest motivating factors? @nataliegory
Biggest fear in training was not being overcome my injury. At this stage, things are looking pretty good.
Biggest challenge was also the ITB injury. Some days I couldn’t even straighten my foot, this was concerning.
Greatest motivating factors: my friends and the cause. My friends really rallied around me for this ultra marathon, and they get me through the days where I was struggling. Running for a charity, especially when people have donated to the cause, really pushes me because I feel like I am running for them as well.
What is your diet like? @briidgee
My diet is very healthy! I love my vegetables and fruit. In fact, I eat heaps of fruit. All my friends know that I just smash down bananas left, right and centre. Overall, it is rather balanced. Fortunately, I don’t have any dietary requirements or restrictions. Balance is the key in my opinion! My top foods over the last 6 week block would be smoothie bowls, banana bread, risotto, lentils and pizza!
I eat way too many of these.
Were you always someone who could run distance better than short sprints? If not, how did you find the transition to longer distances?
Coming from a tennis background, I was very quick on court but not in terms of track athletics. The transition has been very slow! Several times I have found myself injured for a prolonged time because I tried to increase the load way too quickly. In my first year of running I stress fractured both tibias. I suppose I learnt the hard way, running requires a lot of patience!
Is the Bali run all in one go or is it split into sections?
It’s all in one go! Kinda crazy to think that I’m going to be running a double marathon, but this is no stage race. All in!
Did you have any injuries along your journey? And if so, how did you work around it and recover?
Yes I had some very menacing ITB pain. This really put me in a bit of a spin at some stages in the lead up. Fortunately, I had an incredible podiatrist Michael Nitschke who was amazing at helping me manage and get through it. I kept running through the pain for two weeks and luckily it resided. Typically, it was about 3 good days to 1 bad day of pain/soreness. With the time parameters there wasn’t any time to available to rest. We need to keep the load on the legs.
In the last week of training, I had a cortisone into the fat pad of my right knee. As it was a very pure form of ITB friction syndrome this was a safe procedure to go ahead with.
What keeps you motivated? @blissreback
Myself. Motivation definitely comes and go, but sticking to goals and seeing improvements is probably my biggest motivator. I know there is certain things I can draw on like music or speeches, but these are just little catalysts. Motivation will always come from within. This year it’s been my biggest goal to continue working on my goals even when motivation dwindles.
What’s the most you’ve run so far mate? @tommie.travels
The furthest run I have done in the lead up was 30km and 91km in a week. As I said above, I didn’t want to go out for a huge run as the chance of injury would sky rocket. If I had longer than 10 weeks, I’m sure I would have done a marathon within training prep.
Well, that’s a wrap. I apologise it was more like 9 days later than 7. Next update I would have run an ultra marathon. I’m posting this from Bali, I tell you what, it’s all happening now.
Big love,
JL.
You invest in what you started, pushing yourself again and again beyond where you’ve already been. – Tim Grover
* A favourite of mine from the book I was reading on the plane.
