It is just under 10 weeks now till Ultraman Australia, my training has been going close to plan. A couple of tiny setbacks – sore calf and a sore groin, but I was able to manage these, by taking a rest for a week once I knew they weren’t going to just go away. When I say rest, I was still swimming and riding, but I had backed off the running. My current volume of training has been pretty high, and I don’t feel like there is any signs of grumpy Shaz as yet……ALTHOUGH after my long ride on Saturday, 160kms I was just hungry, borderline hangry, I just wanted to eat and have my coffee, I am pretty sure if I didn’t get some sustenance asap, there was a possibility Grumpy Shaz was about to rear her ugly head. I did fuel for my ride, I am currently trialling rice cakes on my long rides, a recipe from Nigel Mitchell ex head of Nutrition at Team Sky and current nutritionist for Education First. The rice cakes are pretty much tasteless but are easy to eat and fairly easy to carry with you, I just need to work out how to wrap them better. They are very easy to make, rice, water, coconut butter, coconut oil, sugar and vanilla essence, throw it all in the rice cooker, once cooked set it in the fridge and then slice up into squares once cooled, providing plenty of carbohydrates for my ride. I normally make date and nut balls for long rides and I plan on trialling some salted roasted potatoes soon also, I think it will be important to mix up the food that I am taking in come UltraMan, especially Day 2, 280kms on the bike, making sure there is a good mix of sweet and savoury options. I also love a good peanut butter sandwich on my ride, of course using my favourite sourdough from Higgins Bakery, I think I will have to take a few loaves up to Noosa with me for the event. I think fuelling on the bike ride will be fairly easy. I am starting to worry about what food I will be able to take in on day 3 for my 84km run. I am currently up to a 20km long run on weekends, so will have to start trialling some nutrition soon. I guess come UltraMan it will just be a case of getting in what I can, I imagine that I will need to have lots of options available, as you just never know what will work come the day, it will be pretty hard to try and simulate now how my body will react to food on day 3 after 2 huge days. Nothing to worry about now, but just need to be aware of this, and my team will also need to be aware as they will most likely have to force me to eat something while running. Food intake in our house is mainly plant based, I have very little processed foods in the house, Jase is 100% plant based, I am vegetarian, I still eat eggs and butter. Of course I try and buy organic where possible, eggs are just such a convenient source of protein, and it is so easy to go out for breakfast and I know I am getting all my nutritional requirements, we find that most cafes don’t provide enough options for plant based eating, sure you can normally just omit the eggs and cheese on most dishes, but they don’t add in a protein source. I will also need to plan the foods I will eat after each day of the event, recovery by the way of physical and nutrition will need to be on point in order to get up to face the next day.
Week 10
Monday I was back running around the Botanical Gardens in Shepparton – the only place where there is any elevation, so laps of the old tip site has been regularly on my plan, followed by a 5km swim in the Shepp Lake, my plan had a 4km swim, but as Fiona still had another 2 lengths to swim, I decided to swim them with her. Tuesday morning Fiona and I rode to Dookie and back in the morning, 3 hour ride complete while catching up on all the news. Wednesday morning a 3.3km swim session in the pool followed by a 12km run that evening. Thursday morning was another run session, just over 8km and I completed an indoor bike session in the evening. Friday was another 5km swim, this time in the pool, no swim drills, just freestyle for the whole session. Saturday morning was my long ride, 160km, not sure exactly why, but this ride took me just over 20 minutes longer than it has for the past few weeks, maybe it was just one of those days. I felt pretty fatigued after my ride, and I still had an indoor bike ride to complete in the afternoon. Don’t exactly know how or why, but after the 30km indoor session, I felt ontop of the world, totally rejuvenated. Just over 190km for the day in the saddle. Sunday was my long run, I went back out to the Botanical Gardens and ran quite a few laps around the circuit, I lost count of how many laps I did, a freaking lot, 20km ran for the day. I am still feeling pretty good after my big week. Fingers crossed it stays that way.
Swim – 13.3 km
Bike – 300 km
Run – 50 km
Strength/Core sessions – 1
Training Hours – 21:15 Hours
Lesson Learned: A bad start to the day can always be turned around.
My Journey To UltraMan 