Transalpine - "lessons learned" (Hannah)

As promised, here are our "lessons learned" from the Transalpine Run. Sorry it’s taken a little longer than expected – we've decided to stop delaying our move out of London so have been busy getting our flat ready to go on the market.  Fingers and toes are now crossed that it all goes smoothly!  We are definitely looking forward to being closer to the hills.

To make it as useful as possible to others, I think this entry is best presented as a list. But if there's something you'd like me to go into in more detail in a future post then just shout.

 

What we did well – training

In general we felt we did pretty much what we could given the constraints of time / cash / annual leave etc.  And that really helped us psychologically going into the race as we both agreed we’d “done our best”.

In terms of running training...

Training at Box Hill on steps and steep hills was invaluable – endless reps up and down these weren’t the most exciting training but throughout the race we agreed that we’d have really struggled without this.  It was so relevant to the sorts of uphills we encountered.

We ran most of our long runs together and also raced a couple of ultras together.  This meant we knew each other’s pace, moods, strengths, weaknesses.  Knowing how to read each other and how to work effectively together really helped us to work well as a team.  It was also fun to be able to spend so much time together during our training – that’s not been the case previously when we’ve been training at different paces / for different events.

In terms of gym training...

Calf raises / strengthening meant we didn't have Achilles problems in race where many did due to the v long steep uphills.

And general gym training and conditioning was definitely key.  I’d spent loads of time focusing on my core and I really felt that paid off.

In terms of kit...

We’d run many many miles in our race day kit and so we had both found a top / shorts / socks / bag / shoes / etc combo that we knew worked.

In terms of nutrition...

We’d both refined our feeding and drinking strategy over the year and so went into the Transalpine knowing we had a strategy that worked.  So we didn’t have to spend the first few days of the race working this out.  This was a real advantage of having done some practice races as that’s definitely where I highlighted some mistakes in my fuelling strategy.

What we did well – race

In terms of psychology...

We had committed to so many people at home that we were doing this.  Lots of people had sponsored us and were following us on Facebook and Twitter throughout the event.  This would have made it incredibly difficult to pull out and was really motivating.

It never occurred to either of us we wouldn't complete the event – we only realised this afterwards.  But I am certain that the fact that doubt never entered our minds and we had always talked about getting to the finish was self-affirming.

In terms of our race strategy...

We followed the principle of one foot in front of the other / keep moving forward.  We kept telling ourselves that we just had to keep “doing what we do”.  Ironman training was really helpful here – we both know our sustainable pace and this meant we were able to find that at the beginning of the day / a hill and just keep going.  Not stopping (especially on the uphills) was important – we were able to make good time by just cracking on.

We kept telling ourselves it was all about the process.  We had a process we followed each day and then we tweaked it where necessary.  This extended to the feed stations – we had a process we followed and we spent as little time there as possible.

Brett’s watch was really useful as it showed us altitude on the climbs and timing on km markers.  This helped us with calculating our progress.

In terms of team work...

We felt we worked really well as a team.  We had talked at length about our objectives beforehand so we knew these were aligned, we constantly evaluated what was going on throughout the race especially in the evenings, we stayed together the whole race (lots of teams split up), we readjusted our plan together when my knee problems started, we shared duties at feed stations to make sure stopped for as little time as possible (e.g. Brett re-filled my water bottles if I needed to go to the loo) and Brett even carried my bag for me when I was struggling on one hill.

We communicated with each other constantly – while we were on the course and then in the evenings, reviewing how things had gone during the day and making any changes to our plan for the following day.

In terms of nutrition...

We had a nutrition strategy that worked as we had tested it in training – whilst we used the feed stations we’d also brought a lot of food out with us so we weren’t reliant on these.

Neither of us had any stomach problems and I managed the whole race without having an energy gel – the two are probably related!  We ate “proper” food throughout the event and had lots of fruit and veg including at feed stations.

In terms of recovery...

I was a bit shocked when I jotted down the following list.  Suffice to say we did a huge amount every day to make sure we were as recovered as possible when we got to the start pen the following morning:

• Eat a lot as soon as we’d finished the stage
• Have an “ice bath” where possible by jumping into a fountain
• Walk to our hotel to keep things moving
• Get compression gear (leggings and calf guards) on as soon as we’d showered
• Have a glass of Cherry Active
• And then a glass of Super Greens
• And then a glass of Spirulina
• Put ice on knees and other sore bits
• Walk back to the pasta party
• Maybe have a massage while there
• Eat as much as possible
• Leave the pasta party as soon as we’ve finished eating – don’t hang around and get tired
• Walk back to the hotel
• Stretch
• Do some mobilisation exercises (hip circles, ankle rotations and the like)
• Self massage using the ITB roller and tennis ball
• Have arnica pillules about 4 times per day
• Take multivitamins
• Drink lots and lots of isotonic in the evenings
• Take salt tablets
• Take mag phos tablets
• If we were staying somewhere with a microwave – put a wheat bag (aka huggy) in the microwave and strap this to quads / glutes / other tight bits
• And finally – get to bed as early as possible (usually around 8.30)

In terms of preparation...

We came out to Austria a week before the race so we were rested and acclimatised.

In terms of kit...

I was really pleased I took two pairs of shoes with me – I swapped after day 3 into my Inov8 Roclites which were perfect for the high mountain terrain. 

  

And some things that have only become apparent a month after finishing...

Protecting my knee and slowing down on days 6 and 7 (rather than taking pain killers and pushing on) means it’s healed remarkably quickly. I was able to start running again within 2 weeks.

I learnt from my previous experience of multi-day cycling events and was quite stubborn about not entering any more races until after I’d finished the Transalpine.  I’m really pleased I did this as it means I’m under no pressure now.  At the moment I'm just enjoying short easy stuff without any structure.  My body still gets tired after 40 mins or so and there's still a twinge in my knee when I stretch.  So it’s good I'm not putting myself under any pressure to get out and train. 

What we'd do differently

More gym work – especially focusing on leg strength and plyometrics.  We should have started doing this during the winter (November ish) so that we had built up a good base level of strength by the time we started doing longer runs / step reps out in the hills.  This would be my absolute biggest thing I would change – and is definitely something I will do next year regardless of what my target race is.  We’ve both done lots of endurance racing over the years so the base fitness is there – it’s the strength (and then speed work) which will make the difference now.

Linked in with this, we’ve agreed that in future we will do much more focused training sessions.  Other than my midweek hills reps / fartlek sessions we tended to just run and try to get in lots of back-to-back base mileage.  Don’t get me wrong – this was definitely a huge benefit and we both started the race in much better physical condition than we’d been in 12 months previously.  But in future we would have more structure to our weekend training sessions.  For example, “this weekend we're focusing on downhill technique by doing reps on hill x” or “this weekend we’re going to do back-to-back long runs”.

Downhill technique on technical descents was a massive limiter for us – and for either of us to improve over long hilly races we have to improve on this. 

As I mentioned, we did well in terms of general endurance and strength on the uphills.  But we’d definitely benefit from more long days in hills.  And coupled with this – from building more walking into our training – fast purposeful walking that is.

The vast majority of people were using walking poles.  We don’t regret not using these but could appreciate that the people who had good technique and could use them effectively really benefitted.  So we could improve by practising with these in training and learning good technique.

Brett cut out dairy, caffeine and refined sugars in April after really struggling with fatigue and sinus problems.  This made a huge difference, especially cutting out milk.  He would have benefitted a lot from cutting this out earlier on as he lost about 2 months of training through being unwell.

He won’t like me for saying this but...  Brett’s shoes really struggled in the mud on the first couple of days and his backup pair were also not suited to mud.  So he ended up buying a new pair of shoes mid-race – not ideal.  We just hadn’t anticipated muddy terrain in the high mountains. 

I used Greeper laces on my trail shoes – they are also not great on muddy trails as they tend to loosen up of their own accord.  So I’d advise leaving them for road racing and using normal laces on the trails.

So in conclusion

I just want to reiterate again that we were really pleased with the training we did and how we worked together during the event.  It was a huge challenge and we are both incredibly pleased to have made it to the finish line.  But there are definitely some tweaks we would make if we were to take on something similar again.  And hopefully what we’ve put in here can help some other people in their training too.