A few weeks ago I raced Faultline 50km back home in Wellington, New Zealand. That race had a specific intention. Not to empty the tank, but to use it as a solid hit-out early in a bigger training block. It was also a very convenient way to put a full stop on my training in Wellington.
What followed after that has honestly felt like one long blur. A wedding. Flights. Packing and unpacking bags. Altitude camp. Racing. More flights. Straight into another altitude block. And somehow, in the middle of it all, it’s been one foot in front of the other and things have been clicking.
After our wedding, Michelle, Hudson and I headed over to Falls Creek in Australia for a 10-day training block before UTA. The thought process here was to get an initial altitude stimulus at 1,600m, a stepping stone into higher altitude before arriving in Flagstaff (2000m+).
In Falls Creek, we shared a pretty small alpine style apartment with Australian trail runner Mike Dunstan. It made for a fun but slightly chaotic setup. Michelle and I were sleeping in bunk beds with Hudson in the room. Recovery certainly wasn’t perfect. Sleep was far from it. Somehow Mikey reckons he was able to block out Huddy’s terrible night time routines with some magic ear plugs. I’m still skeptical, but at least one of us was apparently resting. I can look back and laugh about it now, but honestly I loved it up there.
The days were simple. Wake up. Coffee. Eat, Train, Eat, Coffee, Train, Sleep (maybe). Then do it all again the next day. There was no overthinking. No obsessing over optimisation. Just consistency and momentum. Now to mention, the trails and conditions were magic.
Having Mike there was awesome too. Not just from a training standpoint, but simply having someone to share the process with. Someone equally motivated, working toward his goal of UTA 100km.
The training itself was really solid. Falls Creek ended up being exactly what I needed as a short but important block heading towards Western States. Big aerobic volume, altitude exposure, and importantly, some very specific stress on the legs. One of the key sessions of the block was a 50km long run over Mount Bogong. By the end of it I’d climbed around 1700m and descended closer to 2700m. Fitness-wise, I handled it well. Muscularly though, it exposed a few things. The following morning my quads were properly sore. The kind of soreness that reminds you Western States isn’t just about being fit aerobically. It’s about resilience. Being able to absorb huge amounts of descending without completely destroying your legs.
That run gave me confidence, but it also highlighted there are still areas I need to sharpen before June. At the time though, I did wonder whether I’d pushed things a little too far so close to UTA. It’s probably worth saying that UTA itself was never a tapered race for me. It wasn’t an A-race in the traditional sense. It was an important stop within a bigger training block, a chance to race hard, but also a chance to keep building durability and momentum towards Western States. So whatever came out of it, I needed to be okay with it in that context. Sometimes this is quite hard as an athlete as whenever you put your name down on a start list, there is an expectation to perform. I think I am getting better at minimising that external pressure and doing what is best for me.
So now I’ll turn to how I felt during the week and a condensed weekly training report:
Monday: 33km total, 1000m of vert - Trying to front-load the week on sore legs
Tuesday: AM: 36min uphills steady (18km total) PM: 3 x 6min, 3 x 2min flat (15km total) - Legs still sore but manageable with warmup
Wednesday: ended up being a big travel day for us heading across to Katoomba. The DOMS from Bogong were just starting to ease off, but I still wasn’t feeling particularly fresh - 12km easy to split up drive
Thursday: 18km toal, 800m of vert
The soreness had mostly gone, but the legs felt sluggish. Whether it was accumulated fatigue, travel, or just the body absorbing the load, things definitely weren’t sharp.
Friday: 11km, 300m of vert
Was the first day things started to turn. The legs felt lighter. A bit more responsive. A bit more poppy.
And by race morning, I felt ready to go. Standing on the start line at UTA, there were still a few lingering doubts in the back of my mind. Not about fitness necessarily, but whether the legs were fully ready to race as hard as I wanted to within a heavy training block. But sometimes racing is like that. Sometimes the mind commits first and the body catches up afterwards.
To come away with the win in the 50km was incredibly satisfying, not just because of the result itself, but because of what it represented within the bigger picture of training towards Western States. It felt like confirmation that the work was moving things in the right direction, even without a taper.
Even cooler was seeing Mike take the win in the 100km as well. After time spent sharing training, fatigue and recovery meals together in Falls Creek, it felt pretty special for both of us to see it pay off on race day.
And then, before things even really had time to settle, we were back on another plane and heading to Flagstaff. That was Sunday, and yea a long long day. The family did well though. We held it together at the least. Mostly due to Michelle carrying the fam through.
Part of me expected the accumulated fatigue to finally catch up once we got here. Between the wedding, travel, altitude, UTA and more travel again, it would’ve made sense. The body has bounced back quickly from UTA, and I’ve been able to roll straight back into some really solid training here in Flagstaff at higher altitude again.
I think this whole stretch has reminded me that preparation doesn’t always need to look perfect to be effective. Sometimes life is messy. Sometimes recovery isn’t ideal. Sometimes you’re living out of bags and sleeping in bunk beds and trying to squeeze training around everything else happening in life. But if the underlying pieces are good. The consistency, purpose, good people around you, momentum. Then things can still come together remarkably well.
I’m pleased to share that this article has been presented to you by Precision Fuel & Hydration. The team that has helped me fuel this massive training block. Stats on UTA intake to come…
Precision is more than just the nutrition, we’re constantly in comms around how to maximise my performance in training & race day, it truly feels like an “athlete-first” approach. If you’re keen to get an understanding of how to weave their products into your training & racing - check out their planner: PF & H Planner
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