00:06
Hey everyone, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mini mikkipedia on a Monday. And I gotta say, I am exhausted. It is Sunday, the day before this is released. And we have just completed the Southern Lakes Ultra Stage Run, which was this fabulous seven day event taking place at the bottom of the South Island, run by Karen Bell and her amazing crew of helpers.

00:35
and it was the most challenging and one of the best running experiences that we've ever had. And so I wanted to take some time this morning just to tell you a little bit about, I guess, the journey, our training and what was involved there, and also the nutrition aspect of it, because people are always super interested. What I will say off the bat is that we are not experienced at this stage race running, and we were surrounded by veterans like the age range.

01:05
of the participants was from 19 right through to 72. And there were a bunch of people who were in their late 50s and onwards who have completed several of these stage runs. And so they had everything really dialed in to suit them. And we were sort of going in a little bit green, I would say, not even really knowing whether we could complete the distance and whether our bodies would make it. But also whilst...

01:31
You know, it's quite different when you're just doing a one-day mission and you just need to fuel and worry about that compared to doing back-to-back days of close to a marathon distance at least each day and having to think not only about what you're going to do on your run, but what you were eating beforehand and how you were recovering afterwards. And I think it's fair to say that almost everyone has a different way of doing things. And this is what we know of nutrition, right?

02:01
right way to do that in any realm and particularly so in that ultra realm where we don't really have that science base in those distances to really inform very well. But even if we did, what you see in the science literature almost never translates to the individual in front of you. So it's really a matter of figuring out what's going to work for you. So I went into that event with

02:27
And with our friends Lucy and Louise, we were all part of a team called the Liver Legends because Lucy, Louise and Hubster all work in the liver unit at Auckland Hospital. And each of us had quite a different style of fueling based on what we had practiced. The event itself was, as I said, it was six stages. I think I'll just explain this first. Six stages over seven days. Day one was a marathon and about 800 meters vert.

02:56
Day two was 39 kilometres and about 300 metres vert, so very flat. Day three was 28 kilometres and about 400 metres vert. Again, that was quite short comparatively and also quite flat. Day four was 39 kilometres and about 1900 metres vert. Day five was initially going to be 75 kilometres.

03:20
and 2900 meters vert, but that ended up being extended to 83 kilometers because of a slip. We had to do a course reroute. And then day six was a rest day and day seven, which was yesterday, was 33 kilometers, pretty flat, maybe 300 meters vert, if that, from Aratown to Queenstown. And our training for this involved...

03:45
a lot of back-to-back days and they were relatively short compared to the distance that we were going to be undertaking in the race, in part because it's very easy to overdo it in training and to get yourself in this position where you injure yourself by trying to get fit to do the distance rather than holding back a little bit to make sure you've got something in you to be able to go in the next day and to protect yourself from injury. I think there's a real balance there.

04:15
Previously, Hubster has completed 100k events and his long runs really are nowhere near the distance of his actual event. Usually, I think the longest run for him might have been 50km. And for me, I've never really completed anything over 60km in an event before. And it really does feel like when you're out there training, that once you get beyond sort of five or six hours max.

04:41
the returns really do start diminishing and you actually just start running that risk of injury. So what we really tried to train was our ability to get up and do it again the next day. And so if I was looking through my Strive, looking at this, our training really did start in around sort of probably early November, but definitely sort of into December, we had a number of weeks where we were around 95 to 102 kilometers and we had three big days in there.

05:11
of maybe between those big days would have been between three to five hours. We did a few five-hour days and maybe one six-hour day. I think Hubstead might have done a seven-hour day and I didn't do that. It is trying to get your head around the idea that you don't have to go out for eight or nine hours to really get the benefit of the training. It's a real learning curve, I think, for me particularly.

05:39
doing this because I had many clients who'd already done this event and I knew that some of them were out there for eight or nine or 10 hours on a training day. And that in itself felt very intimidating to me and also quite unenjoyable, if I'm honest. So I didn't want to do that. And then also we were really just relying on the fact that our body would know what to do beyond that. In addition to the running, of course, I would strength train two to three times a week.

06:04
and also add in a couple of swims and maybe a spin just to do some more aerobic work, but that was easy on the body. And ultimately, both of us came through the training really relatively unscathed, actually. I think Hubster had a bit of an Achilles issue, but he managed that fairly well. And he has a small sort of hop.

06:27
bursitis under his foot, which flared up and that was just in some of the final weeks of training. But when he switched his shoes over, it was actually much better. So we were really pleased with that. And probably one thing I would change with training is to definitely do more lower body work because I do not prioritize that because I find it a real struggle to fit the long running in and not waste my legs.

06:51
with the strength training, but I know I can find a balance there and I've actually just got to be a bit more disciplined with it. So I think that really would have helped with the hills. And then from a nutrition perspective, we had to carry all of our stuff in, in one bag. And so we had to rely on mainly dehydrated food, which right now makes me feel a little bit ill thinking about dehydrated food, but there you have it. The meals themselves were actually brilliant. Like we were very fortunate to get a box from Radix.

07:19
and used radix for our breakfasts and dinners. And though I definitely wish that they had their original range, which still had grass-fed beef in it, as all of their range is plant-based, it's very tasty. It is still high protein. It has a good amino acid profile, and it really fit the bill, actually. So the minimum calorie requirement for the race.

07:47
was 2000 calories, and that was including what you were to take on the course. That actually seems a little light to me. But I think if you look across a lot of these races, that is what their minimum requirement actually is. And I wonder whether it's because many of the races you are sort of self-supported, so you have to carry your own kit, and they just want to make sure people are taking enough. So we just viewed that as a bit of a minimum calorie target, and most of our weight was actually in food.

08:17
I did the maths on this and I wrote it in my email this morning that we did approximate maybe 2,500 calories in camp of stuff that we had bought with us. And that was a Radix breakfast and a single serve Radix protein. And that for me was about 540 calories. Hubster had the 800 calorie range. And I don't fare very well on fat before I run. So that's quite a good, that really set really well.

08:46
And then lunch were wraps, and then we had little cans of canned chicken. Not sure why we got that, but we did, and it actually was really quite tasty. And we had a moussashi protein bar. That's what we had for lunch, actually. And that around about 550 calories, and around about 40 grams of protein in that, and about 40 grams of carbohydrate as well. Post our run, we came in, and we immediately had a...

09:12
whey recovery shake, so that's about 25 grams of protein there. And then our snacks involved were beer sticks, baby bell cheeses, and Snick's pork crackling. And so that in total is around about 420 calories and about 46 grams of protein, and all of that is very low carb. And then our dinners were the RADx 600 range, and they're about 50 grams of carbohydrate, 30 grams of protein.

09:39
We had a couple of variation as well on that, but that was generally what we had. Then after dinner, we had either chocolate and all sorts, well, that's what I had, or we shared a Dehyde dessert, which was about 50 grams of carbohydrate there. In total, I think the calories were around 2,500 in camp and 181 grams of protein.

10:06
and also around about this, it's quite similar, maybe 170 grams of carbohydrate, which I didn't mention, there was about 35 grams of carbohydrate in our breakfast as well. It was quite balanced, and most days it was relatively easy to get that down. And of course that varied. So we also, I had across the course of the week, I had three cokes, and I think in total in my adult life, I've had four full-sugared cokes, so most of them were in the last week. And as a nutritionist, I got a bit of a riff.

10:35
for that and also had a subway as well. And that was on day five. So, and that was a sort of treat at the end of our, at the end of that day, which was well, honestly, so needed that on the end of that day, day four, actually. And we also had with us peanut butter, which I didn't open. We thought we'd run out of chocolate. I don't know why, because we actually

11:02
chocolate, we had maybe a half a bar out of three bars that we bought. I had liquid all sorts as I mentioned, so we had maybe a third of a packet of that. And there were also potato chips and stuff that we shared and that we got given on course. So we had enough food and it all came in underweight. And during the event, we generally do not consume a lot when we run. Like if the weather is hot,

11:31
And we're just used to it. And some people, people who are sort of more, I guess, used to running on, I suppose, their fat adapted, they're used to running on their own stores, they'll generally find the same, that they don't actually require a lot of fueling during the run, which is why we made a real effort to have the calories that we had post our run and the recovery fuel. And everyone is different, because some people will take 90 grams of carbon hour and...

12:00
Us, we probably had about 25 grams of carbon hour. The weather was really hot on days one, day two, and day four, and day five actually. And it was only day three and day six where the weather was less, where it was a little bit cooler. And the more food that you take on, I mean, yes, you can absolutely get used to taking on board the food. And if you're going at a lower intensity, if you're walking, or if you were really habituized.

12:28
to having more fuel, then of course you can take it on. But I just don't love, that's not what I do, as you know. So we had some audacious nutrition ketones, Keto Start. We had a sachet of that on each run. And we would sip through maybe half a bottle and then refill that bottle at a checkpoint. And then I had water in my other bottle, which I refilled. And then I just had some salt capsules as well. And then I had goo chomps.

12:58
and I had Hive Performance, which is a honey supplement. It's from a Dunedin company. They are brilliant. It really sort of lifted us. And then on a few occasions, I had some gels as well. But we definitely kept it light, which meant that our stomach wasn't really an issue. All up for me, up until the last day. But I think that was, and I'll explain what I think that was actually, in a minute. So that really worked well.

13:27
took with us. So each day we had sort of packed our nutrition and we'd plan to also have, there was a protein bar in there, there were a couple of electrolyte sachets just in case. But actually because we were consuming them in camp, what I found was that I really just wanted water. That's why I relied on the salt caps at the aid stations. And then we also had a couple of gels in there just in case.

13:51
and we had a beer stick and a little baby bell cheese and a couple of mini moros too for the longer days. So this was what we had sort of with us and found that we really only had sort of small amounts of carbohydrates throughout. Let's sort of trickle it in if you like. And for what it's worth, I do have a podcast coming up with Philip Prinze again, talking about their new study, looking at endurance training, showing that it's the prevention of hypoglycemia or low blood sugar.

14:20
which is what you're after. You're not really trying to sort of restock your glycogen at this point, your muscle glycogen, because you can't really do that during a run. And our energy was fine actually, and we ran really well. Hubster and I ran the event together, and that wasn't going to be what we were, we weren't intending to do that other than the long day, because I was really intimidated by it. But he came into the event with a slight cold. He picked that up on maybe Thursday or Friday.

14:50
So sort of on just before day one started, he was like, you know what, I think, shall we just run this together, which suited me fine because we had trained a lot together. And it's, you know, it's a super easy, uh, companionable sort of pace and we can read each other quite well. So day one was really hard. It was a marathon first up and it was just getting going because it felt like we'd arrived in Queensland on Friday. Then we had all of day of Saturdays, we're getting to camp. So it felt like we just were itching to go.

15:19
And so day one was really quite hard, but it was great. And we got through that marathon. We stayed at Lake Harware at the campground. We stayed there for two nights actually. And the next day we did a 39K sort of loop and ended up at another, I think it was Albert town. And then we were sort of shipped back to the campground. And that was great, that was really hot. And so what we just relied on was we had breakfast and then probably spent the first hour we were just sort of sipping on

15:48
our water, then switched to maybe swipping on some ketones, and then had the goo chomps across the course of those two days and half a high-performance honey. And then day three was a little cooler. And again, we used a similar fueling strategy for day three, which was 28K. And in fact, it rained on day three, like quite significantly. I woke up during the night of day four.

16:13
of day three, beginning day four, with like a, I could feel my throat getting sore and I wondered whether I was picking up on what hubster had. And in fact, I think I did, I did get a slight cold. So I woke up with a headache and a sore throat and we had breakfast and then we had to travel sort of 90 minutes through to Arretown to begin the mountain stages, which I knew were going to be a challenge for me because I'm much better running on the type of terrain that we'd spent the first three days running on. And

16:41
As I sort of anticipated, I just, I felt terrible and I really sort of getting up to the big hill saddle. It was actually okay getting up, but coming down was super slow. It was getting hotter because we started late at about quarter past nine. And then at the first aid station at 9K, like I honestly just wanted to quit. I just felt terrible. I really wanted paracetamol. I could barely move.

17:11
the hill, although there was still quite a bit of elevation to go, that I couldn't run on some of these beautiful rolling mountain trails because I just felt terrible. But thankfully, Hubster was there sort of like getting me through. And you know, and he and we were in it to, we were just in it to do it. So it didn't matter where we were at and what we were doing, albeit we were both doing really well. Like I was first female at that point, supported and he was, I think, second male.

17:38
So we were still doing great, but that wasn't actually what mattered most was just putting one foot in front of the other. And I just found that day, that that was about a six and a half hour day, and it shouldn't have been the hardest, like on paper it wasn't, but it was the hardest day that I had. Like I had a bathroom stop at about 12K, which I did feel better, but I was just like, I really just had to focus on sipping lots of water.

18:06
getting in the chomps and then sort of with the gels, just having sort of smaller amounts of the gels because I can't take a whole gel at once. In an event like this, I can do it easily in a marathon. I just can't in trail runs. And just trying to focus on the fact that we were getting to the finish and trying not to think about how on earth we were going to do the next day. And I just kept reminding myself that I felt this way, but actually everyone feels like this at some point in the day. And this is really normal, but I think I hadn't.

18:35
up until that day, I don't think I'd ever felt this bad in a way that I couldn't then get out of it because during training, you can always turn back. So there was just no way out. And by the time we got to Cronix ski lodge and we had to go three k's up this massive road and we were sort of jogging it and stuff. By the time I got there, I just, I couldn't help myself, just started crying and I cried for like half an hour for no good reason.

19:04
other than the overwhelm of finishing and just feeling so exhausted. And I had a Coke, I had a subway, I just ate the whole thing there. Then we went and we were, thankfully we weren't intense that night. We were in the ski lodge. So in talking to other people around me, everyone was feeling the same. Like no one had any idea of how they were going to do the long day the next day. Then Karen tells us that the long day is 80 kilometres and not 75 because of a course reroute. And

19:34
We were like, oh my goodness. But she said, look, it's actually easier because there's a lot more running. And she was right. We set the alarms for 4.30, everyone got up at the same time, had breakfast. And I just said to Hubster, I'm like, today is gonna be a great day. And because we were starting at six, which was a much more Mickey type time to start, it actually just felt good. And so we got a lot of it done in cool weather and I actually had my best day on day five.

20:02
which ended up being 83 kilometers. I think it was 2,900 meters vert or something. And there were certainly hard bits through it, but my mindset was so different to the day before. Like I'm like, man, this is hard, but we are doing it. And it was, I had the best day. We went up advanced peak and came down and I felt really competent coming down as well. I didn't feel like I didn't know what I was doing. And then we had to go 25 kilometers out on Skipper's Road.

20:31
We ran out of water, sort of maybe five kilometers before the next checkpoint. So it was tough going, but we did it. And then my watch, unfortunately, ran out on the way back down into Aratown, which is where we were headed. And I asked Hubster how long we had to go. And he said, well, we've got seven kilometers and about an hour running. And I just thought, oh, there's no way that I want to spend an hour running. And so we just put our heads down and just ran.

21:01
the whole way back and got in it just under 13 hours. And I was just so wrapped with how we did because we were just so solid throughout. And the whole day was super fun. Like the crew that we saw out there were really great in terms of the volunteers, but also our fellow competitors. We spent some time with Eric, the 72 year old. He's amazing, doesn't own a watch. Lucy was with us on advance peak, which was great.

21:28
Trish as well, who was the overall leader of the event. In the end, she took out the whole event. She's an absolute machine. We caught up with her at the aid stations and there was Ben as well. There was just, it was just a really fun experience. So I was so pleased with how we showed up and so pleased with how we did. And it really did highlight to me again, how our training was absolutely sufficient to do this event.

21:57
despite never doing anything like that in training. So then we had a rest day on day five and that was just spent napping, everyone was exhausted. Some people were out for 18 hours, 20 hours even, it was amazing. And then we ate and we napped. And I actually think I ate too much on that day because I got up the next day and my body

22:26
was still so tired, yet I then needed to run 33 kilometres. And I ended up, I just felt ill from the get-go. Had three toilet stops before we even left camp. And we were running to the finish line. And I knew that we only had 33 k's to run, that was it. But I had two toilet stops within the first 10 k. And then I just felt like I'd emptied everything out and not in a good way.

22:51
And so it was really like was running on fumes and I couldn't consume anything. So I would definitely think differently about what I ate on that rest day, less fat probably, and maybe earlier. I don't know, I have to rethink about that. But we made it and it was just the best finish line experience. Like it was a little event with like 70 of us doing it, but you felt like an absolute rock star. And the crew were amazing.

23:21
and our fellow competitors were awesome. We were in a tent with Ali and Kim Hutt from the UK and also Bob and Christina who were from Seattle and they were seasoned ultra stage races. But also we just met so many awesome people on the week. And if you wonder, I would say, if you are thinking about doing something like this and unsure whether or not you could do it, you'd be like just anyone else.

23:51
because that's how we all felt going in, those of us who hadn't done it before, because none of us four, Louise, Lucy, Hubster and I had done it. So yeah, I would really highly recommend it. And then despite the fact that we were won and done, we definitely wanna do another state race again.

24:13
and it would just be deciding on which one it was. And this definitely makes me think that I can, well, I did 83Ks in a day, which I never thought I could do. So it does make me think about doing some longer stuff. But actually right now I'm just a bit exhausted. So it'll be nice to rest up for a while. And anyway, I hope you enjoyed hearing a little bit about the event. This is the thing that I've been thinking about for a year and I can't believe that it's done now. So we'll put a link to

24:42
Southern Lakes Ultra in the show notes so you can have a look at it for yourself and see whether or not it's something that you would like to do. And there were so many people who had come back to do the event like three or four times actually so I think that's real testament to what an amazing one it is. So if that's not a good barometer for a good stage race, I really wouldn't know what is. So anyway, team, you have the best week. Thanks for listening. You can catch me over on Instagram.

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threads and twitter @mikkiwilliden facebook @mikkiwillidennutrition or head to my website mikkiwilliden.com and we will see you next time.