00:00
you

00:03
Hey everyone, it's Miki here. You're listening to Meninga Micropedia on a Monday. And this one's for Tom Wallace, who tells me that anytime that we do an event, he loves to hear a bit of a debrief is to a bit about the training, a bit about the nutrition and really just how the race went. So Tom, this is for you and any other interested person who just loves hearing about different races and what people do. Super excited to share. So for those of you

00:33
unaware, Hubster and I have just literally just finished the Grand to Grand Ultra, which is set in the Utah and Arizona desert. And it is amazing. It is a seven day, six stage foot race, both supported and self-supported. 275 kilometers starting at the awe inspiring North Rim of the Grand Canyon and finishing at the

01:00
pink cliffs, which is the top layer of the Grand Staircase, one of the world's most iconic geological formations. And the course itself takes us through a landscape of sand dunes, red rock slot canyons, amazing landscape. Lots of it was actually burnt out from the fires that they had this year, but it was still amazing. We were in some of the remotest parts of continental America, which again was incredible.

01:28
sleeping in tents that were set up by the amazing volunteers each night. Most of the competitors, there were around 60 to begin with, were self-support, so they carried all of their gear. But they do have a supported category as well, which is what Hubster and I, along with our friends Lucy and Louise, did at Southern Lakes Ultra earlier this year. And we thought it was such a big ask to come over here to do the race in the desert, in the heat, at altitude.

01:57
in parts that we would do the support section again. So we were so pleased that that was the option. So we've just completed this and I just wanted to share a little bit about the event, the training, the nutrition side of things, just some gear stuff. We are so new to this. Just because you've been running for 30 plus years does not make you an expert in all events, as all runners will know.

02:21
and what it takes to sort of put together a successful sort of training block and also subsequently a successful participation at the race, because so much can go wrong. And we definitely didn't come into it thinking about it like it was a race, because you can't in an event like this, to my mind, unless you are like really professional, or this is your thing that you do, because there are just so many places where things can go wrong because it is just so long. So first up, let me talk about our training just for a little bit.

02:52
All in all, we kicked off our training, I think, in and around June. And we did have some bigger weeks. So we had around six weeks out of our training block where we completed over 100 kilometers. And that is running and hiking. And what I know for myself is that I can do around about that. I can go probably up to 110 kilometers if there is hiking involved and it's low intensity. As soon as I put intensity in,

03:19
I definitely get injured. So with my marathon training, for example, I probably hit maybe 90 kilometers as a high week. And that is my limit. But because this is longer, slower, includes hiking, I can do a little bit more. So we had roughly around that six weeks of over 100 kilometers. And then we had some

03:41
deload weeks as well where we may have done sort of 60 kilometres or 70 kilometres and they just naturally slotted in with a trip to Dunedin, Barry's best mate coming out from the UK and us travelling. So it actually ended up working really well. And then in addition to that, some key points with this was, you the event is 275 kilometres. It's really difficult to do really like super long days.

04:09
sort of all of the time. So we do the back to back days, because essentially that's what this event is. And if you were training for anything like this, you would probably quickly realize that as long as you can get up and do it again, and it being another 25 kilometer day or a longer hike or something like that, then the body gets used to getting up and doing it again, which is what you have to do over the course of the week. The stages themselves were between

04:37
Well, 13 kilometers, which was the shortest stage that was the very end sort of run to the finish line. But 85 kilometers was the longest day and that occurred on stage three. It was 49.8 kilometers the first day, 43 kilometers or 43.4 kilometers the second day. We had our longest day, which was in fact about 87 kilometers. We then had a rest day, which gave a lot of the competitors enough time to...

05:06
that long stage because it wasn't on easy terrain, was 76 % on sand, including dunes. uh And then on stage four, which was day five, was 41.9 kilometres, but we accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up being 44 kilometres. Then day five was 42.2 kilometres, and then day six was that 13 kilometres in. So that was sort of the breakdown of the race.

05:34
But of course you couldn't really go out and run, you know, a marathon every weekend. And nor do you need to, to train effectively for an event like this. Talking to a lot of the competitors as well, very similar, did a lot of back to back days. And I think that really, for us at least, was a key. I also did strength work. I always do strength work, but I specifically did a league day as well this time. Normally I ignore league day, actually. I just focus on upper body. But I think that really helped with my strength on the hills.

06:05
And then we did swimming. I did some more aerobic work, elliptical and exocycle with my exocycle that I have at home. And then in addition to that, we did some sauna work. So Hubster did sauna maybe three times a week. And I probably ended up doing about twice a week on average just with the way that worked out with other things I had going on, which probably wasn't enough, but it was actually fine.

06:32
I do think that Hubster got some good effects from the sauna. He doesn't handle the heat nearly as well as I do. And I actually handled it, like the heat itself, well. So overall training went well. I had one week where the biggest run was 50K and we were intending to do that twice. Did the first one no problem. The second one though, I had to pull the pin at 21K because I had inflammation in uh

07:00
semitendinosis tendon actually behind my knee, which we thought initially was a grade one tear, but it was just inflammation. So I needed a week to settle that down, could not walk when I had to pull the pin on that run. I was feeling a bit gutted, but actually by the next weekend I was hiking and then the following week I was running again, no problem at all. So it just needed a bit of rest and some shockwave therapy, took some anti-flams appropriately, and it was actually fine.

07:30
And even though it's always a bit of a bummer to have to pull pin, particularly on a key session, I actually did think that I'd done enough. Like I didn't think that I had lost anything by not completing that 50K run. So I wasn't overly worried for that. So that was really great. So I'd say that was probably the major things that stuck out with the training. With the kit, because people always ask, you what do you wear on events like this? So we wore the same thing the entire week. We had a rab top.

07:57
which had hood and sleeves. So I was chatting to Absolute Guru and friend Trish Hepworth who suggested getting a hooded top. Because I get quite, I get a lot of chafing in and around my collarbones and it's quite sore. And I realized that I needed something that was high enough. So I didn't get the rubbing from the top plus my pack. So that really helped. And it had long sleeves and has an SPF, I think of 50.

08:26
and uh it really worked well and I was surprised at how not hot I felt wearing a long sleeve during that event. Most people actually wore maybe half and half all sleeves during the event as well. I just wore my just Lululemon Lycra shorts which were really comfortable. I had um fresh underwear each day that I just changed. That worked really well. uh A Merino sports bra from Monde Royale which I just wore the entire week, no problem. And then we also

08:55
the first time needed to wear gaiters because of the sand. We ended up getting Raid Light gaiters and they were lifesavers actually. They did such a great job and in fact lots of the other people had the similar ones to us so I would highly recommend that as well. One other thing I didn't mention about our training actually which I'll add in here, the gaiters reminded me of this, is the event was over 60 % on sand actually. The long day was 76 % on sand.

09:24
stage and then stage four and stage five, the marathons, they were also predominantly sand, which we were a little bit apprehensive about because we did a few sand runs, but weren't quite sure what to expect. And we went out to Bethel's beach a couple of times and did the dunes and they were damn hard. So it was really, and we wore our gaiters and they did a fabulous job of keeping most of the sand out. So, so yeah, I just wanted to add that in. And then of course I had my Solomon

09:54
12 litre race pack, that was really good. And I think that was probably, and just had buffs, really took a couple of pairs of socks, changed them midweek. If that sounds gross to you, I mean, it is pretty gross, but everyone's in the same boat. There aren't any showers out there. There are compost type toilets. We're in the remotest of remote um part of the desert. There's no, we had baby wipes and a buff with a bag of water to get clean most days. It did an okay job for what it was supposed to do.

10:23
And then in the days leading up, mean, because we were traveling from New Zealand, we were quite sleep deprived the entire week, just with a bit of jet lag. It was really hot. We did a couple of, um we did a of a hike run that was about two and a half hours, longer than intended, but that was fine. And then we went out to the sand dunes that we would experience on the long stage, because on the long stage we were doing them in the dark. It was about 1 a.m. in the morning. uh

10:51
So we wanted to actually see what they looked like in the daylight and also to see what those dunes were like compared to Bethel's beach. They're the same. It was just hotter, a lot hotter and a lot bigger actually. So they were just quite a bit bigger. But at least we got that experience before headed into the event. In terms of diet leading up, we had a lot less vegetables than we would otherwise because we went at home, which is something I would recommend anyone do before a big event anyway, just so you're not having a lot of fiber.

11:20
because you don't want that sort of just sitting fermenting in your gut as you're going into the remote desert running for hours on end with no real toilets in sight. um And just more carbs. You guys know that I am a sort low to moderate carb sort of advocate anyway, but you do need more carbs, I think, to top up your muscle glycogen stores, headed into an event where you just cannot keep up with the fuel use for the entire week. It doesn't matter who you are, how much.

11:48
space you've got in your bag. And we were limited anyway by the weight regulations or weight restrictions anyway. it was just, it was a good opportunity to just make our meals, not, we didn't make our meals more carb based. They just were more carb based because of the way that we were eating in the environment we were in. That's really what we sort of, didn't really do too much focus. We had a few, a few more probably snacks in the couple of days leading up. And then

12:15
Our final meals were really taken care of by the race organization because we had a dinner on Friday night here in Canab. And we sort of met a few people, but not really because everyone might know one or two others. And of course, on the day when we traveled by bus about three hours out to the start of the race, we had a packed lunch and then we had a dinner prior to heading into the event. But felt good. And we just made sure we hydrated really well as well.

12:43
And then one tricky thing with the race, well, I found particularly tricky, anything like this is just a lot of organization of things. You have to label every single thing down to your electrolyte sachet. And that's not a strong point of mine. So I was happy to be led by Hubster on that point. And the fact that I actually made it to that point where everything was, we went to registration, we got all our gear, it was weighed and it came in underweight. We had everything labeled. We had all of our mandatory kit.

13:13
A lot of organization goes into this. had to do a lot in New Zealand before coming over to Utah as well, but we got through at least. And then in terms of nutrition for the events, because this is always super interesting and people expect because I'm a nutritionist, I will have this down pat and experience counts so much more than what you read in literature, in any sort of textbook around this. I will 100 % say that.

13:42
Everyone could give you a range, but it's really about how your body handles nutrition, the heat, the altitude, hydration, and then just practicing it really. I mean, that's, it's actually getting to know what your body can handle. And of course there's an element of training to that, but ultimately some of the most important things is, is frequent eating and sipping on the trail, not falling behind, but also not forcing things down.

14:10
because on any given day, you're just not sure how you're going to cope. But of course, we did have a plan with it. Compared to Southern Lakes Ultra, where there were a few lessons learned, at least for me, I think I overate at Southern Lakes Ultra, particularly on the rest day, which made for a really terrible last stage of about 33 kilometers, and I was in the bush every 10 minutes having to do a bush poo, which was not.

14:39
which did not make my stomach happy and subsequently for the few days afterwards I felt really rough. So I did not want to make that mistake again. And I also think that we packed a lot of calories for SLU. We did for this race as well, but uh a lot of them were fat calories and it just doesn't sit as well in my stomach as carbs and protein does actually. So I knew coming into this race that

15:04
I'd be having more carbs and Hubster would be having more carbs in the nutrition, the day by day nutrition. And also actually, I think we ended up having more whilst moving as well. So we ended up having roughly around, we did sort of some calculation, around 30 to 40 grams of carbs an hour, which clearly is still at the low end of what the recommendations are. Worked brilliantly though, absolutely worked brilliantly. And we just kept up a regular fueling schedule.

15:33
I had less for breakfast on each of the days as well. And I'll just sort of talk about the calories that we had and the foods that we had on the days in a minute. But I think that really just also helped with having the stomach feel good as you're headed into that day, because they were long days. Like each day was, and I'll go through the days, roughly around six hours, the long day being 16 hours. So you don't want to fill up so much that you feel uncomfortable and things aren't moving through.

16:02
Fat is slower to digest. Some people do great on it. Hubster does really well with extra fat calories and I just don't. For our nutrition on each race day, we had around 30 to 40 grams of carbs an hour and we relied predominantly on Hive Energy gels. Shout out to Hive Energy gels. They were great, particularly when it was cooler because they are quite potent. So they tended to do well as uh like when it was slightly cooler.

16:32
particularly on the long stage and also um earlier on in some of the other stages. Big shout out to Precision Hydration though. They were just top notch in terms of the flavor profile of their gels. uh 100 milligrams of caffeine in them which did not go amiss. They were brilliant. They so easy to get down. And also the cubes being mint and lemon, 15 grams of carbs each, just brilliant as well actually. Normally I rely on goo chomps but

17:01
My preference actually now after using pH, precision hydration, is definitely those gels too. Precision hydration also do those 90 gram carb pouches and they were just brilliant to have to sip on regularly, which is what we did. We just frequently took on board carbs and water, had some precision hydration, electrolyte fluid with maybe 15 grams of carbs, had little sachets of them to pop into our bottles at each aid station as well, which were really great.

17:30
Uh, we had a cliff bars. So first time using them during the event and they just went down really well. Also, particularly when it was cooler and you just wanted something in your stomach. had a couple of salami sticks, not many. They were more on sort of, we were getting hungry on the long day when it got cool and it was at night. And then of course we had ketones too. And they would definitely, they were great on, particularly on the long day and then, and then starting off in the latter part of the race.

18:00
on stages four and five as well. Just really helped with focus. We both, particularly Hubster, noticed like a real sort of cognitive boost from using the audacious nutrition keto start sachets. So one of those sachets has about eight grams of ketones in them. They've changed the, or at least I ordered smaller sachets, so it actually worked really well too. And then of course, shout out to Currens who helped, who provided us with their um sort of original

18:29
black currant supplements. They've been so well studied. And if you've ever listened to the podcast and heard my interviews with either Fleur Cushman, who is co-founder of Currants, or Dr. Sam Shepard, who does a lot of the research, they do rigorous clinical trials. And there's really great benefits from a fat oxidation perspective, a recovery perspective, uh which obviously will help with performance, and also particularly GI distress in the heat. So

18:57
We had four currants when we got up in the morning with our breakfast. And then at each four hour interval, we took two additional currants and neither of us had any stomach issues whatsoever in the entire event. And I know of other people who have used them and have said the same thing. So I would 100 % recommend them. They were amazing. And then in terms of actual electrolytes or particularly sodium, which is the most important one, we probably averaged around 500 to 600 milligrams of sodium an hour.

19:28
which was pretty good actually, I thought. We kept our fluids up and it was really great. And then in terms of nutrition, in camp we aimed for around, uh we ended up having about 2000 calories in camp, which was slightly less than SLU, more came from carbohydrate, and we actually ended up having a lot of food come back with us. We didn't eat all of what we packed, which tells, which I think,

19:55
tells us that we overpacked probably because we were supported and we could, whereas in next races that we might do, if we do self-support, then we could confidently reduce that down and actually feel fine too. So we had a RADx breakfast each day. Most of the half the days I just had the RADx breakfast with a coffee, just a coffee pouch. On the longest day, we had, or I had a protein powder added to the RADx breakfast.

20:23
I also bought a delicious homemade cinnamon scroll in Canare before I went and had that um days one, two, and finished off on day three. Had a bigger breakfast, which was great. And then also had an element sachet, a chocolate element sachet. That was breakfast. Then coming in post-run, we immediately had, we finished a ketone sachet if we hadn't already or had a ketone sachet. Ketones are very good for recovery because they help reduce inflammation.

20:53
also had a protein recovery shake and then had a pot of instant noodles, which were so delicious. And in real life, I would never go near them with a barge pole, gotta say, because they're just such crap. They really are. But in an event like this and post race, they were just brilliant. They were so tasty, full of sodium, got in more liquid, full of carbs, and they were perfect. Then we had a dinner, which

21:21
was a mixture of Radix dinners plus other dinners that we got when we came here, like Backpacker's Pantry was one that we had. And then we had a strip waffle with a cup of tea. Maybe had some chocolate, maybe not. But I didn't, so predominantly focused on carbs, didn't overeat and felt really good. And then throughout the week sporadically had a protein bar on the rest day. We got given a can of Coke on the rest day as well. Delicious. Put that down.

21:50
really great liquid calories just to help restock after that humongous day. And then a morro bar, a tiny little morro bar as well here and there. So I feel like we're just much more knowledgeable now about food, food-wise stuff than what we were going into Southern Lakes Ultra. And then the days themselves, so day one was, and I'll just do this briefly, day one was 49.8 Ks. It was really tough.

22:18
It was 91 degrees Fahrenheit, which I believe is about 31 to 33 degrees Celsius. uh I had like an energy drop at 26 K and then at 36 K, just clearly was running because we were running well because it was very runnable, but I just was probably in the heat. It was just too much. And I had what I could only describe felt like exercise-induced asthma, but it wasn't. I was just running too hard. So we slowed down a bit. And I don't think that Hubster had

22:47
any real energy drops during that stage. So many cacti, I got a prickly pear cacti in my foot and I had to actually take, in my toe, had to take it out, take off my shoe because I couldn't run with it. It was on the top of my foot. That happened. But we got through, six hours, 15. And I knew then after doing that 50K that it would be fine on stage three, which was the long day. It was hot again on day two. It was just...

23:15
a lot of um running on hard packed sand and also on up and down this lovely trail, which was a little bit technically difficult. even though it was shorter, 43.9k, we had a similar time at 6.15. The last sort of 18k of that was on a hard packed sand road. We ended up jeffing. So we ran 900 meters and then walked 100 meters, which was actually perfect because in that 100 meter walk,

23:43
heart rates came down and you felt like you could run again, whereas it's quite a long way on quite a long road. Then day three, because we were some of the faster runners, we ended up starting at 10 a.m. in the heat, which wasn't great, it is what it is. we were slightly, like a lot of us were like, oh, it's a bit of a, it's a pain, but you couldn't do anything about it. So you just dealt with it. It was fine actually.

24:09
And my favorite day was the longest day, like it was in Southern Lakes Ultra, I think. So was 87 kilometers. um We knew 76 % of it was on sand, but you just knew it would be hard. And in fact, sand is way more runnable than I thought. So once I realized that, just thought it was totally fine. And it was just beautiful. The entire course was beautiful. There was a bit of climbing, a lot of running. um The checkpoints and the volunteers were just amazing throughout the whole thing.

24:39
I definitely had a low point. Hubster had a low point before me, just before the sun went down, it was super hot. so we just, we ran the entire thing together. So it was, he just needed to get some food in and just had to cool down. Whereas I had a low point when we were coming into the sand dunes and that was at about 62 kilometres. And as I said earlier, it was about 1 a.m., maybe 12.30 in the morning. And it was really one foot after the other.

25:08
It was so long and it was so hard, but we did also have Sylvia and George from Hungary who were this amazing couple, amazing runners. They were also in and around us in the June, so it was really nice to have other people there. And we started that day at 10 a.m. and ended it at about 2.23 a.m. the next morning. So that took us 16 hours and 23 minutes, which was...

25:32
which was amazing. had no idea how long it would take. We budgeted for about 18 hours, 18 and a half hours. So we were really stoked there. And then we had the rest day, as I said, so that gave all of the competitors an opportunity to complete that entire day. So we had people coming through almost that entire day four, which was amazing to see. And then day five, well, we took a wrong turn right at the start and ended up adding on a couple of extra kilometers. But other than that, the course was great.

26:01
I felt great. We did that in six and a half hours that day. that night though, there was this spectacular thunderstorm with lightning and thunder, which wasn't ideal because we got cold and we had to sort of move to our tents and whatnot, but it was pretty spectacular to watch. So the weather really turned it on. And then day six, which was the second to last day, was 42.2 kilometers.

26:31
We went down this canyon, the Pekebu Canyon, which was just amazing. mean, the whole scenery was just really stunning, ah but it was a hard day. And I think just we were tired after running for the previous four days. So I found that particularly hard. We came in in just under six hours, ah really had to have that done. And then day seven was 13 kilometers. It was just on road. We had a late start at 11 a.m.

27:00
so we could stagger the runners through the finish line and get our finishing medals. And uh also our pizza and our sprite and our photos. There's so much I could say about this event. was just such a wonderful, another wonderful experience. It was so hard. We didn't know that we could do it because of the terrain and because of the heat and the altitude, which was quite different from Southern Lakes Ultra. But we did and we ran the whole thing together.

27:29
uh And it was just so great. And one of the best things about doing an event like this is that seldom as an adult are you stuck in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of people who are all quite like-minded because we're all there to do the same thing, to do this event. So you really make these genuine connections with people, which I think that's one of the transformational parts of doing this. Because I said that the Southern Lakes Ultra was life-changing and it was. And I feel like this was so similar.

27:58
And I think part of it is the people that you're doing it with and the fact that you're doing hard things. um It's just so special. And so, you know, really big shout out to our mates Kim and Ellie, who we did Southern Lakes Ultra with, and Doug, who were volunteering at this event and told us about this event, because we would not have done it had it not been for them. And it was so great to have them here as well. That was just, I think, really special. So that was amazing.

28:26
And again, I've got to say, Currens was amazing um for providing us with those black currants and also Hive Energy Honey. um We got sachets of honey from them. I'm an ambassador as well. I'm an ambassador for both Currens. You can use the code MICAPEDIA to get uh save on your first order. Highly recommend. And you can also use the code MICI10 with Hive Energy Honey. And I will pop that in the show notes as well. So ah we literally have just finished

28:56
came in, done a bit of packing, not me, Hubster. I've been doing this and then we're off to the dinner tonight. But I did want to get this done um prior to, I'm sure I've forgotten so many things, prior to our dinner tonight, just so we can get it up in time for any interested people. So thanks for listening, team. It's the longest time I've been offline forever. uh But I'm back online, so if you have any questions, shoot me a DM.

29:25
DM I'm on Instagram threads and X at Miki Willard in Facebook at Miki Willard in nutrition or head to my website Miki Willard in comm alright guys you have a great day see you later