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12/1/2021
FROM BEING TO GROWING WILDER..."Mud spatters up your back. Sweat crusting under the brim of your sunhat. Perspiration dribbling down your spine as that grin… oh that grin… spreads from ear to ear. Out here, roaming this trail, you are performing unapologetically at your wildest and it feels damn amazing!"
12/10/2020
Ultra Marathon Race Tips: The final weekThis blog was prepared for participants heading into the Margaret River Ultra Marathon. This 80km event is hosted in southern Western Australia by Rapid Ascent. It is a joy to be the official coaching provider for this great event!  Hey Everyone.
Wow! Time has flown and I cannot believe that this Margaret River Ultra experience is here already! I just wanted to provide you with some final well-wishes, tips and tricks to ensure you perform wilder on the event day.
13/7/2020
When your event gets postponed “Hey Hanny, I’ve been following one of your training plans quite closely over the last 3 months or so... and had literally just finished my 5hr long run when news broke that my goal event, Run Larapinta, is not going ahead until May 2021. I am devastated and sore and feel so deflated ☹️ I wonder how I will pick myself up and motivate myself to start all over again with the same goal next year? I really want to do this, but I feel so frustrated at coming so close... I don’t know how I can get excited or motivated again when the dream has been crushed!?! 😭”
This message arrived in my inbox this morning and I felt strongly compelled to support all our Run Larapinta aspirants as they navigate the complex world of delayed events and ‘crushed dreams’. Here is my response to her… 13/7/2020
Dealing with Event Cancellations WORDS OF GUIDANCE FOR ATHLETES AFFECTED BY THE SURF COAST CENTURY CANCELLATIONS.
Toes are tingling, we are playing hard and the body is beginning to edge towards pre-race sparkles. Then you check your email… Surf Coast Century is postponed until December 5?! Damn! Bummer! I just want to be here, right now, and say – not to worry! We can catch this curve ball with both hands and use the pause in our training game to be even more fighting fit for Event Day in December. So, here are my suggestions… 17/6/2020
Tasmania remains on top of the worldBy Rob ShawRob Shaw is a famous Tasmanian Sports Journalist, The Examiner Newspaper sports reporter, and author. It was a joy to sit with Rob and chat about my book, deep love of Tasmania and the reason why I wanted to share my story. "Admitting 34 is a bit young to be writing an autobiography, Allston said: "I always envisaged writing a memoir when I was grey and old but I had been burning to get the story out."
4/6/2020
Running on the edgeThis article appeared in The Mercury newspaper in response to the imminent release of my new memoir, Finding My Feet: My Story. I felt very vulnerable and exposed by the article's spotlight on my past challenges with Anorexia. However, since its release I have received overwhelming support & gratitude from my community. Thank you to everyone who has held a safe space for me to share my story, including both the highs and the struggles.  21/5/2020
Finding Our Truth The following email was sent to me by a member of our wilder community. I found resonance in her correspondence because we all lose our mojo at times, buried by life’s shoulds. Today I write to help this individual, and in doing so, I hope to help all of us to find our mojo and live in alignment with our truth.
Q: …After injuries and then life struggles, my current problem is that I should be training for an event in October. I have your Training Planner and know I should have commenced a few weeks ago. But again, I am my own worst enemy and I am finding that I lack motivation. I am probably beyond hope and really, I guess this email is more about me offloading to share my struggles and frustrations. I guess what I was hoping you might be able to tell me is - How to get back on track? How do I get past feeling a little afraid to go out on my own again, even when I know I’m fine and I will love it? How do I find my motivation again to get the work done? How do I push myself to actually follow advice and a plan? Where do I start!? Here is my reply:  Joining Lincoln Quilliam on the Hobart Trail Runners Facebook Page, we informally chatted about writing my new memoir called Finding My Feet: My Story, and wilder adventures. In this conversation, we also discussed my 19-day French Pyrenees Traverse, the South-Coast Track in Tasmania, Federation Peak FKT, and then the Western Arthurs solo trail running mission. I also highlight the journey I have been on since leaving competitive running, and how I have found my feet in my trail running by falling in love with wilder missions. We discuss the importance of harmonising all this with recuperation and calmness, and how I have been dabbling in yoga, meditation and writing to really find myself. This was a joyful conversation that I hope you will enjoy as must as I enjoyed hosting it!
13/5/2020
Be Your Own Champion At the end of 2005 I teetered on one leg, wondering how I was ever going to return to my competitive dreams. An ankle reconstruction threatened my future sporting career. Following this, life threw even more curve balls my way and I felt like I was stuck in a hole. But what kept me alive was a big, hairy, audacious dream. I wanted to be a World Champion! When the day of the Junior World Titles in Lithuania arrived, I knew I would win. This was an ego-aside moment. Rather, there was simply no alternative. I was so prepared, mentally, physically and even spiritually, that the result was inevitable. I had done the work, tested my tools, and mentally rehearsed through all the challenges that might hit me in the race. I had stood on the tops of mountains and said my silent prayers, run through the moments of doubt, and through all of it, I had found utter joy in the journey to be there in that World Championship moment. Yep, I was so damn ready to be a World Champion. I want this sure-fire confidence for you too. I want you to be your own champion! Damn it, I want it for me again too because there is no greater feeling than running along a wilder trail with self-confidence fuelling your engines. 12/2/2020
ARE YOU AN ATHLETE? I recently toed the start line of the 102km Tarawera Ultra Marathon and I am not ashamed to say that my motivation was three pronged – to experience being ‘back in the action’, to see this beautiful New Zealand landscape, but also to prove a point to myself – I am an athlete!
24/1/2020
TODAY THE PADEMELONS HELPED ME RUN An unlikely story of strength and resilience
I am completely fascinated by the strength of our minds so over the last 12-months I have been studying advanced coaching techniques, such as Neurolinguistics Programming (how to reprogram our internal dialogue), hypnotic skills and visualization. This study has brought a huge year of growth and change, a welcome addition to my peak performance coaching. Sometimes you just need to shut the textbook and make up the rules for a moment. Sometimes it’s when you make up the rules that you realise there aren’t any rules. ...I think that so many of us don’t let go of our ‘shoulds’, and let go of our guilt, and let go of our fears and anxieties and our thoughts that we need to kind of live life by the text book, when sometimes the textbook just has a bloody error in it...
I think that’s probably what I learned on this journey, that traversing these mountains kind of became traversing my own inner mountains and I reached the other side and I realised that I’m still the same Hanny. But I’d also found another side of Hanny... and that was pretty cool. I brought that person home, and I’m really proud of that person, and I love that person in my relationship and I love that person in my team at work. And I love that person when I’m just sitting quietly at home in my house and when I’m just rambling on a podcast with you. I’m not embarrassed to say that, and I don’t believe I have an ego in saying that, it’s just I’m cool with being me. So that’s the Pyrenees... - Hanny Allston (EP#48 The Pyrenees Traverse with Hanny Allston) 18/9/2019 ULTRA RUNNING... WHY?
Megan Holbeck writes for Outdoor Magazine to unravel the appeal of ultra running. It was an honour to be featured in this article... 
This is a transcript from Find Your Feet Podcast Episode #48: Running the French Pyrenees. This podcast was a quiet ramble with myself, reflecting on this huge adventure that unfolded in July 2019. I hope you have the opportunity to listen to this podcast too..
 THIS ADVENTURE NEEDS AN INITIAL EXPLANATION:
Dense cloud, loitering over and around me, hanging grey and heavy. Darkness has just departed through the door to this steep-sided valley, creating space for dawn to enter. I move methodically and powerfully up the mountain slopes where alpine rhododendrons cling to the rocks, bravely holding out against Summer and her brother, Winter. I am alone out here and the silence is so silent that I can hear every deep breath and footstep that I take, and every crease and rustle of my movements as I climb higher and higher. Rounding a bend, I am confronted with the world spilling away from me, a trail marked by steep cliffs on the upper-side and deep cliffs below. The track meanders forwards along the precipice and as I run, stepping up, over and around each small obstacle along its course, I know that there is absolutely nowhere else that I want to be. That I need to be. Most importantly, there is no one else that I must be. I am a runner, an athlete, a woman, a wife, and an adventurous spirit who needs wild time to thrive. In its simplest form, I am Hanny… and finally, unapologetically so  AS PUBLISHED IN TRAIL RUN MAGAZINE AUS/NZ, AUGUST 2019 -GRAB YOUR COPY HERE TODAY!
Former world champion orienteer racer, elite trail runner, young businesswoman of the year, tour guide, podcaster and coach, Hanny Allston is one multi-talented, multi-layered, prolific and powerfully driven individual. So what fuels it all? We discuss her fearsome passion for playing wild in the outdoors. INTERVIEW: Chris Ord A female runner utilising my training planners recently asked me my thoughts about training around the monthly female hormonal cycle. She wanted advice on how to adapt the wave training principles to her menstrual cycle. Here is my reply:  31/7/2019 WHAT TO EAT BEFORE A RACE?Today I received an email from a reader with an important question - 'What do I eat before race?'. She had read in my The Trail Running Guidebook where I recommend to simplify our diet in the last few days before a race, focussing on lower fat, lower protein meals. In the book I suggest - WHITE, FLUFFY, STARCHY. So her question was, 'What are some examples of white, fluffy and starchy foods that I should eat in the days leading up to a race?' Here is my reply:
11/7/2019 TRAIL RUNNING IN WILD ALBANIA The rain batters louder onto the sloping sheets of exposed tin above my head. Light glows faintly through narrow slits in the timber walls of this old cow shed, its exposed earthen floors emitting a musty dampness into the small room. We lie side-by-side like cucumbers under doonas and sleeping bags, cocooned, riding out the stormy night. Just outside the rickety door a cow begins to bellow, calling to her calf. Separated from its mother, the calf is also shut up for the night in nearby barn. The owners want the mother’s milk in the morning to make gloopy piles of cheese. I close my eyes, listening to the storm rage and echo through the valley, a drum beat to the higher pitches of cows, chickens, horses, goats and humans. As my eyes close I find myself expressing my gratitude for this opportunity to be here. Once again, I find amazement for the opportunity to run through this landscape, a place on beginning to hit the tourist map. As far as I am aware, we are the first trail runners to run across this mountainous region. - ‘Thank you for this night and to the trip now drawing to a close.’Then I sleep.
8/5/2019 THE SCIENCE OF STRESS I recently shared a social media post on the topic of stress and its impact on our ability to optimally recover from training loads. Given the flurry of interest, ongoing questions and requests for support I received afterwards, I wanted to provide an excerpt on the topic of stress from my Trail Running Guidebook. I feel that stress and its impact on our hormones is poorly understood, so I hope you find this article helpful.
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