I have found more and more frequently that many well-documented training theories are hard to implement with adults without triggering an overtraining complex, leading to unnecessary injury niggles, sick- ness, suppressed mood and more. ​

​This piece is for all the individuals out there who can feel like a zebra - like your stripes are telling you apart from the crowd. It is also for all the individuals who feel a pull to shed their old identities and begin again, and to those who aren't quite sure where to start. It is packed with honesty in the knowledge that you will not judge me for the humanness of these experiences.

​Preparation for our athletic dreams requires a harmony of focused recovery combined with enough strain to see gain.  Baby steps. 
 
However, in the face of injury we need to respond quickly. Baby steps don’t suffice. When injury strikes, there is no such thing as ‘meeting in the middle’. We either want to listen to our body or we don’t. We either want to get better or we won’t. We must acknowledge the weaknesses that led to the injury. We must take responsibility for the road back.
 
Whilst it is imperative to hear the wisdom of the gurus around us, at the end of the day we are the ones who knows what is at stake. We are the ones who knows what our body wants to say to us… We set the dream. We take the steps. We reap the rewards.

An interview with Find Your Feet Australia.

In 2013 you broke the women’s record by around 75mins that year and finished 4th overall. Describe the run that you had – was it more mental, physical, strategical or all of the above?
To be honest, this was a hard year for me. In the leadup to the event, and even during it I had this real knowing discomfort in my knee.  A month or so earlier I had been racing in China and tripped, knocking my knee on a rock. I found out weeks after the Overland event that I actually had a hairline fracture in my patellar.  So, I guess I explain this because I don’t think my best races come from physical. The UTA100km in 2017 was a classic example of this. In that circumstance, I was super physically prepared, but not there mentally or emotionally at all. It made it a very, very long day out.  In the 2013 Overland Track event I was just so eager to be at the event and running down the trail which transects my favourite regions of Tasmania. I had been living in Canberra for years and really missed this pristine landscape. It is where I feel most at home. Where I feel my love of mountains and the intimacy of all the natural elements combines with the rhythm of running.  So, toeing that start line I was filled with eagerness, albeit a little apprehension.  I had no strategical plan other than to run by the feel of my body, to monitor it carefully and listening to it, just as I was listening to the landscape and its own rhythms as the day unfolded. As it turned out, I ended up continuing to bump into Matt Cooper who was one of Australia’s top male ultra-runners at the time. He was having a tough day in the office but there was this quiet companionship and admiration at play. I didn’t ever run with him for long, but it was like a yo-yo, his coming and going as he found energy and then lost it again. I found that emotionally keeping an eye out for him and wanting to help him gave me strength too, and I ended up feeling on cloud nine all day.  I certainly didn’t know anywhere near as much as I know now, such as about nutrition, hydration, equipment and strategical racing. I just ran with heart, spirit and tingling toes. I am so stoked still with that result. It was just a wonderful, long day outside.
 
(NB. Hanny finished 4th overall that year in a time of 8hrs13mins. In the last three years, no woman has come within fifty-five minutes of this time.
 
How did you focus your preparations in the last week before the event?
In the week before the event I was conscious of not overloading my body nor mind. I was doing a lot of coaching at the time so that made it quite tricky. I was also living in Canberra where it was really hot. Therefore, I did a little more swimming, early morning gentle jogs, tried to focus on consuming more electrolytes and simple foods, and generally just enjoying the excited nervousness that comes before a race.  Sleep is critical and that should always be your number one priority pre-race. After travel, I like to also lie with my feet up a wall as it takes away a lot of my lethargy and is proven to help reduce cortisol levels.
 
What do you think is the optimal mindset for long distance races?
You need to be able to tune into your emotions, hear what they are saying, and then utilize this knowledge to your advantage.  The importance of this is to be able to stay strong but still be human. I find that when I am too ‘switched off’ to what I am feeling when I am out there, it leads to not enjoying myself. I become robotic and unable to appreciate why I am out there and what I am seeing. On the other hand, when I am too vulnerable and ruled by my emotions I can find it hard to stay strong and lean into the discomforts. So, it is a very fine balance. I personally work a huge amount on understanding ‘self’ and ‘my story’. I want to know what sits below the surface of me and to feel the vulnerability & strength that comes from this knowledge. I then find I am really able to tap into the adventures and missions that really are making my toes tingle… easily able to answer the question, ‘Why am I doing this?’  This is so important. Knowing you are out there for the right reasons will definitely give you the strength to lean into the discomforting moments, which are always prevalent when you are walking towards the edge!  The other thing that is important is to understand what your definition of success is. And be warned, in Tasmania, this cannot be about time or places, or otherwise the raw wildness of the landscape will chew you up and spit you back out again!
 
What is different about racing & ultra-running in Tasmania?
I know we always use the word, but Tassie is definitely wilder. The trails are more remote, with many points of no return.  The tracks are usually rougher too, with more roots, rocks, mud and sometimes, exposure.  Therefore, I think you have to approach running in Tasmania with a slightly different mindset.  You can’t easily say, ‘well, I’ll start and see how it goes’. You have to be far more prepared for that. To know that when you toe the start of a trail you are 100% ready for that. I think this is why I became one of those athletes who never raced half-baked. I always needed to be 100% confident in all my process – from my training leading into the event or mission, to my nutrition, recovery, equipment and psychology. I guess this is where Find Your Feet has grown from – a really willingness to highlight the importance of preparation and preparedness with our community of eager trail enthusiasts.

What final tips or tricks would you have for anyone preparing for this year’s Overland Track Ultra or another upcoming event?
I have come to learn that the half-way mark of an ultra-distance event is definitely not the half-way mark! I find that the game really begins sometime after the 2/3rds point of the event.  Therefore, I like to determine a point that for me heralds this ‘true ½ way mark’. In the Overland Track race, I had the half-way mark as when I reached the northern shores of Lake St Clair which comes at around 62km into the event. Even though I had run the event previously and really enjoyed this section, I knew that most participants mentally & physically struggle in this section. So I knew it was important to pace my race so that my energy tank was still more than ½ full for this remaining 20km of the race.

Are you currently basking in the beautiful aftermath of ultra-running euphoria? On returning to your hotel did your saturate your day of running in the shower then crawl under the white hotel duvet to twitch yourself to wakeful sleep? At dawn, did you utter a groan when your feet hit the carpet and cringe as you lowered yourself onto the breakfast chair? Did you quietly revel in the ‘you-are-mad’ stares from hotel guests?

If so, you will be experiencing Euphoric Ultra Runner Syndrome. Enjoy it whilst it lasts because sadly, this is often replaced with Lost-Your-Mojo Runner Syndrome for which you must orchestrate your own recovery.

Here are my recovery suggestions:

Day 1-3: Euphoric Ultra Runner Syndrome and the DOoMs Days - Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness Days
These are the days of craving Mum’s apple crumble with more ice-cream than apple. During these days you might be lucky enough for someone to take pity and play the violin for you. Revel in the attention. For soon the novelty of mopey runner will wear off and you will be left to make your own cuppa again. 

DO:

• WALK gently in bare feet. This will help to reset your sensory pathways and relax stiff muscles
• WADE in ocean water as much as possible. The movement of the cool water will massage the muscles and the high sodium concentration will help to reduce inflammation. 
• ELEVATE. Lie with your legs vertically up a wall at the end of a day. The optimal duration would be 10-20 minutes of upside-down time. This will help to remove poorly draining fluids from damaged muscle units.
• EAT a horse in small mouthfuls. Small frequent intakes of protein will help to rebuild muscle fibers.
• FUEL on avocado with cashew butter? Pick your poison but small, frequent doses of high-quality fats will help to rebuild the body tissues including cell walls, neurons and our hormones.
• SLEEP like Grandpa. The run will have induced a coma-like state. Don’t fight your inability to focus on emails or the evening news. Instead opt for large and frequent amounts of quality sleep. If you can’t sleep then rest in a darkened room away from outside stimulation.
• REHYDRATE on electrolytes not coffee. Your sodium levels will be dramatically depleted. When you are feeling flat and fuzzy, opt for a bottle of quality electrolyte over an afternoon caffeine hit. I could also fill a bath with the amount of green tea I enjoy during this phase of my recovery. Green tea is a natural antioxidant and has been shown to help reduce inflammation.
• YOUR HOMEWORK. Write down the key lessons of your race with as much honesty as you can muster so that you can dissect this again later. Don’t forget to mention the brain fades, tummy grumbles, clumsy moments and negative thought processes. These can all inform you and a coach/mentor about what did and didn’t work in the race preparation and execution. Now put it away and forget about it. It is now time to ‘chill’.

DONT:

• PLAN your next race. I bet you are having trouble deciding on what to make for dinner let alone which race to devour next. Leave race strategizing for later.
• INVOKE PAIN. Massage, dry needling and other forms of torture should come later. For now, focus on gentle movement, elevating your legs, rest and nutrition.
• TRAIN. Enjoy flying by the seat of your pants. If this was a key race in your calendar, you shouldn’t be focussing on returning to training for a while. The rule I use is every 10km I race at optimal intensity will require one week of recovery.
• GRUMP. Go to bed.

The weather feels colder.  Your sick of the colour of your running shoes.  Work should be for the under 30’s.  Where did all this traffic come from?  You think you will just start training again in Spring or Summer.  

If any of these thought processes have crossed your mind, you are likely suffering from Lost-Your-Mojo Syndrome.  Here are some suggestions for getting it back:

DO:
CLIMB A MOUNTAIN.  Whether it be literal or symbolic, make it your mission to achieve a highpoint.  This might be walking to a peak, learning a new skill or finishing the spare room renovations.  We are addicted to achievement so pick up your camera or a hammer and do something noteworthy.
EMPOWER OTHERS.  I recently took a Gone Running Tour to my favourite part of Tasmania.  Showing them my playground and helping them summit mountain peaks was like taking a holiday - refreshing and up-lifting.
INVEST.  A massage.  A physio appointment.  A tweak from the chiropractor.  Each modality has its place and will only speed up your recovery.  Furthermore, investing in yourself will remind you that bliss doesn’t just come from crossing finish lines.
MOVE.  It shouldn’t be training but it should be simple movements.  Go for a short swim.  Walk barefoot on the beach.  Jog slowly on grass.  Trot a trail or two.  Go wherever and however the heart desires.  
SOCIALISE.  We need to hibernate for our recovery but chances are you feel like remaining in your warm cave all winter until the daffodils come out.  Short social outings involving running shoes, tea pots and laughter will help you regain the balanced lifestyle that probably got put on hold during the previous training phase.
SLEEP.  Sleeping, especially in the hours before midnight, is when our body heals. If I am having trouble with healthy sleep routines, I try relaxation and a small dose of Melatonin at bedtime. Melatonin is produced naturally by our body and plays an important role in maintaining our sleep cycle. You can often purchase it from health stores and natural pharmacies.
EARTH.  My father has a theory that we absorb the busyness of life, much like the generation of static electricity.  His way of teaching me to release this energy was to earth - pitching the tent in nature and sleeping long hours in our sleeping bags.  When I need to unwind you won’t find me at home anymore.

DONT:
STRESS.  Stress causes a boost in the catabolic hormone called Cortisol, our fight or flight generator.  Your body won’t want to heal when you are running away from a tiger.  Therefore, avoid stressful situations when possible and if you find yourself in an unavoidable situation, focus on taming the tiger rather than fighting it.
GO ON A DIET.  Not training and starting to feel frumpy?  I can empathise but now is definitely not the time to pick up the latest Women’s Weekly magazine.  Instead, focus on upping the veggie, healthy fats and protein intakes.  Include plenty of water and some whole-grains.
JOIN THE GYM.  Unless you need a warm winter haven or some social inclusion, avoid ‘gym training’.  Heavy weight training, boxing classes and any other activities that make washing your hair a painful activity should be avoided.  Acute muscle damage will only slow the repairing of the more chronic tissue degradation still lingering from race day.
WATCH TOO MUCH TV.  It is easy to slip into sedentary mode.  Sitting down for long periods will cause a shortening of the repairing muscle fibers, especially those around the hip joint.  If that chosen tv series is too all-absorbing, opt for lying on the floor over curled-up on the couch.

Since the start of 2012 I have been working behind the scenes with a number of our young athletes.  They all bounced into our first meeting with large ambitions, boundless energy but slightly ‘broken’.  Injuries, sickness and fatigue!
 
Here I would like to share a story.  In 2010, during Find Your Feet’s early days I had a lovely young guy, Josh, who approached me for some advice.  Having grown up on King Island and only recently moved to Hobart, Josh was keen to develop his running.  His initial goal was to complete the Flinders Island 30km race that was in about four months time.  However, Josh was broken. 
 
‘I find that I have all this energy at the beginning of the week and go hard on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and sometimes Thursday but then have to have the rest of the week off because I am too tired at the end of the weeks.’
 
 I am sure we can all see the error in Josh’s ways.  Going hard for four days straight and expect to be able to keep this going?  Some slight alterations to Josh’s training has seen him recently become one of Tasmania’s most elite senior runners.
 
At some stage we all fall into the trap of thinking more is better.  More training, more regimented nutrition, more competition, more work, more study, more friends… our personal list of ‘mores’ is almost as long as our list of ‘shoulds’.  Like everything, there is a plausible balance where one has to do more to get more out of oneself.  But past this fuzzy threshold lies a grey world of potential fatigue, injury, sickness and winter-blues.  Not only this, but like Josh, we seem to stop thinking straight, get in a rat-race cycle, and not be able to work out why things start to fall apart.
 
So how can we avoid falling into this trap?  How can we define that perfect balance where optimal enjoyment, health and performance lie?   I believe the answer to this lies in excellent planning and preferably, with the assistance of a great coach.
 
When a new athlete starts with me, it almost always seems to be at a point in their lives when they have dozens of balls in the air or are faced with a tough decision.  What to do at university next year? How to come back from injury? How to balance training when I begin my new job?  Then add in family, friends, training, competition, first time on a national team… it quickly becomes overwhelming.  I call this the Much Syndrome.  Although I know for certain that I am the greatest sucker for ‘doing more’, when I step back and reflect I realize that there is a serious equation at play: when things near the level of too much, we begin to feel we have to do more.  Therefore, my first coaching advice I give is to have a rest.  This means one to three weeks of catching up – sleep, gentle exercise, time at home and work or study.  This remedy is amazing!
 
Following a rest period, the clarity of the mind is amazing.  Suddenly my athletes have a renewed sense of purpose and their energy is infectious.  We may even begin to see huge jumps in their level of performance without any changes to their training.  I attribute this to improved concentration, logical thinking and physical adaptation following their previous training.
 
The second stage of overcoming the Much Syndrome is creating a good plan.  Very few of my athletes seemed to plan ahead.  Not any more!  In order to create a plan we use a spreadsheet that covers every week of the year.  This is how our plan evolves:

1. The first thing to be added to the planner is work or study commitments.  For my athletes, these always take precedence.  Further to this, the brain uses 90% of the body’s energy at rest and so during times of increased concentration requirements, the physical energy expenditure should be decreased.
2. The next consideration is competitions.  All possible events are added to the planner.  Therefore, we can always see when events are coming up, where they are and how much time we have to prepare.
3. We then add in a weekly wave-form training schedule.  The trough between the waves is our rest week - easy, gentle active recovery work.  Then as the wave begins we have an easy week, a moderate week and crest with a hard week.  The difference between the easy and hard weeks is the intensity or volume of the training.  We try to avoid significant changes to both!
4. Next comes a daily wave form in the training schedule.  The trough between the waves is our rest day.  Rest days involve complete or active rest.  Then as the wave begins we have an easy day, a moderate day and a hard day.  An easy day is usually cross-training or light jogging.  A moderate day may be a longer run.  A hard day is usually high intensity training such as intervals or fartlek.​

As I have s​een with Josh and many of my other runners, big improvements can be made by having a bit of rest, planning life’s commitments into your training, and not being afraid to make some changes.  Enlisting the help of a coach who can help you with planning your weeks and reigning you back when you begin to look fatigued will help you stay on track to achieving everything that you are capable of becoming.  Remember, coaching is not just a privilege of the elite.  Having a coach to help you balance life is often even more important for those amazing senior athletes defying age!

​My recent Irun article discussing the importance of recovery in training sparked remarkable interest amongst readers.  I loved reading through all the feedback.  One reader asked a very thought-provoking question: to what extent does the recovery process and necessity of rest change in an older runner?  My correspondent was a remarkable 65-year-old athlete who recently ran the Boston marathon.  Following the event, he pulled up stiff and sore, especially in his hamstring muscles.  He explained that even with plenty of therapeutic treatment and stretching, it had still taken him ten weeks to recover.  For me, his story raises two questions, does age alter the degree of damage that occurs to the body during intensive exercise and is the recovery rate significantly delayed?

The 2005 World Masters Games attracted over 21,000 competitors, highlighting the flourishing interest in maintaining a high level of physical performance throughout the lifespan (Fell & Williams, 2008).  Bringing this closer to home, you only have to look around at a fun run to realize that most of the athletes participating are ‘older’.  For this article, I will rely on the work of Pimentel et al. (2003) who suggests that ‘older’ refers to greater than 50-years-old, an age at which he noted rapid decline in physical athletic capacities. 

Ageing is accompanied by significant declines in physical functioning capacity.  Although regular exercise helps to protect against age-related illnesses, our older runners will notice a decrease in performance and, like my correspondent, often a delay in their recovery following higher intensity efforts.  So, why does performance decrease with age and what causes the delay in recovery in older athletes?

Unfortunately a number of physical changes occur as we age that will affect our performance.  These include (but are not limited to) changes to skeletal and heart muscle, and glycogen uptake and re-synthesis (Du et al. 2005).

Skeletal muscle is the muscle that generates movement and power as we run and an older runner will undergo greater exercise induced skeletal muscle damage.  With advancing age, the muscle’s ability to repair and adapt is diminished.  This could be caused by a decrease in muscle capillarization and mitochondrial activity (the power generators in the muscle) (Du et al. 2005); Fell & Williams, 2008).  However, the good news is that training in older age can impart a protective effect on skeletal muscle, thus delaying these effects. 

This leads us to a discussion about running training in older athletes.  The main purpose of training is to unbalance the homeostasis of an individual’s functional systems, and the natural consequence of this is some degree of fatigue (Fell & Williams 2008; Smith & Norris 2002).  If the body is allowed to recover with effective rest and nutrition, this should lead to adaptations that will prepare the individual for future physical demands and preferably, increased performance.  However, does this process of insult and enhancement differ with age?   

Below is a diagram taken from a paper by Fell & Williams, 2008, who adapted the model from Smith & Norris, 2002.  In the diagram they propose that following an equal training stimulus, older athletes will experience greater damage and fatigue which delays the recovery response.  That is, an older runner is likely to feel more sore, more tired and take longer to recover.
 (Fell & Williams, 2008)

Below is another diagram presented by Fell & Williams.  Figure 2 proposes that if a younger athlete and a veteran athlete move through the exact same training cycle involving regular training stimulus’ followed by a period of recovery, the younger athlete will enhance their performance whilst the older athlete will begin to show a decrease in performance.   As we discussed earlier, the veteran athlete requires a longer recovery period than the younger athlete, and this should be accounted for in the training program.  Of concern is that continued training without adequate rest actually results in progressive overreaching.

Here I will refer to my dear old coach Max Cherry who passed away in 2008.  Max always used to say that for every 10km we race, we must allow one week to recover.  This meant that following a marathon, I would allow myself four weeks to return to full strength before I began hard training again.  I was just 20-years-old at the time.  This theory has never failed me and is thoroughly supported in the scientific literature (Smith & Norris 2002). If we take into account the two diagrams above, an older runner might be looking for at least five to six weeks gentle recovery before jumping back into a higher intensity program.

A discussion on recovery would not be complete without mentioning nutrition.  The literature shows that older adults should consume adequate carbohydrates during endurance training (6-8g/kg/day) and may benefit from the provision of carbohydrate and protein in the early recovery phase following endurance exercise to maximize glycogen re-synthesis in the muscles.  There is no suggestion in the literature that fluid intake needs to differ with increasing age (Tarnopolsky 2008).
​
This has been a long article that has raised many valid points for consideration when conceptualizing training programs for veteran runners.  The most important concept that I have ascertained from my research is that runners greater than 50-years should allow for an increased quantity of recovery following high-intensity efforts due to the increased muscle damage.  Nutrition should focus on protein to assist in the muscle repair process and carbohydrates to increase glycogen re-synthesis.  Finally, if in doubt, err on the side of safety and have an extra rest or recovery day - any training that you are doing is imparting a protective effect on your muscle and heart, and warding off age-related problems.
 
References:
Du, N, Bai, S, Oguri, K, Kato, Y, Matsumoto, I, Kawase, H & Matsuoka, T 2005, 'Heart rate recovery after exercise and neural regulation of heart rate variability in 30-40 year old female marathon runners', Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, vol. 4, pp. 9-17.
 
Fell, J & Williams, AD 2008, 'The effect of aging on skeletal muscle recovery from exercise: possible implications for the aging athlete', Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 97-115.
 
Pimentel, AE, Gentile, CL, Tanaka, H, Seals, DR & Gates, PE 2003, 'Greater rate of decline in maximal aerobic capacity with age in endurance-trained than in sedentary men', Journal of Applied Physiology, vol. 94, no. 6, pp. 2406-13.
 
Smith, D & Norris, S 2002, 'Training load and monitoring an athlete’s tolerance for endurance training', Enhancing recovery, preventing underperformance in athletes. Champaign (IL): Human Kinetics, pp. 81-101.
 
Tarnopolsky, MA 2008, 'Nutritional consideration in the aging athlete', Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, vol. 18, no. 6, p. 531.