Lessons from a 2nd timer at the Fling

[raymondbuchan]

Last year I wrote post Fling some of the lessons I had learned from my first go at the Fling so I thought I would revisit this year.

Completed the Fling in 12 hours 10 minutes improving my time by 47 minutes this time around.

Here are my thoughts:

1) Taper - last two weeks basically no running with 4 small, 20-30 minutes, runs. The legs felt well rested and really felt the benefit in the last section where I took off 30 minutes compared to last year.

2) Food - Hurrah...after two failed attempts on trail Ultra's to get my eating correct this time it worked. A diet of kellogs nutri-grain, turkey sandwiches, protein balls (peanut butter/linseed/honey/raisons) and grapes worked reaaly well and I was able to eat during the whole race. A special mention to the humble grape - what a superfood!

3) Drink - Water + Nunn tablets and two bottles of flat Coke at 34 & 41 miles worked well. Think the water + Nunn helped my stomach stay normal and I was able to eat.

4) Weather - This year the weather was close to perfect and the heat of 2011 a distint memory of pain!

5) Shoes - New Salomon speedcross were comfortable.

6) Pace - With hindsight maybe could of pushed a bit harder in the middle section to reach a sub 12 hour time

Overall I think the massive difference was the ability to eat+drink during the race.

....what were your lessons learned?

[kenprice]

Raymond, Thanks for letting me tag onto your tail for the majority of the middle section it certainly helped me along the way pacing it. The problem with upping the pace may have been what you had left for the final push. Anyway the pain of it allhas passed and I'm trying to find the next one. Cheers

[sundancemckid]

i learned to sip my flat coke not gulp it.

and also to nibble my sugary snacks and not wolf them down.

almost passed out twice due to extreme sugar rush. oh and I just learned to take grapes next time

apart from that it was a fantastic day.

[Tim]

This years lesson (or rather "a reminder" as I forget things as fast as I learn them these days ;D) is the importance of eating regularly and eating early.

If you leave it until Drymen before you eat (when you might well still not be hungry) you're probably left it too late. I have frequently struggled with the Balmaha to Rowardennan section with really low energy levels but this year, by eating early and regularly I had energy to run all the way through with no big dips in energy.

The other things I plan to do next year are to include some coke in my later drop bags (Inversnaid onwards). I was seriously craving coke after Rowardennan and drank up the remains of someone's warm flat coke rescued from a rubbish bag at Inversnaid. Some crisps rescued from the "discard pile" at Beinglas also went down very well. ;D

[yano]

Good write up Raymond and well done on your improved time. This was also my 2nd attempt and I think I learned quite a lot from last year. The main aims were to practice for the WHW race in June, beat last year’s time of 11.20 and hopefully get under 11 hours.

My reflections:-

1) Taper – 3 weeks out from the race I had a nasty fall in Glencoe and bruised my ribs really badly. For 2 weeks it was so painful to move, never mind run. So an enforced extreme taper but the legs certainly felt well rested! Ribs were a bit sore coming off Conic Hill but otherwise ok on the day. Phew!

2) Food – Last year this was a bit of a nightmare. The memory of trying and failing to eat a smoked salmon bagel going up Conic Hill will stay with me always. This year was a definite improvement. After a big breakfast just had 2 gels on the way to Balmaha and then ate solid food at each Check point. Tried to have different foods at each – mashed potatoes, pizza, bagels and chocolate. In the end I only wanted savoury stuff so discarded all the Snickers. Didn’t fancy any of my own stuff at Bein Glas so I dipped into the Community Chest for a banana and a bag of crisps – thanks very much! Next time I’d like some fruit too.

3) Drink – Like Raymond I had Water + Nunn tablets on the move and then bottles of flat Coke at the Check Points. The secret weapon was the extreme caffeine hit from Mountain Dew at Bein Glas!

4) Weather – I struggled with the heat last year, especially from Bein Glas onwards. This time the weather was just about perfect and that definitely helped.

5) Shoes – Stuck with the trusty Inov8 Roclite 315s. I like the lightweight feel and grip. Wouldn’t have fancied the Conic descent in road shoes but I know many people managed fine. Later in the race the lack of cushioning meant I started to feel every rock but by that stage my feet were so brutalized anyway that I didn’t really care.

6) Pace – Last year I felt I should have easily broken 11 hours if I hadn’t walked so much of the last section. So this year I got to Drymen in about the same time (1 minute faster), took it slower over Conic to Balmaha (5 minutes slower) and then kept it steady to Bein Glas (15 mins faster). Cut down on stop time at each Check Point too – last year I sat down at Bein Glas for 15 minutes – a big mistake! So in and out of each Check Point in roughly 5 minutes max and felt much better leaving Bein Glas – managed to run most of last 12 miles albeit slowing up.

7) Kit – broke every rule in the Ultrarunning book by wearing 3 completely new bits of untested kit on race day!

a. Skins compression shorts – thumbs up for these, I think they helped with quad pain and I didn’t cramp up like last year.
b. Knee length compression socks – difficult to say, but I had no calf trouble during or after the race so seemed to do the trick. They were very thin and I wish I had worn a thicker pair of socks on top. No blisters though thanks to the wonders of Sudocreme.

c. Wore a double bottle belt (2 x 300ml) around the waist rather than my Inov8 rucksack and bladder. Having done all my training with the rucksack it was pretty liberating to run without it. I had enough liquid most of the time but in the last section I ran out with 2-3 miles to go – would have been tough on a hotter day. Also ran with just a vest as last year I overheated badly in my long sleeved Helly Hansen top.

8) Highs and Lows. The only real low was the stretch just after Balmaha. I felt like I’d eaten too much and all my energy had been diverted to digestion. Thankfully it only lasted a few miles and some good company and chat pulled me through. The rocks just past Inversnaid were tough as always but I stayed much more positive than last year and just walked when I had to. High was definitely running most of the final section, especially the downhills in the forest where my quads had refused to co-operate last year.

So improvements were made at check points but really most of the time was made up in the final section of the race. Thanks to everyone who ran, supported, organized and marshalled. Met some great people along the way – special thanks to Ewan, Matt, and Davie.

I ran 10 hours 18 minutes this year improving my time by 62 minutes on last year.

Cheers,
Iain

[sundancemckid]

Tim - that coke was mine! glad to be of assistance.

[MartinC]

My lessons: I am a first timer at the fling. In fact a first timer above 18 miles for anything and that was a few years ago now and not something i really prepared for at the time.

I was pleased with the way my race went and had no real issues except with a little of fatigue stopping me running as much of the last section as I wanted to and a sore foot giving me issues in the last 3 miles.

I had no real target but just managed to get under 10 hrs so was pleased with that.

I have however done several 12 hour cycling time trials in the past so I am quite experienced at endurance eating. And have made some bad mistakes in the past!

Here are my is my main tip:

Make sure you can measure how much you are drinking. Drinking from a bag does not allow you to know how much you have drunk until it is empty, so if you go into a feed station and fill your "bladder" with an unknown amount of water you have no way of knowing how much you have actually drunk. I got around this by measuring the amount I put in each time I filled the bag. By doing this I immediately knew that I didn't really drink enough in the first section and tried really hard to compensate.

This strategy saw me finish the day weighing a similar weight to the start of the day which is always a good sign. My recovery (apart from my foot) has been very quick and I managed about 4 hours of cycling yesterday with no signs of residual tiredness.

Tip two: if you use energy gels, don't drop the wrappers...........

Thanks to everyone who helped at the race.

[Old Creaky]

My lesson - don't rely on a 15 year old recollection that the Balmaha to Rowardnnan section is pretty flat!

BTW MartinC, the current thinking is that it is perfectly normal to loose weight (a couple of %) over the course of an endurance event; maintained weight is a possible sign of overhydration and weigh increase is a danger sign.

The standard advise to 'drink ahead of your thirst' came from the sports drink industry and has resulted in the death of several marathon runners in recent years from hyponatraemia ('water poisoning'); most of the research into this has been done in South Africa and I noticed today that there is a book out called 'Waterlogged - The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports' by the professor responsible.

The topic is covered briefly in an article by the Race Doctor of the WHW Race at www.westhighlandwayrace.org/info/medical.htm - IMHO, a very accessible article that should be read by every Ultra Runner.

I just wouldn't want to encourage anyone to force a given quantity of water down per hour in the belief they were doing 'the right thing'!

[MartinC]

Hi Old Creaky. Thanks for the referal to the article. Good reading for all.

Although my ancedotal and professional experience may cause me to disagree with some of it. Particularly your comment re "drink before thirsty" being a drink's industry idea. (I do not work in the drink's industry nor did i use prepared energy drinks during the race)

I have a back ground of working in and training to work in very hot environments. Environments where classical heat stroke is a real and present danger to all. (Deep level hard rock mining in South Africa). We trained and conditioned many individuals to work in environments where contstant hydration is a real matter of life and death and our experience showed us that thirst is not a good indicator of the individual's reaction to hydration.

I think the key word is Individual. As the guidance notes you referred to constant repeat (rightly so), there is real no standard response to most conditions.

I stated that I did not have any weight loss. Perhaps I should have been more accurate. I had no excessive weight loss. Perhaps 2kgs if I net off what I drank immediately after the finish. This is a little more than 2% for me and I consider that to be insignificant. I have experinced up to 6kg in a single day's competition from what was probably a lower body weight at the start than I have now so a higher %. This probably falls well outside the recommeded 4% at which i should be seeking medical advice. Appropriate for many, but I would say not appropriate for me at all. Perhaps my glycongen tanks are large and heavy?

I return to my original point. Using a camel back bladder or other bag type device, unless you measure the amount being put in each time you refil, you really only have your thirst to give you any gyuide at all as to how much you have drunk.

I don't trust my thirst to tell me, especially when there is so much going on around me. I am a competitor who once rode the last 5 hours of a 12 hour time trial without picking up a bottle. On a sunny warm August afternoon I raced about 120 miles on 250mls without noticing. I don't rember feeling thirsty......

Incidently if you want to know something that does really mess up your thirst perception and heat tolerance try alchol. One small beer is enough to change me from being classiefied as "hyper heat tolerant" to "fail" during heat tollerence testing.