UTA 50 Nutrition & Hydration Template
UTA 100 Nutrition & Hydration Template
Finishing with a smile requires making sure your nutrition and hydration strategy is up to scratch come Ultra Trail Australia. Runners are regularly fit enough to finish but they don’t fuel or hydrate themselves well enough over the event to allow themselves to finish.
In 2018 I was 1km from the finish line. Knowing I was almost at the end and only had the Furber Steps to go, I finished my nutrition had a drink and then discarded the remainder of my water – I won’t be needing that over the next 15 minutes! I’m done baby!
Off I charged. Up the steps. I kept going, there were runners around me except something felt wrong. This wasn’t what I remembered. Maybe the start of the Furber steps is just around the corner. I recall having to go through that little forest section first. As I conditioned, I asked a few runners I was running with, and then suddenly it dawned on me. I’d gone the wrong way! I had taken a wrong turn and was now with other runners heading out of Katoomba not back to it. Suddenly what I though was me pushing for a good time turned into a battle of survival. I was out of nutrition; I was out of hydration and I had approximately 4ks to go. To make matters worse this included a descent back into the valley and then the arduous climb back out. I started making my way back down the ladders against the flow of traffic. I got to the bottom of the valley floor and I was wrecked. I was wet, I was cold and I was walking. I hadn’t anticipated completing a bonus 5k’s. Whereas initially I had the fuel and hydration to allow myself to run, that was no longer the case, walking was my only option.
While it took a wrong turn to drive my nutrition and hydration strategy to breaking point unfortunately this is what happens to far too many runners too early. It happens to them at the 50k mark, the 70k and at every distance in between. This is one of the key reasons the DNF (Did not finish) rate for the 100k event is regularly around 20% – yep 1 in 5 people on the start line won’t make the finish line.
To help you overcome the challenge of planning your hydration and nutrition strategy if you click on the link you will find two templates to download, one UTA 50 Nutrition & Hydration Template and one for the UTA 100 Nutrition & Hydration Template (free – no questions asked) These are the templates that I have created that will come in super useful as you put the final preparations in place for your Ultra Trail Australia races.
These are the same templates that I use myself – but please don’t take a wrong turn – and with the runners that I personally coach.
It allows you to plan out your race so all going well you know what you need to take from each check point or aid station.
Should things not be going to plan it also gives you a starting point to work from.
Enjoy the adventure, embrace the challenge always have fun!
And don’t forget to, finish with a smile.
UTA 50 Nutrition & Hydration Template
UTA 100 Nutrition & Hydration Template
P.S. If you are keen to know more about what we do why not check out our 21 Day Run Challenge.