SELF ISOLATION ULTRA EASTER RUN CHALLENGE

Contributed by Stephen Redfern, AURA member

The challenge was to run 90km a day for the four days over Easter long weekend. The course was a 32.5m loop set up around my garage, and in keeping with the rules of the self isolation run, of being within the boundaries of my property.

Some of the stats of the four day run:

• 5m loops (measured).
• Four days of 90km a day for a total of 360km.
• Total laps = 11,500.
• Total run time = 48hrs 12min.
• Total steps taken = 428,000 steps.
• Corners taken = 23,000 corners.
• Change of direction = 115 changes.

Break down for the four days:

• Day 1 – 90.15km, 2850 laps, 11hrs:14mins, 101,600 steps, avg pace 7:28/km.
• Day 2 – 90.09km, 2900 laps, 11hrs:54mins, 104,700 steps, avg pace 7:56/km.
• Day 3 – 90.11km, 2850 laps, 12hrs:33mins, 109,400 steps, avg pace 8:21/km.
• Day 4 – 90.33km, 2900 laps, 12hrs:31min, 112,300 steps, avg pace 8:19/km.

The weekend before I had decided to enter in the Quarantine Virtual Backyard Ultra, which I ran 100mi around a 6.7km loop I had set up through the streets of Engadine, and managed to go for 24hrs before deciding then that was enough.

This run was done from midnight Saturday to midnight Sunday.

After resting for two days on Monday and Tuesday, I decided I wanted to look into running my Self Isolation Ultra over the Easter weekend, which was coming up in two days.

I had already decided I was going to set up a loop course in my three-car length garage so I measured it at 32.5m and ran a small 10km recce run around it with changing direction each counted 100 laps, and the total for the 10km came in at 310 laps.

Some thoughts I had for running my ultra was to maybe carry out either a 50km, 50miles, 100km, 100miles or a 24hr run.

Knowing what I was wanting to run, I decided to put a poll up on Facebook with these options and seeing what other’s thought should be good. This was where I came unstuck, but in a funny way. Some lessons learnt when writing a poll, be careful how you word it and also to un-check the options box that allows others to also add to the poll. So up went my post saying I wanted to complete my self iso ultra ‘over’ the Easter long weekend, and within less than a minute, Jon Lim from the Victorial Ultra Runners group decided to add one more option for me being the 360km (90km a day x 4 days) option.

By the time I refreshed the feed, there were already 20 yes votes for this option, and almost none for mine and when I woke the next day it was up to 39. I guess the running community had spoken and decided my fate for me.
I was now finding myself accepting the challenge to run for four days in my garage doing 90km a day, to make up a total of 360km.

Asking Jon why he had picked 360km, the reply was that he was going to do 100km a day for 400km, but decided to drop it down to 90km, so I could get a little bit of a break in between. I thought that was so kind of him.

This now left me basically 24hrs to set myself up to complete a four day run in my garage. Out go the cars onto the street for parking, time to clear all the boxes off the walls and set up the course, marking out the loop with cones and setting up an aid station within the middle of the loop. It actually didn’t take too long, and was so great to be able to set it up in my own home with all the facilities at my fingertips.

My timing for the run was going to be using a Lap Tracker App on the iPad set up on the back straight so it would only record me crossing it for the four days, and also using my Suunto 9 watch on the indoor treadmill setting which I found to be quite accurate, and as it recorded a little short to the laps taken, by the time the watch reached 90km each day I had run more than the required laps need which were (32.5m laps x 2770 laps = 90.02km).

This was to ensure me that I had definitely reached a minimum of 90km recorded on the watch to verify that I completed each day’s challenge. Set up what I needed for running, I laid out four sets of running clothes, and acquired the nutrition that I was going to have. The best part was I didn’t have to make or set any of the nutrition, as being at home and having the kitchen upstairs was left to my fabulous crew Penny to just get it ready when it was required.

Day 1 ‘The Warm Up;

With a 90km target, I woke up at 3am, which I decided I’d do for the whole four days, to allow for a 4am start.

This was going to be the day I would decide if this was all doable or whether I was over reaching and finish with still a respectable 90km self isolation ultra run around the garage. The day didn’t feel too bad, I found a good rhythm early on at about the 7min/km pace which was about right for the tight course. I was able to maintain this for most of the day and ended up finishing the 90km in a time of 11:14hrs, which was fairly well on target to what I was expecting.

The nutrition was worked out quite early, and we decided to go with a plan very similar to my normal 24hr race plan of nutrition every 20 minutes, which we did as a mix of 150mls of Tailwind and small amounts of real food, which I felt was right being this was going to be going for four days. This also worked in well with my change of directions, which I was doing every 100 laps, which equates to 3.2km and about 22min in time. This allowed for 20min of running and about 2min of walking to take in the nutrition, with this strategy the day felt like it was over quite quickly. 

I had finished at about 3:30pm. It gave me plenty of time to set the garage up for the next day and put everything back on charge, download the day’s run and put up a post on Facebook to show the day was completed.

After a shower, roll of the muscles and some dinner, I was in bed and asleep by 8:30pm, ready to tackle day two. 

1/4 complete.

Day 2 ‘The Enjoyable Day’

Another 90k run day with a 180km target. I woke up feeling really refreshed and not sore at all; it made me think this was going to be a pretty good day.
I started at 4am again, and this day felt the best and I really enjoyed it. Mentally and physically I was feeling good, and had a good day’s running to finish a little longer than the first day at 11:54 hrs, which I guess having now run 180km this was acceptable.

Again I finished just before 4pm, so still plenty of time to set up the garage for day three, recharge everything again, so there was minimal to do in the morning. One thing I did find was after the shower and dinner, I felt a little sore in the legs once they had stopped moving, and thought I was going to be a little stiff in the morning. I took a little longer to fall asleep due to the legs being a little twitchy. But I was over the hump, I was half way.

Day 3 ‘The Physical Challenge Day’

Yet another 90km day to tackle for the target of 270km, now we were starting to get into the business end of the challenge. I woke up again to the alarm at 3am and it was a little harder to get up.

I knew this was probably going to be the toughest day, the third quarter of any race/run is always the hardest. One thing I realised was the legs were still sore in the morning so I knew it was going to be a tough day physically. It was tough all day, running through the 30-50km mark was hard and it felt like it took forever. It was so good to get through the 60km mark knowing I was on the last 30km downhill to the day’s end of 270km. It could not have come quickly enough. Still my overall pace was good and I finished the day in 12:33 hrs, so about 4:30pm.

Now I was sore and feeling all 270km of running on the hard cement, everything was hurting in the feet and legs. Still, I spent time to set up the garage and recharge everything ready for the last day, uploaded the day’s run and posted online to verify my day three completions and total so far.

Headed upstairs, I had a shower and dinner, and tried to go to bed at 8:30pm again. It ended up being after midnight when I finally stopped twitching and fell asleep with exhaustion, knowing I was going to be back up in under three hours.

The finish line was now in sight though.

Day 4 ‘Mental Day, but The Finish Line’

Despite little sleep, I woke up feeling pretty good and the legs seemed to reset again – a bit like on day two. Every kilometre run today was a kilometre closer to the finish line and challenge completion. I managed to start again at 4am, so had a good idea how the day was going to pan out. Now even though the legs felt okay, mentally I was finding it a bit tougher. With this I made my first and only mistake for the whole challenge.

Whilst going to the toilet upstairs at the 25km mark, I did my usual pausing of my recording so as to not record any extra distance whilst away from the loop. I came back down and continued running up to the next milestone of 30km for the day to reach the 300k mark only to discover I forgot to un-pause the watch. I had just run 5km for nothing and now realised I would have to run 95km today so I could have the correct recorded 90km for the challenge verification.

Not what I wanted.

To cheer me up Penny brought down some great encouraging quotes to spur me on, and after making up the lost 5km, and finally passing the 30km for the day, I was back on track and feeling better. The kilometres ticked over somewhat slowly. Passing 60km, I knew the finish line was in sight. I was soon to go live again on Facebook for my last 20km of the day and challenge which I had done each day for others to tune in and watch if they wanted to.

What I never expected was for it to go a bit viral around the world and we ended up at its peak with 400 watches from all corners of the globe tuning in to see me complete this crazy challenge. 12hrs 31mins recorded later, I counted down the last 10 laps and the challenge was completed. That was a 360km run having never left the garage across four days.

Yeah, yippee, woohoo. It felt so great to complete.

When I started the idea six days earlier, I knew it was going to be crazy, and yes I had my doubts as to whether it was doable, but with all the amazing support I had for something that wasn’t even a race was just inspiring and drove me to a result that in the end was never in doubt.

Firstly as always, a massive shout out to my most amazing and supportive wife Penny Redfern who certainly went above and beyond this time to crew for the whole four days and also keep up the encouragement to keep me running. Her job didn’t stop at the end of the day’s running though, making sure I was looked after in the evening too.

Next was a great mate, John Yoon, who had set up a Zoom feed and left it live for the whole four days, so others could check in to support and cheer.

John got up at 4am every morning to log on from Melbourne to see how I was at the start of the day and then checked in throughout the day, and finished with logging in at the end to do a bit of a day’s debrief before checking out for the night.

To Rebekah Markey, who kept me motivated with her fabulous choice of music sent to me, all themed with running around in circles, who would have thought there were so many out there.

Then I can’t forget my great mates from across the ditch, Andrew McDowall and Joe Gallaher, who kept me connected and motivated with messages all weekend from 4am right through to the end of each day, which would often make me forget I was running laps.

My main nutrition was Tailwind; I went through 15 litres of it, taken in 150ml bottles at the 20 minute and 60 minute marks. My mix was Naked Flavour with Lemon, Mandarin and Green Tea.

Outside of this I was taking small amounts of real food with some normal hydration as well – this was a variety of sandwiches, hot cross buns, chips, salted peanuts, bananas, lollies, grapes, noodles, risotto and the odd Easter egg.

Thanks to Rebekah and Gavin from Tailwind Nutrition Australia who are huge supporters of my crazy adventures and as always kept me supplied with all the Tailwind I required for this challenge.

In terms of shoes, I wore the same ones for the whole four days – Hoka One One Bondi 6. I finished up with no blisters or swelling of the feet or ankles. I believe that I would not have been able to achieve this on that hard concrete slab surface without these shoes.

And lastly, thank you to Jon Lim for setting this challenge for me and believing that I was able to complete it, and even though I may have made it look easy, I did have to work for it.

And to Nicole Vaughan for sharing the live feed far and wide, that was so great.

As always, what’s next?