When I was doing a lot of endurance racing (running/triathlon), I entered a race called the Woodford to Glenbrook trail race.
It was 25km run along a fire trail in Sydney’s Blue Mountains.
A pretty fast course. I think we were finishing it in under 1:40
I was in a pretty good position for this race, in one year, I was in the top 5 or so. The next year, a 3rd.
Both years though, the course literally destroyed my legs, even though I had trained a fair bit coming into it. Also in both years there was a guy who I couldn’t catch. He was known as “Sleep Train.”
It turns out that like in many trail races, it was the downhill part of the course that inflicted the most damage on the body. The quads and knees literally felt like they would blow up.
I later found out there was a special way to prep for this. Sleep Train knew the whole time.
Sleep Train did 3 important things:
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He knew about the downhills and simulated this most taxing part of the race – the fast downhill finish. He did this by putting a treadmill on a decline, then doing his intervals on the decline slope, fast. This conditioned his quads and knees for the impact.
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He spent a lot of time Sleeping to recover in the lead up
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He spent a lot of time training on the actual course
When most of us head towards an event, we look at the obvious parts – the hill climbs, the deadlines, the distance.
Sometimes, we need to look closer, we need to find out where the downhills are.
The parts that look like they should be easy, but can actually leave us crumpled in a heap.
