The Tour is Coming...
24 days to go…
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| Tour de los Tejas. It's a trip around the state of Texas, primarily covering the areas surrounding Austin, Gonzales, Bastrop and Houston. We are stopping at all things Texas including Texas State Parks, Torchy’s Tacos, Whataburger, Shiner Brewery, The Texas Independence Trail and Buc-ees!! Credit Trail Racing Over Texas. |
My Training:
My legs are achy as I have been building up my mileage
throughout the last quarter of 2020. Currently I am in my last couple weeks of
my peak training and will finish off my “training” with my Running The Rose
108 km effort on Jan-23rd in Tyler, TX (I love this race and am
going for the 3-peat victory). After this race it will give me a full 12 day
taper period where I’ll run very easy and light mileage prior to the start of the
Tour. Working remotely from home I will just casually get my runs in and
stay active by walking with my family during the days. My goal is to have peak
here in the last 6-8 weeks leading into February. I have been a relatively low mileage
ultrarunner (*during training) compared to a lot of our community. So for me trying
to peak with 5 weeks of 90+ miles has been a challenge. This is the first time
I’ve really attempted this type of mileage in training alone and for such a
sustained period, so I am hoping this pays off during the event and feel strong
into the later days of the event.
- All
my running data and training is available for public view on STRAVA.
- Below
in my training logs the last couple weeks for reference:
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| My training log for the lead up weeks to Tour de los Tejas 600 km. Race starts on Feb-05th. |
My Gear:
In terms of the technical side of my readiness for Tour
de los Tejas I am basically done very little yet. But here is a summary
of my technical prep in terms of my gear thus far:
- Pack:
I have just recently been adding in my training runs with my fully loaded
NATHAN Trailmix 12 L race pack to get used to running miles with that all the
time. I have used it exclusively the last 10 or so runs and plan and doing
so for the next couple weeks as well leading up to the event.
- Shoes:
I have not settled on a perfect pair yet for the event: I will need to
purchase a brand new pair (possibly 2 so I have a backup). I will go with
mot likely the Altra Torin 4.5 Plush or perhaps the HOKA ONE ONE Cliffton 7 or HOKA ONE ONE Bondi 7 – I am still trying
to decide and weigh my options.
- Apparel:
no questions here…wearing all my rabbit
gear as this is essentially all I own as I have been in love and using
their gear even before I was affiliated with them. Some of my favorite outer
wear during the cooler Texas weather include the podium jacket, let ’er zip hoodie, and let ‘er zip vest. For the long sleeves I wear the super sleeves
or the ever comfy EZ tee LS editions. I also utilize the BOCO/rabbit
cold weather gear with their performance beanie and run gloves
to keep me at the right temperature in the colder months. I will be using most
if not all of this during the Tour for sure.
- GPS
Watch: I will be using my trusty Garmin fēnix® 6X - Pro Solar Edition. I have owned this for 1 year now (upgraded
from a fēnix® 3HR). The watch is a beast and is perfect for my
ultrarunning needs. I wrote an initial blog review on this when I first got it, but essentially it lasts the
advertised 66 hours and thus I don’t even need to worry about charging
until well into day 3 of the event. Garmin watches can be charged while
using and so I end up with 1 .gpx file for the entire event, even if I
have to charge my watch more then once. Pretty cool feature and functionality
to be able to do this.
- Others:
I’ll be using Drymax socks,
and my trusty Trail Toes for all
my antifriction needs. In terms of eyewear I’ll have a pair of my favorite
goodr with me for sure! For my night
running I have NATHAN headlamps (Halo Fire), some clip on NATHAN strobe lights and a reflective NATHAN bandolier safety vest for on these roads. I will also carry a Anker
battery pack for recharging my watch and/or headlamps. Any of my spare clothes and gadgets will be in my Victory Sportdesign gear bags in our van (which my family will meet up with me with occasionally).
Nutrition:
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| A staple Texas road-trip stop. |
Another strategy I am exploring in stocking a large YETI Tundra 45 cooler in the back of our family van. Tentatively we are thinking that my wife and kids will come and visit me periodically during the event, so if I have all my favorite foods in a mobile aid station in the back of the vehicle it will be a nice bonus, especially in the middle of some of these roads between towns and stores. (I will also carry spare clothing, socks, jackets, and shoes in the van to be a mobile changing station as needed).
Sleep Strategy:
I have done two 200 milers thus far and this is my limited
experience with sleeping during ultra events. During both these 200s I slept around
3 hours total during ~63 hour efforts (that about 4% of the total time for sleep
in a 2.5 day event). I’ve run a lot of 100 milers at this point and am
comfortable with one-day events, but this is reaching into the unknown. I
listen to all the ultrarunning podcasts and read the various research articles,
and well sleep is still a little well known and defined area of the human
potential during ultra endurance events. I think sleep is fairly highly
individual. We will see what pans out, but I’ll aim for maybe 90 minutes each
24-hr period. The goal is to time these best I can for early morning to
coincide with natural circadian rhythms. Secondly, I will incorporate short
10-20 minute dirt naps as needed, hoping to avoid these (but we all know these will
happen). In general my goal is to sleep minimally each day in order to function
and keep moving forward relatively efficiently still. Where and how I sleep is
still t.b.d..
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| Sleep - a crucial part of multi-day ultras. Taken during 2020 Franklins 200, a TROT event. Photo Credit: Trail Racing Over Texas | Let's Wander Photography |
Goals:
I am not going to lay out a specific number here of what I
am aiming for. I have a coupe thoughts of what I might be capable of, but this
being basically twice as far as I have ever run before I really have no idea to
be able to accurately predict a certain time. I have researched some of the
other ultra events such as 6-day events and other journey style runs like Vol
State to see what distances/times have been runs to give me a ball park, but again
I am not going to put a number out there just yet.
Anything else you what to know about my build up and preparation?
Shoot me a message in the comment box below or reach out on STRAVA or Instagram (those are best spots to reach me). Registration is still open till Jan-15th if you want to join us!
Thank you for following along and I look forward to the
challenge ahead. I will write a race/journey recap after the event. Trail Racing
Over Texas (TROT) has secured live tracking for the event so all the runners
will have live tracking throughout the event – for all you bubble watchers out
there! I will post the link to this closer to the event for people to follow
along, also follow TROT webpage and on their social media.
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| Official map of the Tour de los Tejas 600 km (which naturally is slightly more). |
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| Stats as provided by the most up-to-date .gpx file from TROT. |
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