As I'm currently in the middle of running 4 Peaks, today's post will be short and on a product I've recently stumbled upon, Trail Brew endurance drink. I haven't written a review before, so here goes! (I'm not endorsed or paid to write this article by Trail Brew, but I did get a bit extra for giving it a try)
I came across Trail Brew thanks to Ultra 168, where the author of the race preview for the Blackall 100 is also the maker of said product, and Dan gave him a bit of a shout-out before the article began which got me thinking. I'm starting to run further and for longer than I ever have before, which probably means that I should start thinking about my nutrition a bit more seriously. I've been using Powerade/Gatorade powder (whatever is on special at the time) but I'm unsure just how good it is for me in terms of the ingredients that are in it and carbs/electrolytes, when I came across the Trail Brew endurance powder. When I read the nutrition label it started ticking all the right boxes, lots of carbs per serve, Sodium, Magnesium, Potassium and Calcium and mainly dextrose rather than sucrose, along with the fact it's run and owned by a genuine Aussie bloke named Troy; not a giant multinational.
I've used it exactly 3 times as of writing this, but considering two of those times are the hardest runs I've ever done in my life (4 Peaks: Feathertop and Hotham), I feel like what holds true now will hold true into the future. And first impressions are astounding, I love it. Gives me an instant energy hit without running out straight away, which I find with the commercial stuff gives me a sugar high and fades away quickly. I also love the flavours, original (which tastes like sugar water), orange and lemon (which is my favourite). At the moment the orange and lemon flavours come in separate individual sachets, which isn't the greatest; but I've been told by Troy he's working towards pre-mixing the flavours into the bags. My hint, definitely try and get your hands on the lemon; superb! The final thing I love about this endurance drink is the price, less than $1 AUD per serve which gives me all the electrolytes I need, and allows me to string out the times between using energy gels. Why do those have to cost so much!
Review Summary
A cheap, Aussie endurance powder that comes with great flavours and has all the nutrients an endurance athlete could need, can't argue with that! http://trailbrew.com/
It’s interesting writing this, as I’m not sure what to talk
about. My previous couple of events/race reports have had stuff gone wrong or
something interesting has happened but not this one, which is probably a good
thing.
Over the previous weekend I’ve done something that I haven’t
ever done before. Be a half marathon pacer for the Melbourne Marathon Festival,
and it was such good fun!
The MCG Saturday Afternoon
My pacing duties began on the Saturday with our pacing
briefing, and I walked into there with no idea what to expect. I’ve never done
a big city event of this distance before, so had never ran with a pacer before.
I had received an email from Tim Crosbie outlining some of my duties, but I
needed more information! So when we met as a group outside MCG gate 2, and then
descended into the bowels of the MCG it was with trepidation of the unknown and
excitement of what was to come. Oh yeah, and when I mean the bowels I mean it.
I had no clue where Ben; our Pace Coordinator, was taking our group as we left
Gate 2 but when we walked down and into a room with netting on the top, I
finally figured out where we were. The AFL warm-up rooms. Walking into a room that
I only ever saw on TV gave me goosebumps, and to realise that it was only open
to elite athletes and pacers made me understand that I was joining something
special.
The Pacing Briefing
The briefing was as detailed as it needed to be without
waffling on, and it turns out that there was only one major thing I needed to
remember, EVEN SPLITS TO GUN TIME. Pretty much everything else was secondary to
that, so I walked out of there feeling confident that I would be able to
successfully do my job tomorrow (along with a nice Asics pacing singlet and my
pacing flag identifying what time I would be running on the Sunday).
Immediately after that I decided to head up onto the MCG, and it was amazing
standing on the exact same turf that so many amazing sports people have stood
on over the years, and looking up into the stands rather than looking down onto
the field. So amazing. Words can’t describe it, I don’t think even running
around the ‘G on the Sunday compared to that moment, as this was a view
reserved only to us pacers and, later, the elites (when they had their meeting). I made a quick video of the pacing rooms and you can follow the link here; Pacing rooms
Later on that night was my running group’s (Sale and
District Runners) pre-marathon dinner at ‘The Spaghetti Tree’ and was a good
chance to catch up, discuss racing strategies, share other racing stories, and
of course, get some last minute carbs. Then to bed nice and early, ready for
‘pace day’.
Carb Loading!!
Ready for the Big Day!
As part of our role we had to arrive at the pacing rooms at
least an hour before the race started, but I arrived at 6.30am as I had to try
and figure out how on earth I was going to be carrying my flag. I knew it was
going to be attached to my Fuel Belt, but how. In between a bottle and it’s
carrier? Tape it to the bottle, or directly to the back of the belt itself? In
the end that's what I did, which made it stick out on a funny angle out the
back, not ideal and we joked about how many ‘points’ I would get if I poked out
someone’s eye. At 7.30am it was ‘go’ time and all the Half Mara pacers left the
MCG to head out to the start line. There were 2 other 1.40 pacers with me and
we decided to spread out amongst the start line as much as possible just so
everyone who wanted to run that time could find us and start with us. That was
when I got asked a whole bunch of questions about what the plan was and I
repeated my mantra, ‘RUN EVEN SPLITS TO GUN TIME’, which in this case was about
4.40min/km. Except that wasn’t entirely true, it took about 30 seconds to cross
the start line which meant that I had to run slightly faster than that pace
over the course of the first 9km’s to make up that time. Albert Park was
definitely the most ‘exciting’ part of the race, the runners had to battle a
tough headwind and I lost a bit of my flag. As we turned into the wind the
already precariously placed flag blew straight out behind me, rather than above
me, making it useless. This led me to rip it out of the sticky tape attached to
my Fuel Belt and carried it in my hand, but nobody can see it when it’s in my
hand so I tried to stick it down the back of my singlet, where the stick
promptly snapped in half and I was left to carry half the flag anyways. Oh
well.
Apart from that there really isn’t much more to talk about,
no issues with my stomach, no blisters, no bonking, splits were fairly even and
I’m not really sure how many people I helped as most of my ‘bus’ was behind me.
I think I dropped a few at the second-last aid station unfortunately, but
getting into MCG and yelling, ‘if you can beat me you can beat 1.40’ and seeing
the people around me digging that bit deeper to pass me was something special.
I crossed line in an official gun time of 1.39.28, with an average pace of 4.41
min/km, which was well within my 60-second buffer. Job done. Well, at least it
would be for any other event, but it wasn’t quite over yet. I had a few
different people come up to me, whom I didn’t see at all during my run, who
said thank-you and told me they used me as a pace setter so they didn’t start
out to fast, or when they were struggling to keep going they saw my bright
yellow singlet and dug that bit deeper so they wouldn’t let me pass them, and
those lucky few; who on a really tough windy day, used me to get a PB. These
stories all made realise how special it was to be a pacer and I felt privileged
to be one on that day. Well done everyone!
This blog post is identical to the one I sent to the Friends of the Tarra Bulga National Park who asked me to write up something after they saw a group of us running through there. Hopefully it will be put up on their website soon, until then, enjoy.
There were three of us; Glenn, Matt and myself (all Sale and
District Runners), who decided to go for a run in the Park, because if you need
to do a long run, why not do one where there’s stunning scenery and some gnarly
hills to match?
We are all from Wellington Shire (about an hour away from
the Tarra Bulga) so we didn’t have to get up too early to get out running in
the morning. We arrived at the Visitor Centre in Balook at 7.30am, to find out
we were the only ones there (which isn’t surprising), only to step out of the car
and immediately freeze our butts off. It was about 13° C when we left home, the
car thermometer when we stepped out of the car said it was 7° C. So just a tad
bit chilly. But man, it was stunning looking out over the Visitor Centre from
the car park. The cloud was quite stunning that morning, and hung like a shroud
over the trees. Beautiful. And I knew at that moment I was going to be in for a
good run.
We went off in the direction of Bulga Road, then jumped onto
the Grand Strezlecki Track which led us to Diaper Track, which was stunning and
easy to run along. It was all downhill and soft underfoot due to all the leaves
and twigs, which was pleasant to run along. We did have to watch where we put
our feet so we didn’t trip over a twig though! Along Diapers we saw some
unmarked waterfalls, crossed some streams and splashed our way through the mud.
It was like I was a little kid again! It was also good that it was fairly easy
to run along, as we needed to be well and truly warmed up for what came next…
Diaper Track
Diaper track
Diaper Track
Diaper Track finished onto Tarra Valley Road after
descending 300m in 7km, where we then sought out ‘Butlers Track’. ‘Butlers
Track’ is apparently a part of the 50km in ‘Duncan’s Run’ and none of us had
run/walked it before, so we had no idea what we were in for. First off, it was
steep; but we each had some good hill climbing fitness so that wasn’t too bad.
What was really difficult was the terrain itself. The forest floor was very wet
and littered with tree debris. Bark, twigs, small trees, logs, you name it, it
was there. This meant when I put my foot down, I struggled to lift it back up
again; but hey, a challenge is always nice and it was such a good feeling once
we reached the top! And what goes up must come back down and, boy-o-boy was it
fun to run down the other side of that hill.
Butler’s Track is part of the ‘Grand Strezlecki Track’ and
without the amazing trail marking that they did we would’ve for sure gotten
lost, so thanks for that!
Butlers Track
Butlers Track
Butlers Track
Butler’s Track links up with the ‘West Face Track’, which
for the first part was very muddy. Glenn actually took quite a big fall! Kudos
to him though, he kept on going. It was also at the beginning of that track
that Glenn and myself had found leeches attached to us. They came off easily
enough but it’s funny seeing how much blood they can suck without me feeling it
at all. Matt was the lucky one and seemed to get off scot free, but it’s all
part of the fun right??
West Face Track also goes up a huge hill, but it goes up
over the hill over a longer distance than Butler’s (Strava tells me it has a
grade of 10%) that made it a little easier than the last one. What also made it
easier was the fact that the majority of it was dirt/gravel instead of forest
floor. In order to make the hill go faster we turned it into a bit of a fartlek
session, where at random intervals we ran a bit, then walked a bit. All the way
to the top. Once we reached the top we got into a bit of a clearing, where we
discovered it was windy which was a bit of a shock to the system since it was
ice cold. The trees protected us so well! At the top there was also a picnic
table that was in; what I think, a bit of a random spot. It wasn’t really at a
lookout point, but that wasn’t the strangest thing. No, next to said picnic
table was a bunch of daffodils. But nowhere else. They were beautiful though.
Views along West Face Track
Views along West Face Track
Views along West Face Track
The slightly random picnic bench and beautiful daffodils
When we turned right onto ‘Basement Track’, which was all
downhill and meant that I could stretch out my legs again after slogging it
uphill for so long. This led us back onto Grand Ridge Road, where we stopped to
take our obligatory ‘seflie’ and where I also met the caretaker of the Tarra
Bulga website (who asked me to write up something about this run, hence the
blog post!) From there we went back to the Visitor Centre along Scenic Track,
which ended our almost 3 hour, 22km adventure!
Yes it was tough, cold, wet, muddy and tiring but the
scenery well and truly made up for it. Ancient trees that tower above you, the
fresh air, stunning valleys and waterfalls all add up to make this a part of
Gippsland that you simply must visit!
