REDFERN RECAPS THE SRI CHINMOY 48HR

Contributed by Stephen Redfern, AURA NSW State Representative

Sri Chinmoy 48 Hour Track Ultra (2021 AURA National 48hr Championships), 26-28 March 2021 (AIS, Canberra)

I finished in 2nd place with a total and new distance PB for a single race of 326.441km. I was so happy to reach the 200 miler mark for the 48 hour.

Congratulations to AURA president Ewan Horsburgh for making this a great race and taking out the win. What a race he ran, and it was so enjoyable trying to chase him down for the entire 48hrs, for which I was never able to do.

Wow what a race this was.

With a bigger running plan leading into the middle of 2022, this was the first race in the build-up to bigger things for next year.

Having had my interest, I’ve wanted to give the 48hr track race a go for a number of years now after doing a few 24hr races, but up until this year had never been able to find where to fit one in.

Heading into the race I had a pretty good training block trying to keep my running consistent and to not over do the weekly km so as to be able to head into the race fresh and not fatigued.

The weekend in Canberra was just brilliant, with the weather perfect for being out on the track for 48 hours. The days were shaping up to be around the low 20s with the nights a little colder at around the 5-6 degree mark, which was still great if you kept moving.

On top of the great weather, what also made this one of the best events I’d run is all the great friends, colleagues and runners being there to share the experience.

But onto the race itself.

It certainly is completely different to what I have experienced before. Effectively it’s running 2 x 24hr track races back to back, but they could not have been more different for each day running.

I went into the race with a set run strategy and also a set nutrition plan, which I felt in the end they both were just perfect.

The plan was to do a 20min set of an 18-2 run walk strategy with the 2 min walk always lining up for when I was to take my nutrition. I was going to do this for as long as I could and then adjust with more planned walks as the race progressed if need be.

What transpired was that the plan worked perfectly for the entire race and even though the pace may have slowed down, I was able to keep up the 18-2 run walk for the entire race, with the nutrition plan also not changing for the entire time as well.

For the first 24hrs, I was able to reach the 200km mark, but found the next 24hrs was such a contrast and managed to complete 126km to give me the total of 326k in the end.

Not quite how I saw the second day go, but what a learning curve it was with how the body handled the track on that 2nd day.

Despite all this, I felt I had a great race, with my overall plan working really well and at no point did I ever find the race or time out on the track boring at all.

I chose to listen to my music during the first evening, and even managed to cycle through all 240 songs on the iPod, and then found I was enjoying the race after that to the point where I didn’t need my music anymore.

It was fantastic to be able to share the track with the other races of the weekend, having company on the 1st day with the 24hour runners and then the 12 and 6 hour runners joining on the 2nd day for their races. Every time they started it seemed to pick up everyone’s spirits.

My nutrition plan went perfectly to schedule and I didn’t need to change what I was doing for the whole 48hrs.

My main nutrition was Tailwind for the race which I took in 150ml bottles every 20mins and then for every 6th lot at the end of each 2 hours it was a free choice of normal fluids and a small snack.

For the entire race I went through a staggering 108 bottles of tailwind which ended up being 16.2lts (4 scoops per litre) or a total of 64 scoops. With this plan I still found that I was enjoying this even in the last hours of the race

As always a massive thanks for all the support from Tailwind Nutrition Australia who have supported me the whole way.

For my shoes, I went with the HOKA ONE ONE Mach 4 as being my main shoe and having the Clifton’s and Bondi as my back up changes.

I did cycle through all 3 pairs, but in the end it was the Mach’s I wore the most with using them for the first and last 12 hours of the race and also a 5 hour stint in the middle. Other than one blister between 2 toes that was tended too on the 2nd night, the feet faired up really well.

I had decided to use my combo of the T8 shorts and undies for the race with the idea of doing a change say each 12 hours with a clean fresh pair. This was not needed at all and ended up staying in the same pair for the entire race without a single issue. Having used them now for about the last 15 months, I certainly can’t rate these items highly enough.

And how can I forget the massive support over the entire race from the crew, with an absolute massive thank you to both Penny (Red Pen) and Simone Hayes who took care of me over the entire weekend, despite Penny not feeling the best and Simone also running in the 6hr as well.

Now enjoying the recovery and looking forward to the build-up for the next main race being the 6 day in Adelaide in September and then onwards to June 2022.

Pictured – Stephen Redfern in the Sri Chinmoy 48hr Track. Photograph – Supplied.