JOHNSTONE BATTLES THREATS IN LEAD UP TO UTA100

Contributed by Shane Johnstone, AURA member

UTA100, 13-16 May 2021, Katoomba NSW

Two years ago was the last time I had completed an A Race on the calendar. The West Macs Monster, a 230-odd km adventure on the Larapinta Trail where I managed to keep it together and set a new Fastest Known Time of 40hr 55m.

Since then I had aimed to do Shenongia 100km with 6,500m of vert in September 2019. I had just completed a 5hr hill rep session in the rain and came home to an email saying China, 2 weeks out, decided they wouldn’t let foreigners stay in the hotels in that region. We were meant to fly in via Wuhan so who knows maybe Covid-19 was already there?

We then had our little angel Amelia in October which has been a nice change of pace and focus. My wife and I are both very keen endurance athletes so I get one weekend morning and Corrie gets the other. This often means a hot afternoon session in the summer on your alternate day, which probably has some benefits but obviously had it challenges. Of course all the scorchers landed on my day.

The next big run on my calendar wouldn’t be for 8 months, UTA 100km with 4,400m in May 2020. I knew this was a relatively faster race than I was trained for so I shifted the focus to building up some high end fitness and speed. In the past I’ve loved running hard but since February 2017 I’ve been struggling with a rare condition called Iliac Artery Endofibrosis, that my vascular surgeon hadn’t even seen before. At rest when they ultrasound my artery it all looks normal and healthy. Then after a 10 min high intensity run on the treadmill they re-scan and find a section of my artery not dilating enough, interrupting the blood flow to my right leg. To put into perspective my left leg ABI test goes from 1.4 at rest to 1.1 after exercise. Above 1 is normal. On my right leg it goes from 1.4 to 0.39. Basically my right leg is being starved of blood and therefore oxygen. It’s a weird phenomenon, the blood tries to shunt through other smaller vessels but it can’t cope with the supply. I tend to loose function/feel burning in my right foot, calf, glute and by the time it gets to my quadriceps I usually have to stop and walk until it settles down, which can take a few minutes. Sometimes I can return to running straight after at high speeds and it is no real issue, other times there is a lag that hangs around. It usually takes about 10kms to fade before I don’t feel so limited by it.

For short races that is obviously too long to be in the mix, which can be incredibly frustrating as the lungs are still coping fine but the leg says no. I can have a procedure where they cut out one of my veins and then stitch it into my iliac artery to make a bypass around the affected area which is obviously pretty intense or I can just continue to live with it.

This condition has forced me to be quite conservative for the start of races and often I feel much stronger in the back end. Possibly a good tactic to have anyway.

That aside all was going exceptionally well with the speed work if I just did short efforts.

Until March where I started to feel unwell, had a bit of chest tightness and an odd rash. Covid-19 had just hit Perth as well so we were going into lockdown and the business future direction was pretty unknown. After some blood tests they discovered I had elevated Troponin levels which is a marker for a heart attack. I was told to go into emergency where I stayed in hospital for 4 nights whilst they did so many more blood tests, echocardiograms, ECGs and even an invasive angiogram. They couldn’t find anything wrong with my heart (thankfully) but they kept on getting positive troponin readings and I continued to feel poorly. They put it down to myocarditis and I was told to keeping training minimal for the next 4 months.

Turns out not training is quite hard, I didn’t realise how much of a buzz running gives me. It was hard to get that same feeling from other training but it did allow me to focus on strength more and spending more time with our little angel.

UTA was later cancelled due to Covid-19 which turned out to be a blessing in disguise for me as there was no way I could race it. It was pushed back to October 2020 so I thought there was a chance I could at least get fit enough to finish it and check the course out.

I definitely stretched the barriers of low key running for 4 months but I was feeling okay apart from having a few light headed bouts whilst doing moderate to intense exercise. I definitely had concerns I was going to have a stroke so had some MRIs on the brain and further blood tests. Fortunately nothing significant wrong with the brain (surprising) but my elevated Troponin persisted.

We tried weeks with zero running and got the same result or even higher. Some new theories started to evolve and one was that I just had antibodies messing with the test causing false positives. So potentially I was just sick and they accidentally discovered I have a false Troponin level reading at the same time. Anyway after more MRIs, halter monitors etc a false positive remains as the answer.

As I started to feel better my confidence grew pretty quickly again and I started Take II training for UTA100. As we got closer, damn Covid struck again so it got called off. I thought I may as well join some of our athletes and mates down at Margaret River Ultra 80km. I knew I was probably out of my depth but had no expectations. I was fortunate enough to get to run with a mate Ally until the 50km checkpoint. I had started to feel quite off and some of the head symptoms again so I wasn’t going to risk it and pulled the pin. I was still pretty happy with a consistent 50km effort for the first time in a long time but slightly frustrated with my body.

So of course when you fail an 80km you decide it’s a good idea to sign up for Delirious 200 miler from Northcliffe to Albany. I was more intrigued to do this event as there was a quality field shaping up and I felt like I needed a new goal to focus on, to stay motivated. I was also coping really well with the low intensity running and not so well with the high intensity running which wasn’t necessary for this event.

I started my build through a hot summer and the more I did, the better I felt. I could feel the stamina coming back and I was starting to rate myself for a solid outing at delirious. I was hitting up to 200km weeks with solid elevation and heat exposure. I was also using our altitude simulation system to factor in some intensity without running fast.

Two weeks out from the race, Perth had their first Covid case in the community for the first time in 12 months. Luckily it didn’t escalate but we still couldn’t go down south the following week so it was game over and it was postponed to October.

So it became Take III for UTA100. I swapped from my big base training to adding in stairs and speed work. It’s always tough reintroducing speed work but the body was finally behaving with no chest or head issues. I had a great build and realised I was fitter than I thought, I was getting some new PBs along the way.

Then we had a few close calls with Covid in WA and NSW but somehow managed to sneak over. I hadn’t been to the Blue Mountains for about 10 years. I had forgotten how beautiful the region was. It was epic to finally be going on a trip with mates, feeling healthy and the opportunity to race again on a big stage. I had enough ITRA points to be granted an entry so technically it was my first ‘elite’ race. I knew I was likely to be out of my depth so a Top 10

Finish was the goal. To be honest I felt like I had already won a prize.

The weather forecast was cold! -1 to a high of 8 degrees, for a West Australian that is ridiculous! I lined up third row so I wouldn’t get caught up going too fast early and blow up my right leg. I managed to moderate myself and was in 35th place. My whole right foot had gone numb which made running over a technical rock fall section at 6kms very challenging. I felt like a Giraffe… that lifted my heart rate too high and it took a while to re settle. By 15kms my foot had come back to life and I felt confident to push hard. I slowly started catching up to people and made a mate with Morgan who had recently won Buffalo stampede 42km. We held a nice pace together, possibly slightly too quick for me. When we reached Nellies, I went backwards and watched Morgan fly up the stairs. I had never been on a stair case like it. Absolutely brutal and it gave me a big slap in the face! I had a real low spot combined with a stitch for a further 5km (51-56km). Finally I reached the next checkpoint where I settled and got my run legs back and then got stronger and stronger as the course went on. I was passing some big names who were having bad days out. Unfortunately I lost another 2 places the Leura stairs, these big stair climbs really were my failing. I was then sitting in 14th position with 30km to go. I caught back up to Morgan who was withdrawing and overtook another who was down to a walk. I came up to checkpoint 5 in 12th place and according to my support crew legends Claire and Adam I was looking better than the others coming in. I left to start a 9km decline, I knew I just had to go hard and see how hard I could push for the last section. My quads were torn to shreds by the time I reached the bottom. I then started a climb to the finish, over 1,000m in 10km with the Furber Stairs being the last km! I worked really hard the whole way and closed a massive gap to finish 12th only 30 sec behind 11th. I had also saved my race and got it to back under 11 hours with a 10h 54m finish time. I honestly think for where my body was at, that was the best case scenario. I attribute the optimal performance to my prep race prep and nailing my nutrition, caffeine and hydration strategy.

What’s next? Sharing the Transcend course with everyone and I guess I better train for Delirious again….

UTA100 I’ll be back!

Those doing Transcend, I will be living through you vicariously as I’d love to race it myself but won’t be able to as I’ll be Race Director.

My key tip: Don’t let issues out of your control stop you from trying to achieve your goals and dreams. Sometimes you just need to change the pathway and if you stick at it you will get there

Thanks to everyone who has helped with the journey.

Pictured: Shane Johnstone at the 2021 UTA100. Photograph – Supplied/UTA Photographers.