Top 10 ways to finish the Ultra-Australia injury FREE!

The Physio Depot’s top 10 ways to finish the UTA injury FREE!

HAVE A TRAINING PLAN
– ‘If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail’
– Get to know what training volumes and duration your body can handle. Some people can pump out 100km weeks all year round without a niggle, others will run a 50km per week and be broken for months.
– Get to know YOUR body’s capabilities and training schedule not someone elses.
– Plan what you can actually achieve and be realistic with your lifestyle.
GET ON THE COURSE
– Try make your training specific by getting on the course if you have that luxury.
– Breakdown the sections as this helps mentally on the day of knowing what’s to come.
– If you can’t run the course try and find places where you can get some vertical elevation. It will be hard to find similar elevation profiles hence why the event is held in the Blue Mountains.
STRENGTH TRAIN 1-2 TIMES PER WEEK
– Be consistent with strength training each week.
– Focusing on all the big engines of the body: Quadriceps, calf, hamstring, gluteals and core muscles.
– Don’t be afraid adding a little weight. Adding stress to your system is great cross training tool that will really help with all those stair and hill climbs.
GET TIME ON YOUR LEGS
– Be on your legs consistently. All your runs do not have to be long and arduous, but you do have to be consistent with your training.
– An injury is calling with inconsistent weeks of training and then trying to ‘catch up’ on training.
– This does not work. It will cause overuse injuries.
RECOVER RECOVER RECOVER
– Sleep and recovery is paramount to quality training. Schedule it like your training runs.
– It’s helpful to recover from long runs with cross training like swimming or bike riding.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT AND DRINK
– Nutrition is key to keeping your body nourished for all your training. Careful not to overeat now you’re running like Forest Gump as some people actually gain weight.
– Replenishing nutrition stores after your long runs is important.
– Don’t forget water – Keep a water bottle with you all day everyday.
GET VERTICAL ELEVATION IN YOUR LEGS
– The 100km UTA event as 4,400m of climb and 4,400m of descent. That’s a lot!
– The only way to get through this is to start loving hill work, stair climbs and more hill work.
80% OF YOUR TRAINING SHOULD BE AT AN EASY EFFORT
– A common misconception is that you need to train hard all the time. Yes – parts of your training can be hard but only 15-20%. This may include hill repeats, speed work or fartlek runs.
– To avoid injury make 80% of your training easy to moderate.
GRILL YOUR QUADS ON SOME DOWNHILL
– The quadricep complex work extremely hard as your brake when running down hill and are prone to exploding if you have not trained running downhill enough prior to this event.
– Be sure to add down hill running and downstair work in your training program.
– If you’re a local – Kedumba will do the trick!
STAIRS STAIRS AND MORE STAIRS
– What comes up must go down so get training.
– This one is pretty straight forward – To finish this event you must learn to love stairs.