Winning Gone Nuts 101km

I executed one of my best ever races at Gone Nuts. I went in with minimal pressure and it worked in my favour, somehow securing me the win! My goal was to test myself over the 100km distance in preparation for Buffalo Ultra Grand Slam. To test my fitness, pacing, nutrition, hydration and gear. I was less concerned with performance outcomes and more interested in finishing the race in good condition. This plan of conservative pacing and self preservation allowed me to run strong through to the end!! I filmed the journey and put most of my effort into a vlog which you can watch below. The remainder of this post will be a short de-brief of the race and what I have coming up.

🎥 Watch Below ⬇️

De-Brief

I’ll let the vlog tell the story and instead turn this blog post into a de-brief of the race. This section will contain some more technical nitty gritty, lessons learned and the gear I used etc, because I know some people are interested in this stuff.

🥇 Results and Stats

🎯 Goal Scorecard

😋Nutrition and Hydration

The master plan, take this every hour:

• 500ml of Moor drink mix (40g carbs, 500mg sodium)
• 500ml of Koda electrolyte per hour (430mg sodium)
• 1 x Precision PF 30 gel (30g carbs)

To achieve a minimum intake of:

• 1000ml fluid per hour
• 70g carbs per hour
• approx. 1000mg / litre sodium concentration in all fluids

The outcome:

• I was able to almost religiously stick with the plan and not experience a proper bonk at all during the event
• Fluid intake increased above 1000ml an hour when it heated up
• I ate additional gels and food every now and then to get myself more carbs than the target
• Minimal issues through the race, slight nausea at times most likely from the heat and minor dehydration

I took a photo of all of my gel wrappers and estimated my fluid intake to give myself a post race scorecard using my Nutrition Scorecard spreadsheet. All goals were exceeded!! I am stoked with this outcome. Finding a plan that works for the long haul is one of the greatest challenges in this sport.

⌚Pacing

The best way to pace an ultra is to start out easy and slow down as little as possible. This is easier said than done when the startline excitement paired with fresh legs take over. To combat the ‘go out hard and blow up’ problem I placed two upper limits on my early race pacing:

• Rating of perceived exertion (RPE) < 7 / 10
• Heart rate < 155 bpm for the first few hours

I think I succeeded in pacing by feel with the addition of heart rate as an early guide post. I arrived at Rocky Cape Roadhouse in under 5 hours which kept the 11 hour goal in sight. But to achieve that goal I needed to get the next two legs done in approximately 3 hours each respectively. I slowed down a little too much to stick with those goal splits. I’m not too disappointed in the overall time. I finished super strong around the river and I am taking that as a sign of good pacing throughout.

👍What worked?

• Having a support crew. I think this helped keep me on track and moving through aid stations quickly. With the amount I was drinking having flasks filled and ready with drink mix and electrolytes saved me so much time. The crew also enabled me to have ice for cooling throughout.
• Drinking heaps of fluids!! I think this is the secret to my success
• Active cooling with ice bandana, helps with cooling and lowered RPE
• Moor black currant drink mix is amazing, was able to drink the stuff all day long
• Precision gels go down really well, pity they are so expensive (I was given some from a friend, didn’t buy them)
• Placing low pressure on myself to achieve any specific outcome goals, less pressure meant I paced smarter and focused on eating and drinking more than racing.
• Eat alarm every 30 minutes, kept alarms in alignment with the hours, was just the right amount of reminder to eat. I’ve tested 20 and 25 minute and they are too often that I start to ignore them
• Staying in an aribnb in Stanley, this got me an extra hour or more of sleep the night before

👎What didn’t work?

• Hoka speedgoat 2’s soles were coming off by the end and my toes smashed. Smashed toes is pretty inevitable. But I am disappointed in the durability of Speedgoats and probably won’t buy them again
• Little camera ran out of batteries before the spicy racing started, need to work on this
• My right knee developed some pain around 70km in, cause has now been diagnosed as a tight quad

⚙️ Gear

• 🎒RAB Veil 12 Pack
• 💧4 x 500ml flasks + 250ml flask for coke
• 👟 Hoka Speedgoat 2, reissue
• 👕 2xu shirt and shorts, T8 commando undies, Smartwool sock, Fractel hat
• 🕶️ Goodr sunnies
• 🧊 T8 Ice bandana
• ☔ Mont lightspeed rain jacket
• ⛷️Komperdell FXP Composite poles
• 📹 Insta360 Go3s, action pod only
• ⌚ Garmin Forerunner 955
• 💓 HR Strap: Coros HRM Strap
• Plus additional mandatory gear, snake bandage, space blanket etc
• 💊 Mini first aid kit: fixamul, blodyglide, paracetamol, toilet paper, anti-histamines, spare contact lenses

From Mawbanna onwards I used my ice bandana and refilled it at every aid station. Active cooling strategies are so helpful. I am a hot runner so anything over 20C starts to roast me. This is another area where having a support crew is super helpful. They carried an esky with ice.

Note on pole usage: I picked up my poles at Boat Harbour, used them on the paddocks then ditched them at Table Cape Lighthouse. They were helpful on the hills but my legs were ok running to the finish without them. Highly recommend them for the tail end of this race.

Going Forward

My focus has fully turned to preparing my body for Buffalo Stampede. Despite having a confidence building run at Gone Nuts I still have a great deal of trepidation about my ability to run the next day after a 100km race. At Buffalo I run 100km on the Saturday then head out for a 42km on the Sunday. This frightens me, and that’s the reason Ziggy and I entered, to fulfil a morbid curiosity.

I’ve mostly bounced back well from Gone Nuts but I have a lingering sore knee. Rather than cramming training my goal is to get my body well recovered. I have a decent aerobic engine at the moment so getting my body back in working order is the priority. I saw a physio about my knee yesterday and he was optimistic about my ability to do Buffalo. My quad was super tight and it was pulling my patellar out of position slightly, hopefully with some releasing of the tightness my patellar gets back in the groove.

I’ve been informed that there were issues with the comments section on the blog. I have done some tinkering behind the scenes and I think it’s fixed. You are now free to shower me with comments once again.

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading and watching!!

Joseph Nunn: An avid trail runner based in Hobart, Tasmania. He loves getting out for big days on the trails with mates or racing against them.

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