Donadea 50km 2025
My first DNF in a run and I really don’t mind - that I even made the start line is a success considering 3 weeks prior, I picked up a small calf tear that I’ve been working with a physio on. However, those injuries take 4-6 weeks to recover from so this event was just a bit too early in the end. But…I did manage 40km in the end and a semi-decent time (for myself) considering I had barely run for those three weeks so I’ll take it :)
To get me to the line, did involve shaving my leg and some physio strapping but it seems to have made the difference. Good on Musa at Pearse Street Physiotherapy for working on me with dry needling, massage and patching me up with tape.
On the day, the amusing hiccup was the night before. I arrived out in my camper to stay to realise I’d forgotten a bagel for the morning, as well as realising there was no water in the camper! Thankfully Donadea is close to a few towns so sorted it easily.
On the morning, it was easy to arrive on time, drop off my gels/liquid to the tables to pick up each lap, register and get ready. I did modify my table to put everything into a box with a bright fluorescent yellow bag around it to stand out and also left my running jacket in it in case I needed a layer.
I did a 2km warm-up slow one hour beforehand.
The first lap felt slow to be honest. But the calf felt good! And it was all going well until - bang - 9km in and I felt it tighten up. I’d made the plan the night before that if (when) it started to groan I’d do another lap. As I was almost at the end of one lap on 9km, I decided I’d finished out the third. What was a pleasant surprise was the calf didn’t start to get any worse like usual, and as I've bumped into a fun group of runners (hi, Dan, Dave and Niamh!), they helped me to distract myself from it and we just kept running and chatting. Dave dropped out at 30km (no running and a 50-month old child will do that) and on that 6th lap, I needed a pee stop. I really need to figure out my liquids so they don’t happen in a four hour event/race :) I lost the other two and on that lap I slowly tried to coax my way up to Dan/Niamh - but carefully, only adding perhaps 2-3sceond/km in pace. All was going well and I continued my average pace at 4:50min/km. Then, around 35km the pain of running started to kick in. And with that, the load the calf was under kicked in and it started to scream. Which meant I knew I was bailing at the end. I was NOT walking out the final 10km and I also wasn’t interested in running in a lot of really really bad pain and really wrecking the calf. I knew if I pulled up now, it was no worse than before, recovery wouldn’t really be hampered and I still got 40km in! And with that I was done. A success overall: 4:53min/km average for the day.
What was really interesting was the final 5km. I tried to lean into my pace to pick it up as I knew I would be finishing up. Nothing happened - the legs were dea. that implies to me that I need to do some work in getting my level up here….
Notes on the day
Kit
Runners: North Face Vectiv Pro 2 trail carbon super shoes. Ideal for the conditions on the day with a good amount of tread and the carbon assistance. I was in awe of anyone running it in road supershoes as it was very muddy in sections.
Socks: CompressSport Run v4 socks
Shorts; Decathlon trainers
Underwear: Nike DriFit Pro
singlet: Nike running singlet
CompressSport wrist sweatband
Watch: Coros Pace 3 with the Coros heart-rate armband
Bottles: Decathlon 500ml bottles. They’re a pain to fill due to the narrow opening, however, they’re great to run with as short and stubby. . I’d to do one section with a Salomon 500ml which wasn’t helpful as they’re long and awkward.
Food Plan
Overall, this was a great success and I stuck to what I’ve been building up in documentation here. I’m going to bundle in everything here from the night before to what I had during the event:
Night before:
Pasta with olive oil and a fake meat protein burger
Morning (3 hours in advance):
Bagel with honey and banana
500ml with Maurten 320 drink mix
1 hour 30-40 min before (following Maurten guidelines):
Maurten Bicarb. My third time to take this and my first in an event. Honestly, I don’t think I really need it just yet as still only learning how to lean into hard pacing at high heart rates, however, I’d like to start learning it now. There’s something to it…. Good to know no side effects either while in ‘race' mode.
45 minutes before:
2 x Panadal Extra (1g paracetamol and 130mg of caffeine for the two tablets). I’eve never done this before but quite intrigued with this for other events (if genuinely needed to be taken and very very carefully!).
2 x Precision Hydration caffeine gel (360g carb and 200mg of caffeine for the two gels)
During race:
The target was a lap of 22 minute 30 seconds to 25 minutes per lap so I approached with 70-100g of carb per hour. So, the target was one 40g gel per lap (in this case, SIS Beta Fuel - this is amazing how easily it goes down), and then on the 90 minute mark to take another Precision Hydration caffeine gel. What happened was 3 out of every four laps, I had a gel but I did take the caffeine gel at the target time. That worked out as 6 50g gels and one 30g gel in the 3 hours 15 minutes I was running.
For liquid, I targeted one 500ml bottle eery hour with a Precision Hydration 1000 electrolyte tablet. This was mostly ideal although it was more like 400ml/hour I suspect partly due to it being 2-5 degrees in temperature. This part felt perfect.
What would I change? the only difference would be to force down that gel for every single lap, and also to add another caffeine gel. I felt mentally fatigued from a long few weeks of work/life and noticed a spike after taking the gel at 90 minutes. I should learn from it and have taken another at either the same time, or else at the start of the next lap.
I’ll have more to write, including adding some more ‘fun’ and stories but for now, this is the pure practical info….