This is after a rather tough day on the Penguin - Cradle Trail.  By far the toughest day of the trip...the Leven Canyon sucked!  Oh and so did the leeches......badly!!  Add to that the knee injury...owww!  Shane was kinda missing his standard smile on this day!

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by Richelle Olsen

So I've had a special request to share what on earth is keeping Shane moving day in, day out for the Tassie Traverse....What a great idea!  More than happy to share!  Tho of course we are only 2 days in, so nothing is proven as yet!!

Shane has been lucky enough to be generously supported in this adventure by Steph Gaskell from Nutrition Strategies.  Steph is an ultrarunner herself, and has extensive experience with keeping ultra athletes moving!  Steph has devised an instruction manual of sorts to get Shane through each day, and recover well enough to do it all again the next day.  We are trying to follow Steph's plan as closely as we can......where we can!  

Shane had a couple of stipulations.....no gels (after some bad experiences with gels at big ultra races, they are no go zones!), and minimal dairy.  Steph came up with an awesome solution to the dairy issue......taking "Lacteeze" tabs prior to eating dairy.  The lactase is supposed to neutralise the lactose in the dairy, and thats the stuff that causes most dairy tummy issues.  Lets give it a go!

Thus far, heres what the days have looked like for Shane...

Off the trail:
Breaky - 2 bowls of cornflakes, 1/2 cup of milk (we use Zymll as his belly isnt too fond of lactose) and a milky strong mocha using nesquick.
Dinner - well day one was leftovers, so a couple of cups of tuna pasta, with 200g of lean steak, followed by rice pudding, and fruit.  Day 2 was 3 medium chicken fajitas with salad (the menu also said rice, but he didn't have much appetite), followed by mango yoghurt and a banana.  You will see below what the recovery food includes, so you can probably understand why he doesnt have a massive appetite for dinner!!

On the trail and recovery on day 1:

Shane was on the trail for 6hrs on day one.  We followed the plan, with 400-500ml of carbohydrate mix per hour.  We use an Infinit Carb mix, with 50g of carbs per 400ml.  

He also ate a small muesli bar each hour, and a couple of handfuls of licorice allsorts and sour worms.  It makes it easy to supply him...1 drink, and 1 food every hour!

Lunch was half a ham salad sandwich - he didnt really feel like lunch and felt a bit queasy afterwards, so as such only ate half - the aim was to eat 2!!

Recovery:  Over the space of the 2hr following the run, he consumed 1 banana, 1 choc milk, with extra 30g skim milk powder, 2x bread with jam, 2 x saladas with cheese and vegemite, 600mL coke and packet of corn chips.  He struggled getting all this down, but did really well!

In terms of how he felt on day 1, he puts his queasyness down to the fact that he was pretty warm running yesterday.  He also went into the start of the Tassie Traverse rather dehydrated, as well as being pretty exhausted due to lack of sleep.  He felt pretty good considering, but he puts any issues he had today down to his preparation.  He was happy with the nutrition, though felt like he was drinking constantly to get all the fluids in!

On the trail and recovery on Day 2:

Pretty much the same as for day 1....just with more carbs, as he was on the trail for 7.5hrs.  He also had a cheese and vegemite roll for lunch.

He woke up feeling nauseous today....it got better when he started running (tho that may have been the panadol).  It came back partway through the run, but was treated successfully with ginger nut biscuits (thanks Steph!!).  It was a cooler, much wetter day today, so heat wasnt an issue.  He also had a great sleep last night, so was much fresher (and more hydrated) today!

Post run he was pretty hungry, so was happy to devour the piles of recovery food (as per day 1).

All in all, so far so good.  I feel like Im feeding him the same stuff over and over, but Shane doesnt care about that, hes happy to eat the same stuff!!

So thats it at the end of day 2......

Hope this has been helpful.....will try to keep this updated semi regularly!!!

Richelle

Apologies about the quality guys.....still getting our heads around technology!!

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