Just eleven weeks before the Golden Trail Series Final, I decided to participate in the trail running race which was taking place this year in Ascona-Locarno, Switzerland. Since we skipped our summer vacation, as we were welcoming in the family our baby daughter, an autumn vacation idea that is close to home sounded more than welcomed. So we decided to take one week of vacation in October, going to Ascona-Locarno. While there, I will also be racing one of the hardest trail running competitions in the world, as an amateur, in the open category. All while watching and meeting some of the best trail runners in the world.
This article is about blending my passion about running and hiking into trail running and the efforts required to complete such a race. All while having a full time job, being a husband and a father of a newborn and a 3 year old and, doing an intensive training plan, getting sleep and nutrition right and much more. I managed to get a few things right, but not all of them, so this is not an exhaustive guide for you to follow, nor should be taken as any kind of recommendation, it is rather my personal experience of getting out of the comfort zone, while pushing the limits on all fronts, both at home and at work, the physical limits and the mental ones.
My training plan for racing in the Golden Trail Series
Being a father of two with a full time job, meant that I could allocate a maximum of 5-6 hours per week for training. Accordingly, I created my training plan considering this time constraint. Even so, most of the weeks, I struggled to find time for the training sessions. Finding the time meant a full effort for the entire family, where Corina had to cover for me at home while I was out enjoying the trails. This was an effort that should not be underestimated and before starting something similar, make sure your partner is on board, or else you might struggle finding the time to fit everything in.
I designed my training plan for the Golden Trail Series Final so that I can do in each week all of the following training sessions:
- One speed session done on track, lots of intervals training – this the fastest and hardest run of the week (done in zone 4-5).
- One trail run where I was accumulating more and more elevation each week, on both easy and steep hills (done in zone 3).
- One easy long run done usually between the trail run and the speed session (done zone in 1- 2)
- One session of strength – cross fit exercises for the entire body (done in zone 1)
- Stretching and mobility exercises
Below you can also see how my training calendar looked like. It was designed slightly different at the beginning, and these are the actual trainings I managed to do. Again, life does not always go as you planned, and this was also valid for my training plan. That’s perfectly fine and you have to be open to adjust. Some runs were done early in the morning or late in the afternoon, others during the lunch break. The bike sessions were part of my commute to work/ home and where hard and long days with total of 3 hours of training per day. I was also taking it easy each 4th week, by reducing with -25% the training volume, in terms of intensity, duration, distance. So -25% of everything, just to give to my body time to better recover and also, most important, to avoid potential injuries.
I knew that this plan is the minimum I have to do, so that I can finish the race so that I can have an ‘enjoyable’ time during the race. I decided only 11 weeks before to participate in the race and until that moment I haven’t done a lot of trail running this year, just occasionally for fun. And again, I know my training it’s not perfect, so don’t try to copy it, but it’s what I could do at the time, and most important, it did the job :). You can find the above training plan race template for my Golden Trail Series Final here.
Sleep and nutrition
I tried to sleep at least 7 hours each night, with a target of 8-9. Sleep is very important and helps a lot with the recovery. I was not managing to get uninterrupted sleeping nights, since our son is often waking me up, but I did managed to sleep an average of 7-8 total hours during majority of the nights.
Regarding nutrition, I tried to increase my intake of anti-inflammatory foods, eating more often stuff like: tuna, tomatoes, broccoli, blueberries, nuts, salmon, avocado. One simple dish you can try is: half of sliced avocado, half of a tuna can, a sliced tomato and two boiled eggs, with a slice of full grain bread. Just put all of it on a plate and you get a quick and very healthy meal – this was my Fitness Dish :).
I was also taking BCAA and Creatine for the first 7 weeks, which are supposed to help with recovery and power, but I can’t say if it helped or not. I did take 1-2 kilos in weight during the time which I took creatine, which was just more water stored in the muscles, but again, not sure if it helped or not. Probably next time I would skip the creatine but keep taking the amino-acids.
Family life
Managing training along with work and family life was challenging. Squeezing in the training in the family life with a newborn and 3 years old was almost as hard as the race itself – for the entire family. You have to be careful and take advantage of every hour or 30 minutes window that might occur, where you can squeeze in a training session. Sometimes I was having my intervals training at lunch and doing stretching and mobility exercises only in the evening. Not ideal, but it worked. Spontaneous runs were done when I was not in the mood, or I was tired, but it had to be done. It was a good discipline lesson that it’s helpful to do from time to time.
I was also cold for a week, my luck was that the cold happened in my low volume training week, which helped me not to skip the harder running sessions. It was an easy cold, else my entire training would have been pushed back. Kids were also cold, visits to the emergency room at 21:00 in the evening were done and many more challenges. But time flies when you’re having fun so weeks were going by and soon I found myself entering in the racing week.
The race day – Golden Trail Series
The 2024 Golden Trail Series Final race day came sooner than expected and I had the feeling that I could have done more during the training, coming here better prepared. Truth is, you could always do more, but I knew I did enough to at least have fun on the trails. And I did, at least in the first half of the race which started good and I was always keeping some reserves of energy, saving some for the end. In the second half of the race it was just pain.
The entire course was very technical, with steep ascents and descents. There where tight curves, roots and rocks on the trail, all of which were breaking your running rhythm. Not to mention, it was raining the entire morning and for the first half of the race, which made the course even more challenging. After the start I was setting a comfortable pace that I knew it would get me to the end. I was planning to go harder on the downhills, but due to the terrain technicality I couldn’t go as fast as I planned. So I dropped more and more positions until I settled somewhere in the mid-end of the pack. I finished the race in 3h 29 minutes official time, on position 173 from 221 runners present at the start (best race time was 1h 50 minutes). My goal was to finish in around 3 hours, but again, this course was looking to break your legs with every step you make, which it did :).
Here is my Strava profile and below you can see my Strava run where you can find more details about how it went:
Regarding nutrition, I was taking 25 gr. of carbohydrates each 15 minutes, in the form of gels, which made sure to keep me energized and gave me the much required boost during the entire race. Nutrition during such an event is very important and it can make or break your entire race experience.
You can watch the race recording below, it is truly a spectacle that will keep you entertained the entire time:
Conclusions
What an honor to share the trail with the worlds best elites in the 2024 Golden Trail Series Finals! The training as well as the race where a great experience for our entire family and a true discipline lesson that makes you stronger as a person, both mentally and also physically. In retrospective, it was a humbling experience from which I have learned a lot about human potential and discipline.
Will I do it again? 🙂
