Meraki Performance

Race Day Nutrition: The 48hr Shift

I ran a half marathon last week, gere's exactly what I ate for 3 days. It's simple and that's why it worked.

It's not carb loading as you might know it. Instead It's a carb switch.

- Monday (2 days out): Fats halved, fibre limited, water 1.25x normal

- Tuesday (1 day out): Fats halved again, fibre gone, protein halved, carbs up to keep calories same

- Wednesday (Race day): Carbs only. 2 familiar meals. Salt + caffeine. Nothing new.

During: 3 cups water, 2 cup pocari, 3x25g gels.

Immediately after: Quick sugar + protein - hadn't had any in 24 hours.

Post-race: Big meals - lots of carbs, salt, protein. No restriction.

Hydrate 1.5x more than usual post race x3 days. Lots of salt.

Lesson: Race nutrition is not magic. It's rehearsal. Don't try new s**t on race day.

My 3 rules: Familiar, Early, Enough.

171 days without running taught me more than 4 years of running every day.

1. You will feel vulnerable. That's the point.
My first thought wasn't about running. It was: How will this affect my work? The body I've built and what that represents? My ability to just move and be capable and self-sufficient?
I felt stripped down. But vulnerability isn't weakness. It's information. It showed me where I had attached my worth to what my body could do, not who I was.

2. Curiosity is stronger than motivation.
3-4 hours a day on a stationary bike for 4 months. No one does that with motivation. You do it with curiosity.
I kept asking: How strong can I leave this?

3. Make it fun, or you won't survive it.
When running was gone, I used weight training to keep training valuable. And I leaned on people. Talking to people in the gym, especially at my lowerest point in Bali, sharing struggles. Shoutout to my friend Claude. Rehab doesn't have to be lonely suffering.

4. You can't hack time.
I kept switching between should I do more? Should I do less? The truth was, it just needed time. Some things don't need optimisation. They need patience.

5. Make it bigger than you.
I re-fractured it crewing 40km+ overnight for and aggravated it again demoing at a workshop. That could have felt like failure. But when it's for something bigger than you, pain has context. Supporting those runners meant more than my injury.

6. Hope returns timidly.
After 150+ days of pain, the day in Busan I had no pain all day, I didn't celebrate. I felt a timid sense of hope. One that grew. Slowly it permeated my whole being. Don't expect hope to come back loud. It comes back quiet.

7. Learn from everyone. Return to yourself.
Educate yourself. Learn the ins and outs. Use multiple resources, physios, books, podcasts. But always come back to yourself. What you're feeling, what you're experiencing, because that's where the path lies. No protocol knows your body better than you do.

171 days felt endless. But it wasn't. Nothing is.

The First Marathon Feels So Good

Robbie finished his first ever marathon last Sunday at the 3 Bridges in Sydney in 3:50:29.

After we chased down some half marathon PBs earliee this year, he wanted to step up to the marathon, but this build was anything but smooth. Big life changes, a lot going on, and then a proximal medial tibial bone stress injury that meant we had to rethink and adapt almost every week just to keep him moving forward without making it worse.

What I'm most proud of isn't the time, it's that he kept showing up, he kept trusting the process even when it was frustrating, and he let me guide him around the hurdles and through the walls that popped up.

And then he executed. He got to the start line as prepared as we could possibly make him under the circumstances, and he ran a really smart, gutsy race to get his first one in the books.

He messaged me straight after saying "F**k it's a nice accomplishment" and he was right, it is. First marathons are special because you never forget how that first one feels.

Really proud of you Robbie. Honoured to be in your corner for this one.

If you're navigating your own hurdles right now and want someone in your corner to help you adapt the plan around real life, flick me a message and let's have a chat.

Pillar 2: Get Curious.

Your brain can't be curious and in panic at the same time.

The second you want to quit, you go from question to statement. "I can't do this."

Curiosity flips it back: "What happens if I stay for 60 more seconds?"

6 Questions to ask instead of just quitting

1. Reframe: What can I learn from this?
2. Calm: What if I stay 60 seconds longer?
3. Adapt: What's another path forward?
4. Fuel: What part of this could be fun to figure out?
5. Patiene: What am I missing because I'm rushing?
6. Awareness: Why do I want to quit right here?

And when the urge is loud, don't argue with it. Point your curiosity somewhere else:

Body: Where am I holding tension I can release? Drop shoulders, soften hands.

Breath: Can I make my exhale longer than my inhale for 3 cycles?

Surroundings: What can I hear / see that isn't my own complaining?

You don't need more willpower. You need a better question.

Curiosity > Willpower.

This is Pillar 2 of 3. Pillar 1 was Get Over Yourself. Pillar 3 drops next.

What's your go-to question that stops you quitting?

From The Morning Crew To His First Marathon

Tariq and I go back over ten years to Adonis Athletics and the exclusive morning crew. We used to train in the early before there was any Meraki. Time passed and I eventually began coaching him, I've been there right from the origin of his running journey and I've watched it all.

So when he finally decided he wanted to tick off something he's wanted for years, a marathon, it meant a lot to be in his corner for it at The 3 Bridges Marathon Last Weekend. See throughout my journey as a coach (and person), T has been a support, a voice of reason, and mentor to help me develop into the coach I am today

His words say it better than I ever could.

For years he's dealt with injuries, with self limiting beliefs, with those existential moments that pop up when you put yourself out there like this. But despite that, he never stopped wanting, he never stopped trying

And on Sunday at the 27k mark when it would have been the easy choice to stop, when the pain of the marathon showed up, the training kicked in. Not just the physical training but the part about how to embrace being uncomfortable and remembering why he started in the first place. The part about overcoming all the crap it took to get here.

That's what I'm most proud of.

We all learn a lot about ourselves preparing for and running a marathon, but Tariq is right, you don't do it alone. You need the people that care about you most around you.

To go from training partners ten years ago to me being your coach and getting to see you finish your first marathon is something I'll never forget.

Love ya T

CMON T!!!!

Proud of you mate.

How Cycling Helped Me Run 1:28:50 23 Days After Starting To Run Again.

I had a few good workouts leading into the race, but thats not much time to get fit, it was the 5 months before those 23 days that made rhe difference

Two weeks after the injury, I would limp and hobble my way to the gym every single day and I would sit on that bike and bruise my ass for 3 to 4 hours a day. Thailand, Bali, Korea, it didn't matter where I was, I would find a bike and I would do the work.

There were a lot of days in there where I thought is this a waste of time? I was a runner who couldn't run, sitting on a bike going nowhere, literally. The mind games were loud. Everyone else was out running and I was in a corner trying to make a stationary bike feel meaningful.

But that's the whole thing. You have to do what you can with what you have, while you have it.

I couldn't run, but I could still develop the qualities that make you good at running. I could still train my heart and my lungs. I could still practice being uncomfortable for a long time. I could still practice showing up when there was no validation.

And if you do what others aren't willing to do when it's boring and unsexy, you give yourself a chance to do things that don't make sense on paper.

This race proved the utility of all that time. Not just physically, but mentally. Every hour I spent on that bike was a deposit into trusting myself. That when things get hard you have something to draw on.

We overcomplicate coming back from injury. We think we need the perfect cross-training plan, but really we need to stop mourning what we can't do and get ruthlessly committed to what we can do.

Sore ass and all, it was worth it.

#

For The Love Of Getting Better - Sajal

Sajal came to me about four months ago and what I liked about him straight away was that he wasn't coming to me to chase a time on a piece of paper.

He just genuinely loves running and wanted to give that passion a bit more direction, to have some structure behind it so he could actually enjoy getting better at something he cares about.

And when you approach it like that, the pbs kind of take care of themselves.

This weekend he ran Lonely Mountain Ultra 50k up at Gaanha-bula / Mt Canobolas just outside of Orange, which is a beautiful but demanding course, and he took 42 minutes off his 50k time!

Four months of consistent, thoughtful work and listening and applying the little things, and this is what happens when you love the process.

Couldn't be prouder of you Sajal, and we're just getting started.

If you love running like Sajal does and you want a bit more direction behind it, flick me a message and I'll tell you how I can help

Get Over Yourself
Willpower Rule #1

You don't need more motivation. You need less ego.

I saw this so clearly at Yodogawa last week. First few k's, legs like concrete, headwind off the river at 11km, that voice in my head getting loud telling me to quit, to be reasonable, to ease off.

If I listened to every emotion I had in that race, I would have jogged it in.

Here's what I’ve learnt about willpower since my first memories of it when I was 8-years old.

Emotions are data. Not instructions.

You can feel fear and still move. You can feel like quitting and still keep going. The feeling is information, it’s not an order you have to follow.

You chose this. Own it.

You laced up the shoes. You signed up for the race. You decided to build something hard. So stop acting like this suffering is happening to you. It’s happening because of you. And that’s where your power is.

Responsibility = Power.

When you stop making it about how you feel right now and start making it about who you’re becoming because you didn’t quit, everything changes.

When you get humble enough to realise the pain isn’t personal, it becomes purposeful.

So here’s your checklist for next time your head gets loud. Save this:

1. Is this about me or the mission?
2. Am I acting on feeling or on choice?
3. Can a human do this?

Yes. It can. So can you.

Get over yourself.

4 seconds.
I ran a 1:28:50 half marathon on Wednesday.
My PB is 1:28:46.

I missed my all-time best by 4 seconds, 23 days after I started running again, and it might be the most valuable 4 seconds of my career.

Don't get me wrong, I've always cared about the clock. There was always an attachment there that wasn't always healthy. But this one was different.

When I crossed that line, I didn't look at my watch and feel disappointment. I through face into my hands and cried. Deeply. The kind of crying that comes from way down.

Because in that moment it wasn't about 1:28:50 at all. It was about everything it took just to get to that start line in Osaka.

It was 5.5 months of mental warfare. It was 171 days without running. It was 3-4 hours a day on a stationary bike for 5 months staring at a wall to hold onto whatever fitness I could. It was 3x strength session per day, 7 days a week, to rehab an 8-month injury in under 6 months, including a re-injury just 4 months ago.

We all know the cliche, "its about the journey, not the destination".
I felt it on Wednesday.

That 4 seconds was so wonderfully humbling. It took any last bit of ego about what I thought I deserved from this race and stripped it away.

It wasn't supposed to be a storybook PB on comeback day. It was supposed to be hard, and hot, and windy off that river, and me having to dig out of a massive hole from 13 to 16km and find a way to finish fast

The 4 seconds didn't take value away from the day. It gave value to everything before the day.

If I had run 1:27, it would have been easy to say "cool, I'm back, what's next." But 1:28:50 forced me to sit in it. To realise the best part was never going to be the time. The best part was that I got to be back at all. Racing in Japan. Cheering for people in the last 2km. Sprinting with nothing left. Being part of it again after so long away.

Journey over destination isn't a quote anymore. It's something I felt in my chest at that finish line with tears running down my face.