The 50 Kilometre Project

Immediately I finished the 50 kilometre in a day project, I thought I should have done 57 and made the kilometres completed self-powered in one day the same as my age. That is the thing with goals, there is always another on the horizon. Here is how the day unfolded.

Average size of coffee/tea

The night before I made sure all my gear was ready to go. Running gear, then kayaking gear, and finally biking gear. I did not need any fancy gels or other food stuffs. That sort of manufactured junk food labelled "sports nutrition" is just nonsense. I would be coming back to my house every couple of hours and would do what I normally do which is eat left-over real food.

14 Kilometre Run

I did, however, start the day with two big mugs of coffee. While it is true I only have one coffee a day, that one coffee is a big one! Then off to run the Dam Loop. This is a distance of 14 km from my house and about 400 metres of elevation gain. I do all my running at nose breathing pace as I do not want to one of the many people who train at too hard a pace and end up with aerobic deficiency syndrome.

Everlasting daisies along the Dam Loop

The Dam Loop is a great mountain bike track that loops around Deep Creek Dam near where I live. It's a beginner mountain bike loop and a really nice track to run. Running in your aerobic zone means you can run a long time without getting tired. It feels really slow when you start, but, done correctly and assiduously it is amazing how much faster you get and how the hills get easier and easier to run.

I called Doug when I was about 20 minutes from home to warn him I was coming as he was going to join me for the next leg of the day, a paddle on the ocean.

21.5 Kilometre Paddle

The days are short and I did not want to find myself on a mountain bike in the dark, so change over at home was pretty quick. Put on paddling clothes, eat a meat patty and a few grapes and trolley the kayak down to our local beach.

The forecast was for light westerlies turning to light southerlies so we were heading south. I needed to do about 20 kilometres in the kayak for the numbers to add to 50 which meant heading south to around Rosedale. It was low tide and very calm, so we paddled close in negotiating the kayaks through the series of rock reefs that run down the coast.

Low tide only beach

At Pretty Point headland we were able to land on a tiny little low tide beach that is usually washed with waves. We still had a few more kilometres to go before turning around so we continued down to Jimmies Island and paddled around it. In the extraordinarily calm conditions we found another little secret beach and also a gauntlet we had not paddled before.

Passing Jimmies Island

Back at our home beach we loaded the boats on the trolleys and walked home. Doug washed the kayaks and gear while I got ready for my final leg.

18 Kilometre Mountain Bike

A home made fishcake, another handful of grapes, and a decaf coffee and off I went on the bike. I was heading back up to the Dam mountain bike tracks but this time I would ride Jackhammer, Little Canada, Ho Chi Min, a new, as yet unnamed track, and finish on the Dam Loop. Eighteen kilometres of riding from our house and 490 metres of gain. Jackhammer rolls wonderfully down to 20 metres ASL on the Tomago River while riding out on Ho Chi Min and the new track back up to 140 metres ASL always feels like a bit of a grunt.

At the top of Jackhammer

It was a beautiful ride and I was faster than I thought I would be. A couple of the steeper hills defeated me and I had to push the bike for a few metres at a time, but, overall, I felt surprisingly good. The tracks are very pretty, bright green now we have had rain with the sun filtering through the forest.

The final stretch along the last bit of the Dam Loop felt steeper than I remembered it and I had to work to get up even the smaller hills. It was not until I was speeding down the forest road towards home that I realised I had the bike in a higher gear than normal.

The start of the uphill section

To fully develop your aerobic system, you should do most of your training at a low heart rate (I use nose breathing pace) but, you do need to hit the top end sometimes as well. I do my top end training on my mountain bike as there is no way you can ride up a steep mountain bike trail at nose breathing pace and riding trails makes for fairly natural interval training.

Final Tally

My final tally for the day was 53.5 km and 890 metres of elevation gain. So close to 57 kilometres I wish I had thought of that before. But, there is always next week....