I have an awesome coach, but it hasn’t always been this way and I’ve always created my own training plans based on a hodge podge of information.

I would pay for a subscription coaching service, pick out the parts of that I liked and then add in bits and pieces I’d collected along the way from courses, books, podcasts and social media.

Some things worked and other things, not so much.

One thing I stole in 2022 that I really enjoyed was the concept of a training camp.

Camps are a bit of a niche activity in the trail world but over the past couple of years seem to be a bit more common.

I’m sure it’s an attempt to model after elite cycling camps or when olympic track teams travel to altitude for a little bit for those performance gains but, at least from looking Lo from the outside in, trail camps, as is most things in trail running, seem to be a little more relaxed. There’s a lot of focus on food and recovery, watching movies, chatting around the camp fire and making funny Instagram reels.

So it seemed kinda weird to create a solo running camp. I heard about it on the KoopCast and their coaches swear by it.

The plan seemed simple enough. 4-6 weeks out from your event you have one massive weekend. You can 5X your training over 2-4 days, focus on recovery and practicing your race day fuelling and gear and get some pretty epic training gains out of it. The suggestion was even made to put a big race in the middle of the weekend, as long as you don’t go all out and “race” it (not a problem for me, I’ve never ‘raced’ anything in my life!).

I created by first camp in 2022 and centred it around the Peaks and Trails race as my 50k. It was meant to be a training stimulus for the Cairns to Port Douglas race a few months later but in reality the courses couldn’t be more different.

But I was proud of my nutrition plan and carried all the gear that was required so it was still a good learning experience.

With my coaches help, I thought I’d try again for Taupo 100k, which is in exactly 7 weeks time.

I tried to centre it around a race but I didn’t think there was something on that would be comparable to the Taupo trails. It was either a difficult 50k in the mountains or a road event.

So we decided on a more local “camp” on similar trails near my home.

For context, my weekly mileage at the moment is about 90km (8-9 hours) spread over 6 days. There’s usually a workout and a long run, plus I throw in some run/walking (about 10km worth) because my dogs are too old to just run.

Day 1: 20km

I had a rough plan. I wanted to get in undulating trails that weren’t too vert heavy and would challenge me to run every step. I blame consuming all the post Leadville David Roche content and wanting to join the “no hike” club. I thought it would be good practice as in longer races I tend to pike on little climbs and the difference between my running speed and my walking speed is significant.

I was pretty chuffed to run almost every step, only walking for about 30 seconds on a climb that just got the mental best of me.

Day 2: 3 1/2 to 4 hours

I suck at timed workouts. Usually because I am doing an out and back for logical reasons and I’m no good at factoring in my fatigue on the return leg.

This was a replacement for the 50k mountain trail race.

Head out to Leg 3 of Surf Coast Century was the instruction.

This required a little more consideration as this leg is the most isolated of the course, no water or any thing out there, in spots there isn’t even phone reception.

So I carried extra snacks and a 2L bladder of water in the back just in case.

What I failed to factor in was the rain overnight so the road heading to the trail was very very slippery and basic peanut butter mud. Oops

Honestly this run was a complete struggle, mentally but mostly physically. It had real end of race vibes and I just did my best to keep moving forward so hopefully I can remind myself of this run on race day.

Day 3: 20k

I was worried about this one. Day 2 was really hard and I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage another 2 hours.

I felt like I didn’t do the best job with meeting the assignment of undulating trails so I went back to Currajong to run the trails.

I felt surprisingly fresh. I tried to run as much as I could. I knew it was uphill but it didn’t look it, so I just took it one switch back at a time.

The fatigue presented in multiple near misses as I constantly stubbed my toes and tripped forward. It’s nothing short of a miracle that I’m not all kinds of damaged from kissing the dirt.

I was stoked to get it done and head to a bathroom. It was the first really warm day and I didn’t want to risk a bush wee if all the snakes were walking up!

Over the course of the weekend I managed to narrow down a few gel flavours and practice the mental skills of moving when you really just wanna walk.

As much as it was annoying to keep stubbing my toes, it was a reminder to lift your feet when you are tired and just tapping as fast as you can.

Was it beneficial? I don’t know, I guess only time will tell.