Training for 100km Over 48 hours: How Glenn Prepared For The Hut 2 Hut

Learn how Glenn used the Online Summit Program to train and prepare for a grueling 100km challenge event. Discover the training he used, the challenges he overcame and how it all went on this incredibly strenuous and challenging event.

Glenn's Background
In Training And Hiking

Glenn did not have a lifelong background in hiking or running. In fact, Glenn had discovered his passion for hiking only a couple of years ago (and hadn't run in about ten years!).

Originally he tried hiking as another way to exercise, which would help him improve his health, lose some weight and avoid aggravating his aches and pains (which were some chronic ankle, knee and back issues).  

He was first struggling his way through a short day hike. Then more challenging day hikes. Then overnighters. And then multi-day adventures.  

And then, just before we started working together, he completed a major 160km Alpine Hike.

That in itself was an incredible journey.

But Glenn liked a challenge. And he came to the point where he felt like he could comfortably complete any hike he had available.  And he wanted to push himself further.

One option was doing longer and longer hikes. But with a young family, this wasn't realistic. Another option was stepping up into mountaineering. But with international travel shut down, this wasn't an option. And the other option was stepping up into challenge events.   

And that is where the idea for the Oscars Hut To Hut began.

*Want to here a little more about Glenn's journey as he discovered his passion for hiking? You can have a listen to his story here: Discovering Hiking Later In Life - Interview With Glenn

The Oscars Hut 2 Hut Event

The Oscars Hut 2 Hut is a huge challenge event.

It is 100km, across ten of the highest peaks in Victoria, Australia.

It covers 5000m of elevation over some really gruelling terrain. In fact, it was intentionally created to be incredibly difficult.  

Originally, Glenn signed up for this event as a three-day entry. But pretty soon, he decided he really wanted to push himself and changed that to a two-day entry.  

"I've now registered for it as a two-day event. 37.5km and 64.5km! I think I'm most nervous about all the river crossings then trying to maintain a pace on hilly and technical terrain with wet feet!!! I want to avoid the DNF at all costs."

To make things even harder, there were some very challenging cut off times to complete. Which, if you purely looked at the distance/times weren't too major. But if you considered the rough terrain, the elevation, the rocky ridgelines, the river crossings and all that fun stuff, it was going to be a major challenge.

The event itself had a pretty significant DNF rate (did not finish).

Glenn knew this was going to be one of the toughest (if not the toughest) challenge of his life. And that is when he reached out to Summit Strength and joined The Online Summit Program.  

"I realised I had signed up to something I probably wasn't ready for"

THE TRAINING AND WORKOUTS

During our initial assessment process, we identified a few potential areas which needed a bit of work:

• There was a significant difference in quadriceps strength compared to the left and right (which was due to pain/discomfort)
  
  
• There was a tendency for 'inward knee knock' during pushing exercises, which, as well as another factor for glute strength, indicated developing the glute medius (one of the smalls muscles in the bum) would likely be beneficial
  
  
• There was a restricted range of motion seen through the hips

 

• Abdominal endurance had some room for improvement
  

This gave us some clear direction on where to target the strength and mobility work. And hopefully, as this progressed, he would begin to see some difference in his pain and discomfort.

Beyond that, we knew Glenn had a great base of aerobic training under his belt (from about 16 months of pretty continuous hiking), so we wanted to build on this and improve his hiking pace, his speed on elevation and his tolerance for longer distances (all while trying to minimise any aggravation of his ongoing issues).

After discussing what type of time availabilities and equipment access Glenn had we created the initial phase of his training. This included: 

• 3x strength workouts
  
• 1x loaded pack walk
  
• 1x hill intervals
• 1x longer hike
• 1x daily ankle routine
• 1x home recovery/mobility routine

Strength

We knew in order to help prevent pain, and further injury, as well as help, make the elevation more manageable, we needed to get Glenn strong!  

To this end, we incorporated three strength sessions per week, which contained a mix of strength workout, core development and mobility.

This ended up being a combination of both gym training and home strength workouts. 

Loaded Pack Walk 

While Glenn wasn't going to be carrying a heavy pack on his event, we incorporated some longer, loaded pack walking each week. 

The intention here was to 'overload' the working muscles, so when Glenn was hiking with minimal load, everything felt easier, and his body was significantly more resilient. 

Hill Intervals

Luckily enough, Glenn had access to some major hills. For from the get-go, we incorporated loaded hill intervals once per week to help develop local muscular endurance in his legs (i.e. the ability of his legs to produce force again and again and again).

To compensate for his knees and ankles, we made sure Glenn only carried the load on the ascent and was unloaded during his descents:

"I will go to the supermarket and bring a lot of bottles of water in the Ute - Empty them at the top and replace them with full ones when I get back to the car? Easy enough. Will refill them at home between trips."

*An example of one of Glenn's hill interval sessions

Longer Hike

Each week, we incorporated a longer, unloaded hike to be done at 'race pace'.

This was to continue to build his aerobic conditioning, expose his body to the quicker hiking speeds he needed to reach the cut-offs and get some quality time on some rougher terrain. 

Daily Ankle Routine

As Glenn has chronic ankle issues, we incorporated a short, 4-minute daily ankle routine to help strengthen up the supporting structures around the feet and ankles.

Over time, this was adapted and changed to fit in line with recommendations from Glenn's podiatrist and other health professionals.

Home Recovery and Mobility Routine

This was a quick 15-minute session, a combination of targeted foam rolling and mobility drills, to do once or twice a week.

The intention of this workout was to help aid recovery between workouts, reduce muscle soreness and also improve mobility in key areas.

Over the next 16 weeks, we intended to progress and hone in these workouts to get him in the best possible position for his challenge adventure. 


Notes:  

Early on in the program, Glenn decided that in order to match the time cut offs, he we wanted to aim to do a large part of the event running.

To this end, we started to incorporate some walk/run intervals in his longer hiking session per week.

Glenn tracked the pacing with this on his Garmin, aiming to stay in zone 2 (i.e below his aerobic threshold) throughout:  

*For these workouts, the pace was intentionally kept slow, with the intention to stay in the prescribed zone of training. If he needed (or wasn't tracking anything) Glenn could have gone much quicker than these numbers. But he was intentionally keeping things slow and easy to stimulate the particular training adaptations we wanted.

OBSTACLES AND CHALLENGES

Throughout the process, there were a number of obstacles and challenges we had to overcome and work around:

Chronic Ankle Pain

Glenn had chronic ankle pain leading into this program, and it was certainly an ongoing challenge throughout the entire process.

A few weeks into the program, Glenn was told that he had some structural issues in his ankles and would need surgery to fix the issues.

So while Glenn knew his ankles were likely not going to get better until surgery (and would likely very painful/uncomfortable), he was determined to still go through with the event! 

Throughout the process, we regularly had to adapt and adjust the programming to fit around the ankles.

 This included:

• Adjusting certain exercises to fit his podiatrist's recommendations
• Reducing the extra load on the hill intervals 
• Adding in extra recovery post running
• Swapping out some of the on-trail cardio for off feet conditioning
  
  

Hip and Knee Pain

Glenn also struggled with hip and knee pain throughout the program.  

This required a number of adjustments to exercises, workouts and training loads.

Time Limitations

While Glenn loved to hike and train and had a big goal in his sights, he had a young family (a two and a four-year-old, plus a wife) he had to consider.

For this, sometimes times, commitments got tricky, and he had to adjust.

A few things we did:

• At some point, we dropped one of the strength sessions
• We began to swap treadmill sessions (at home) for some of the loaded pack/hill interval session
• Dropped one of the strength session, turned hill intervals into treadmill sessions 
  
  

Family Commitments

Throughout the process, Glenn also had a few family getaways he went on.

And if he knew he couldn't spend the whole holiday training!

During these times we:

• Reduced the workout lengths
• Adjusted the strength training to bodyweight workouts
• Incorporated beach sessions (when he was holidaying on the beach)
  
  

ADDITIONAL STRATEGIES

Throughout the process, we also incorporated a number of additional strategies to help the journey: 

Recovery Sessions In The Pool

Early on, because of Glenn's training load and injury history, we realised recovery was going to need to be prioritised. Initially (while gyms were closed due to COVID), we started with regular foam rolling, active recovery sessions, stretching and nutrition protocols.

However, once gyms opened again, Glenn intentionally joined one with a pool. This allowed him to use it for weekly pool walking/swimming sessions. 

This was particularly useful when Glenn had a flare-up of discomfort or had recently completed a major event (which he had a number of during the training process).

Heart Rate Tracking

Glenn loved his numbers. And before we had worked together, he had diligently tracked his training distances, elevations, RPE's and a number of other metrics.

Because of this, we heart rate training in Glenn's programming, giving him specific 'training zones' and heart rate targets to aim towards for his conditioning and cardio workouts.

Completing The Hut 2 Hut

After a last minute course change due to COVID, Glenn absolutely nailed the event.

However saying this, it certainly wasn't all smooth sailing...

Day One:

On day one, Glenn got into the competitive spirit and threw his plan of 'pacing himself' out the window...

The first 40km of the day was all downhill. And Glenn ran it all. Only problem was, he didn't bring his trekking poles with him. But at this stage, it didn't bother him, and he was flying!

The final 10km of the day involved 2000m of steep, technical ascent. It was through thick vegetation, in 30 degree weather.

80% of the way up here, Glenn's legs started cramping. And that caused him some serious grief on the final part of the day, and to the summit of Mt Buller.

But he got through the climb and finished the first day in 9:20, which was 3 hours ahead of his 12 hour target! And this put him in the top third of the competitions.

*The elevation profile of day 1 (day 2 was the same course, but in reverse)

Day Two:

On day two, Glenn woke up sore. He immediately knew his knees were paying the price for his 40km of downhill running the previous day.

And this day was the previous day's course in reverse, he started the day with a steep, technical 10km descent. Luckily today he had his trekking poles. But he still didn't have much fun...

Once he got off the descent, things began to look up. Everything was still tough, and Glenn wasn't up to running but it was much more manageable. So he put his experience in hiking and trekking into action, and churned through the next 40kms. And even managed a jog to cross the finish line!

In the end, Glenn finished 62nd. And in fact, about a third of people who started the event, did not complete day 2.

But Glenn had made it. And all the hard work had paid off.

"155 started. 106 finished. I came 62nd"

What's Next?

Well, after the success of the Hut 2 Hut, Glenn has a few things in the pipeline:

• At the end of June, he is planning on thru-hiking the Larapinta Trail with his brother. He plans to complete this 230km trail over a period of two weeks.
  
  
• At the end of the year, he is wanting to compete in the Great Southern  Endurance Run. Which involved 100 miles (162 kilometers), with 10800m of elevation over a single stage event. Which is absolutely massive...
  
  
• And one day, when international travel comes back to normal, he still has a mountaineering expedition to summit Aconcagua in Argentina in his sights.
  
  

So the challenges will keep on coming!

Wrapping Up

Glenn is the classic story of grit and determination to get where he wants to be.

This event was something like Glenn had never done before. And when he set his mind to this, he knew he had several limitations (such as his ankle and knee pain and the fact that he couldn't run pain-free).

But Glenn did the work. He sought help from experts and built a team around him to move him forwards.

In the end, Glenn absolutely nailed it. As his coach during this process, I couldn't be prouder. And I really can't wait to see where he takes himself on his next challenges.

You can listen to more details of his preparation and the event here:

"I was coming from a background where 18 months before, I was 30-35kg overweight and hadn't been doing any exercise.

And over the course of 18 months, I was in an event such as this. and I was competing with people who had been doing this for many, many years.

And I came out in a respectable position. it was amazing to get there and meet that level.'

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