Trail to TUM: Part 2: Gone Nuts Adventure Race Recap

By Mal Hurley

Preparation Reflections

It’s the day before Nuts-mas, which means that I am tapered, fresh, and I have now had waaaay too much time to reflect on my preparation and overthink everything.

I went into this event last year with a burning desire to get the 100km monkey off my back - I had previously had two DNFs from two starts at this distance, including a 70km DNF at this race in 2022 – spoiler alert, I finally ticked that box in 2024 and in the process I officially became a “Total Nutter” having now finished all major distances at this event - this year I want to do it better.

Coming into the event in 2025, I am feeling confident – I’ve dealt with the niggles that plagued me throughout 2024, and I’ve had a solid six-months of training, and while I’ve been dealing with some niggles here and there, overall, the body is feeling good, and I feel like I’m as ready and prepared as I have ever been.

The Training

After a couple of years of interrupted training, the build started in September with training for the Point to Pinnacle race; this gave me some great building blocks with consistent road running combined with plenty of uphill running, this then transitioned into long runs on the trails, while trying to maintain easy effort mileage during the week on both the roads and trails.

Being a mid-to-back of the pack runner, that is carrying more weight than most doctors would recommend, I’m never going to be able to rack up big mileage - my biggest running week has been a little over 60km - but I’ve instead been focussing on time, consistently hitting 10+ hours of training per week, and peaking at over 12 hours.

In this training block, one thing I have done differently is to build in a lot more cross-training – I have invested in a new bike and using this to add a few hours each week has been a great way to build more easy training volume without putting more impact stress on the legs.

What's the Game Plan?

So last year I finished in just shy of 24 hours and barely ran a step – this was a deliberate strategy to get me to the finish line – this year I would like to do better.

My strategy is to run/walk the runnable bits, hike the hills and rough sections, and just go with the flow, but specifically keep things under control and relaxed for as long as possible. Last year I spent over 2-hours in the aid-stations, so I’m aiming to reduce that to less than 1-hour this time around, and with a much better understanding of my fuelling needs, I am in good a good position to maintain the effort for longer without crashing (I hope).

With the benefit of running this event 6-times already, I believe I’m in shape to complete this in under 20-hours if I have a good day – so that’s my target – but it’s important to recognise that this time actually has no bearing on my success or failure.

Whatever happens, my goal is not to hit any time or break any records, rather than to go out and have a day that I feel proud of.

It’s time to Go Nuts – Bring it on!!

Race Day: Gone Nuts 2025 – 101km

Well, one week on from race day and I’m still struggling with how to write this race review if you’re looking for the TLDR version – well, the short version is that I DNF’d yet another attempt at the 100km distance, but this time I feel great about it – keep reading if you want to know why.

Leg 1: 0-27 km Dark o’clock at King’s Park in Stanley saw 120 odd hardy souls line up to set out on an adventure across the coastline of NW Tasmania – some with plans to be done before dark, others with plans to see a second sunrise – my plan fell somewhere in the middle, with my crew working from a spreadsheet set up for a finish in 19.5 hours.

After a brief chat from the RD, and a quick countdown, we were away - a trail of hopes and headlamps heading off up the Stanley Nut to survey the scenery and awaken the sleeping mutton-birds.

At some point, the dark gave way to the grey of the early dawn, and shortly after the light of day, as the runners rapidly spread out across the Stanley coastline.

The next few hours all went fairly uneventfully, left foot, right foot, repeat … walk, run, eat, drink, repeat - and just like that the early k’s, and early milestones gradually ticked off … ☑ get up the nut, ☑ get off the nut, ☑ hand off the headlamp to my wonderful support crew, ☑ checkpoint one, ☑ black river boat crossing, ☑ meet my wonderful crew at the 17km checkpoint, and with more of the same over the next 10km, before long I was trotting into the first transition area at Mawbanna around 15 minutes ahead of target, but with everything going according to plan – 27km down, 75 to go.

A ten-minute stop at Mawbanna gave me a chance to refuel, change clothing and socks, and restock ready for the second 25km leg, and before long I was trotting my way out heading off into the back woods of Mawbanna.

Leg 2: 27-51 km

If I thought the first leg was uneventful, the second was even more so, with the next couple of hours passing without a sign of another soul, but with patience, and assistance from my trusty Shokz headphones, the k’s continued to tick by, as did the checkpoint at 32km, and I soon found myself looking forward to the challenge of Knife Edge Ridge that lay ahead – yes you heard that right, I was actually looking forward to it.

"a picture of Knife Edge Ridge would be good here, but I don't have one."

Knife Edge Ridge is a series of three steep, loose, rocky, and exposed climbs that have the habit of destroying the souls of many a Gone Nuts hopeful, and just when you have finished the climbs, you get the privilege of coming face to face with the aptly named ‘descent of doom’ that is steep enough, and slippery enough to have you wish for more uphill – and somehow I was looking forward to this soul-sucking suffer fest; while I’ve dreaded this in the past, this time I saw it as a right of passage, and a challenge I get to face to earn the right to enter the second half of the race.

With the challenge of Knife Edge Ridge behind me, I had the honour of meeting up with a fellow runner for the final few k’s into Rocky Cape and the half-way checkpoint, and just like that, the first half was done and dusted, just three minutes behind my predicted 9-hours.

Leg 3: 51-75 km

A 15-minute stop at Rocky Cape again gave me a chance to change clothes, change socks, and take on some food and water, but while starting to feel 9 hours on my feet, I left the transition area with some pep in my step and feeling good for the second half – (Narrators note: little did he know that this is where the wheels were going to fall off).

Entering Rocky Cape I was feeling great, the climbs through Rocky Cape have always been difficult for me in the second half of this race, but today I felt strong and was powering up the hills, this filled me with a lot of confidence because I was still climbing strongly, running the easy sections and continuing to make good time despite having over 50km in my legs; unfortunately before long, my feet started to give up, hot spots on the balls of my feet, quickly turned to blisters, and when I hit the turn towards anniversary bay, I made the necessary stop to address the rapidly developing problem areas … only being a few km from support at Sisters Beach, I gritted my teeth, battled the demons, went through all stages of the grief cycle several times, and pushed on – albeit at a much slower pace.

Fig 5. The views from Rocky Cape are spectacular on a nice day.

Coming into Sisters Beach, I was in a world of pain … the hot spots had become blisters on the balls of my feet, and despite stopping to tape and do what I could on the trail, the blisters had continued to grow and get very angry over the subsequent k’s.

From the Sisters Beach checkpoint to the Boat Harbour transition area was only around 7km, so I convinced myself that I could at least suffer that long – I wasn’t willing to DNF at Sisters Beach for a second time – but once I started on the rough and rugged Postman’s Track, I knew that my day was over … I wasn’t prepared to pay the Postman’s toll on this occasion and my day would end at the 72km mark.

The Post-mortem

In all my previous DNF’s, the mental toll that it has taken has been immense, the feeling of being a quitter, the repetitive second-guessing of the decision, and the overwhelming feeling of failure – but this time has been completely different.

Fig 6. This is me NOT crossing the finish line.

To be clear, my decision-making has been no different, in fact, if anything, I said stop earlier this time than I have on any of the other occasions. Was it possible to push through the pain and finish anyway? – absolutely – but at what cost? How long would I be out of action? How would this affect work and life? I didn’t have anything that I needed to prove to either myself nor anyone else, so on this day, I decided to choose sanity and survive to come back another day.

I feel that the main difference this time is that my goal was to test my strength; to test my training, my fuelling, and my nutrition as a stepping stone on the Trail to TUM … the outcome of the race was almost irrelevant, it was the process that I cared about.

The fact is, that I got through over 12-hours of challenging trail, managed my pace well, managed my fuelling well, hydrated well, and after 12+ hours, I was still climbing well, still running, keeping to my race plan, and in general feeling great and well on track to smash my target – I didn’t get the privilege of running down the finish chute or collecting the shiny medal at the end, but I still feel like the day was a success, and I can’t ask for much more than that.

Sometimes success is more about the process than the result.

So while the end of the day wasn’t what I had in mind, I am happy with the outcome all the same, and I get to bank those lessons and come back even stronger.

11-months to TUM

Stay tuned, next month I’ll be providing a run-down of my plans for the year ahead.

Follow Malcolm's Journey on his Instagram account here.

Written and edited by Malcolm Hurley, of OVERLAP Consistent Running Coaching.

Malcolm is a Level 1 Recreational Running Coach with Athletics Australia, with over 8-years of personal endurance running experience including multiple, half marathons, marathons, and ultra-marathons up to 100km.

Formatted to Blog by Zac Harris (OVERLAP Founder & Head Coach)

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