Dion Finocchiaro – 6 Hour Track Record

Dion Finocchiaro is a name that is starting to get a lot of recognition. Gradually he’s establishing himself as one of Australia’s top ultra runners and most recently Dion broke the nation 6-Hour track record with an astounding 84.6km. It’s a sensational run to say the least, but something tells us there’s plenty more to come!

What events did you do in preparation for the 6-hour track run?

I didn’t do any events in particular in preparation for the run. I’ve been doing a lot of running lately with a mix of Tuesday track/speed work, a lot of recovery runs, long runs, hill and tempo runs.

Did you think the record was achievable before the race?

I knew what the record was before the race. I never thought it was a possibility. Yiannis kouros is an amazing runner and to beat one of his records in an honour.

What was going through your mind as the race progressed? 6 hours is a bloody long time to be doing laps!

I knew that I started too fast as I was chatting with some of the other runners and they were telling me what pace we were running. So I tried to slow it down a bit but is was hard as Francesco and Barry were both setting a super quick pace up front. We were doing around 4:10’s-4:15’s for the first couple of hours. 2 hours in I started to feel really tired and that I wouldn’t make it to 6 hours. I just told myself to stick to it and make little achievable goals and take it one step at a time. At 3 hours I’d ran around 43km and was still 3 laps behind Francesco so I had my work cut out for me. I knew that if I could just stick to my pacing and race plan I would be giving myself the best chance possible of catching him. I really struggled for a period  in the 4th hour and at one stage I had to walk  most of a lap and reassess my situation. A lot of other runners and spectators offered some great encouragement and it gave me a great buzz. I lifted and started running back at 4:15/km pace and I started to get my second wind and get passed the wall. As the race went on I felt comfortable with my pace- although I was super exhausted. In the last 30 minutes I wanted to increase my pace but struggled to feel good throughout. I think I managed to average 4:13/km for the last 30 minutes.

What nutrition strategy did you follow?

My approach to nutrition was purely liquid based. I used Heed, Perpetuem and electrolytes by Hammer Nutrition with extra water for hydration. The same nutrition as I used for my first solo 100km last year which has worked really well for me.

How has the first couple days of recover been going?

Well, after working Sunday night in the kitchen, I went for an easy hour run at the Yarra flats early Monday morning with some of the guys I train with from Melbourne Athletics Club followed by a beach recovery session. Tuesday A.M. I went for an easy 30 minute run and an easy 1 hour P.M. run and a Physio appointment.

What will you do over the next week?

I’m not quite sure to be honest. My Coach (Andy DuBois) usually sends my weekly training schedule on Tuesday evening so I’ll find out soon. But I’m sure it wont be too intense. We’ve discussed that the 6 hour event was a hard training run so training wont be held back too much.

What does a normal week of training look like?

At the moment I am building as I had a slow start to the year due to an injury. I’ve started building a big base and increasing my km’s accordingly. Normally it consists of Monday, Wednesday and Saturday being easy runs, Tuesday being 2 runs and one of which is a track session, Thursday a long easy run, Friday 2 runs which one is a tempo run and Sunday is my longest run of the week. So its a lot but I’ve taken a bit more time off work to make it all work.

What are your plans for the rest of 2015?

Well I have a few races coming up. Oxfam Trail Walker is 4 weeks away, World Wings Run For Life is on the 3rd of May which are all in preparation for the Gold Coast 100km on June 7th. I am aiming for around the 7:10-15 time frame.

Then after that its all focusing on Melbourne Marathon on 18th October where I really want to get a massive PB around 2:25.