Adventure Stories: Kat Kingsley and 4 Day Enduros

Kat and I met a couple of weeks ago to share adventure stories and have a cuppa at Naut Bar in Bibra Lake.

I hadn’t had the opportunity to meet her before and I was so psyched to hear all about her recent Australian 4-day Enduro where she competed on the WA Women’s team and came 8th in Australia.

This wasn’t the first enduro that Kat competed in. 5 years ago she went to an event on the East Coast where she learned a lot but didn’t end up completing the race, dropping out on day 3 severely dehydrated and unwell. She was so unwell that on the day she withdrew, she was unable to walk or talk to people. The learnings she took from this event only set her up for success this time around.

She spent some time explaining the format of the race where over 3 days the contestants ride 250km a day with a final sprint on the 4th day. The way she described it made me think of running a marathon a day for 3 days followed by a fast 10km run on day 4- hardcore. 

The long-distance days were completed in loops coming back to a base camp area where the athletes could refuel, drink, and rest if needed.

This time, Kat’s preparation was multifaceted. Kat not only trains to be a competitive athlete but was also working full time AND was completing an MBA in the lead-up to the event.

In the lead-up to the event she knew she would have limited and wanted to make sure she had enough energy for everything she was doing. She knew the temptation to just eat a piece of toast would be there if she didn’t have a plan for how to eat enough nutritious food regularly. Having recently learned she feels much better on a gluten-free diet, she outsourced her dietary decisions to a meal delivery service to make sure she could eat well while juggling all the other aspects of her life. This made a huge impact on her life and her energy levels in the lead-up to the event and during the event. Given she was riding so many kilometres each day, she needed to know she was eating enough calories to refuel for that day and the next days of the competition.

Having learned from the previous enduro where she became unwell, Kat also made sure she was hydrating properly throughout the event. Knowing that by the time you feel thirsty, you’re already mildly dehydrated, Kat wore a camelback when riding and after each lap prioritised electrolyte drinks when needed.

In training for the event, Kat rode her bike twice a week to work on technical skills and endurance. She also trained most days in the gym completing a custom strength program from ThrashMoto Co.

After seeing her posting about this on social media months before I had even met her, I signed up for Thrash Moto Co’s general program- Workout Of the Month and gave it a go for a few weeks which was really interesting. This program focuses on whole-body mobility and joint health, as well as single-leg strength and a lot of plyometric power building. Not all that different to what is needed in mountain bike training.

The last core pillar that Kat worked on was sleep. In these multi-day events, it’s not unusual to struggle to sleep from adrenaline, nerves and excitement. In Kat’s previous race a few years ago, she described her body just being so sore from riding all day that it was too painful to sleep. With all the training and preparation in the lead-up to this event, she was in a much better place to sleep at night which only helped her recover better to ride again the next day.

Kat also had daily ice baths to aid her recovery after riding which she feels made a massive difference to her ability to sleep at night and ride again the next night.

Speaking of recovery, I asked how she felt recovering after the event and she seemed surprised by how little she struggled after the event. On day four she was walking around feeling good- not even sore like she expected to feel. Her energy was fine and she got to enjoy feeling the pride of such a huge accomplishment. 

One possible reason for this is that Kat has heavily invested in the skill of listening to her body and what she needs in the last few years. While there are things that she aims to do each week such as gym sessions, eating well and riding her motorbike, she is very flexible and will happily forego a gym session for a walk on the beach with her sweet dog Bear and a cold-water swim if her body is telling her she isn’t feeling it that day.

She prefers exercising outside with her dog when she can and I’ve seen many a sunrise stair climb video on her social media. Kat also likes to do yoga at home and other stretch or mobility routines pretty regularly with the occasional sauna and breathwork session thrown in.

There is no “perfect” week in terms of self-care because it’s fluid and fluctuating and a constant exercise in listening to what it is she needs. Putting too much pressure on herself to stick to a rigid structure is counterproductive and what you really need is to listen to your body. Consider how you feel, how stressed you are, how well you’ve slept and if you’ve remembered to drink water. If you’re not feeling at your best then maybe a scheduled fast run wouldn’t be a good choice.

When asked what it was that she loved about the enduro event, Kat's eyes grew large and she got a goofy, happy grin. The first thing that came to mind for her was the challenge and all the learning and development that went into it- the nutrition, the gym workouts, the on-bike training and prepping her mindset.

Her mindset work was key- with so much going on in her life she knew she had to maintain her drive and her energy. She knew she needed to stay confident in her riding and just take action every day. As someone who likes to think about mindset a lot, she was often consciously using her inner dialogue. Her aim was to think about taking action, pushing past fears and getting a little bit better each day in the gym or on the bike.

Building confidence in these small everyday actions helped her to tackle the bigger event. She knew that if she wasn’t prepared, she would go into it being scared or ignorant.

Another thing Kat loved about the event was being there with a team. She always had people around and the atmosphere was amazing. This made her feel grateful to be a part of a sport where everyone supported each other. The event helpers would be there every time she pulled up and was tired -they fill her camelback or help her fill her bike. The other riders would cheer each other on and have great chats- even the girls from other states who were competing against her. Despite competing against each other, they were still building each other up.

There wasn’t too much she would do differently in retrospect- mostly it was just practicing on the sand more and getting some professional support in setting up her bike’s suspension, something that can help you be faster and safer on the bike.

Getting the suspension sorted out can help to conserve energy to ride faster and longer. Making sure the bike is fit to your body can also help to prevent overuse injuries and forearm pump- this mostly comes from the handlebar angles and lever positioning.

Kat’s route into the sport was surprisingly through horse riding where she met someone who introduced her to quad bikes. Then her boyfriend at the time introduced her to dirt bikes. She loved it and bought her first bike from a nurse who had had too many crashes and didn’t want to continue riding. It immediately became a part of her life and she began riding all the time.

Between the cost of the bike, safety gear, club membership and insurance with motorbike WA, it can be an expensive sport to enter. To help with this, Kat is passionate about coaching women in the sport and in the future will rent out bikes to women to help remove the entry barrier to dirt biking.

One of the things Kat loves doing most is women’s only group coaching weekends where everyone is at a similar skill level and can meet other people with the same interests. She has also recently started Wild Child Adventures- retreats for teenagers and women around Australia. Kat’s main drive now is to work towards something with impact and purpose and passion, to wake up every day and have a positive impact on people's lives. This will all tie back to her history of moving through trauma through self-development, mindset, nature and sports.

Kat has always wanted to do public speaking and share her story to help others and she has recently been a guest speaker at a few Savage Angel events (Savage Angel is a business that empowers girls 11-17 to live truly empowered & influential lives.) She says Savage Angel has given her the confidence that this is possible and has given her a lot of inspiration. Savage Angel is a very different style to like any other self-development that she's seen. It's parental support but it's also just as much about the teenagers.

This is something she wants to be reflected in her Wildchild Adventures retreats- teaching tools of mindset and ways of life, movement and nature and tuning in with self to develop that self-awareness. She wants to show people that it might be hard right now, but you can get through it with tools that you learn along the way.

Wildchild Adventures is about personal value. It's about your inner child. The average adult is going to work, and coming home to watch tv. Kat wants to wake up that inner child and show them a different way of life. Show them that adventuring doesn't have to be a big deal and you don't have to drive an hour to go adventuring.

You can add a little bit of adventure into every single day, even if you have kids, even if you have a dog. It's just a different way of life- feeding your inner child and, and feeding that sense of awe. Getting outside your comfort zone and going adventuring somewhere else.

Kat’s plan for Wildchild Adventure Retreats is to add hiking and mountain biking tours with activities like journaling and connecting with self and meditation. She wants it to be so much deeper than just going for a walk.

Thinking back to how adventure has helped her on her journey and self-development, she sees it as creating space and reconnecting with herself. Getting away from distractions, and getting into your body. Moving your body and breathing fresh air. Then doing something a little bit challenging, getting herself in a little bit of a pickle and then getting herself out of the pickle. That helps develop your self-confidence and belief in yourself. Kats laughingly said she gets herself in pickles all the time. “Pickle juice is delicious” she added.

Kat clarified that it's important to recognise her challenge limit might be very different to someone else's- it's still all relative to the person.

At some stage you just have to be willing to accept things won't go as they are as you want them to be. You have to have a level of acceptance because you can't control everything. In the four-day enduro she took care of hydration and food, she trained hard in preparation and worked on her mindset. She controlled so many controllables, and yet there was still room for adventure.

There's still room to learn and grow and develop. There’s room for curiosity and meeting new people and being challenged in ways you never expected. Not everything will be ideal and you have to have some peace with it as well.

You have to find a way to let go of expectations of an outcome- expectations are almost like putting this hard stop. If you expect yourself to be coming fifth and say you're coming eighth, and you let that control your mind, it takes the fun out.

“There is nothing, no, no routine, no fucking habit that is perfect. Life is meant to be up and down. It’s important to develop self-awareness to realise when you’re not doing the things that you want to do with your life. When you’re not living to that higher self, living in alignment with what you actually want in life and who you want to be.”

If you want to know more about any of the people we’ve talked about you can follow the links below:

Australian 4 day Enduro: https://www.a4de.com.au/

Thrash Moto Co: https://www.instagram.com/thrashmotoco/?hl=en and https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/team/thrash-moto-co-enduro-fitness-101

Savage Angel: https://www.facebook.com/savageangelgirls/about

WildChild Advenutres: https://wildchildadventures.com.au/ and https://www.instagram.com/wildchild.4dventures/