How I use AI to prepare for Backyard Ultras

Training plans, nutrition, mindset, race-day mantras. Over the last year AI has quietly become one of my most useful tools for Backyard Ultra prep. Here's how I actually use it.

I'll be upfront: I've tried both Claude and ChatGPT for this. Both work well. The model matters less than how you use it, so pick whichever you're comfortable with and get started.

The way I think about it is this: AI is a personal advisor who is available at any hour, has read everything, and has infinite patience for your specific situation. Most of us don't have a coach. We don't have a sports dietitian or a sports psychologist on retainer. AI fills a lot of those gaps if you're willing to actually use it properly, which means giving it real information and having a real conversation rather than asking it vague questions and accepting generic answers.

Training plans

This is the most obvious use and it genuinely works. Tell it your goal, your timeline, and your current weekly volume. Tell it what constraints you're working with: how many days you can train, whether you have access to trails or you're mostly on roads, whether you have any injuries or niggles to work around. Tell it what your maximum week looks like and how many weeks you have until race day.

From that it can put together a structured build that actually fits your life. You can then have a conversation with it about the specifics: whether to do back-to-back long runs, how to incorporate walk training, when to taper and by how much. If something in the plan doesn't work for your situation, tell it and it'll adjust.

The key thing is to keep talking to it. Don't just take the first plan and disappear. Check back in each week. Tell it how things went. "The long run felt fine but my calves were really sore the next day" is genuinely useful information for it to adjust around. Treat it like a coach you have regular check-ins with, not a one-shot query.

One trick: if you're not sure what information to give it, tell it to interview you. Ask it to ask you questions about your goals, your history, your schedule, until it has what it needs to build a plan. It's a much better starting point than staring at a blank prompt wondering what to say.

Nutrition

This is where I've probably got the most value. I've written about my nutrition plan elsewhere on this journal, but the A/B/C rotation system I use now came directly out of working through my race nutrition with AI.

I gave it my previous race reports, told it what I'd tried, what had worked, what had made me feel sick, how long I was aiming to race and at what intensity. It helped me work through the calorie and sodium requirements for my target duration, identify where my previous approach was falling down (I was under-eating in the first half and paying for it later), and build a rotation plan that addressed flavour fatigue by giving me enough variety without overcomplicating the logistics.

The conversation was genuinely useful in a way that reading generic nutrition guides wasn't, because it was specific to my situation. If you've done a Backyard Ultra before, bring your race notes. Tell it what happened, when it happened, and what you think caused it. It's much better equipped to help you when it has real data to work with.

Mindset

This one surprised me. I hadn't expected AI to be particularly useful for the mental side of things, but it's become one of the more valuable conversations I have in the lead-up to a race.

Before my last race I went through my previous races with it, not just the physical side but the mental experience. Where I'd struggled. What I'd been thinking in the low patches. The moments where I'd seriously considered stopping and what had actually kept me going. Working through all of that out loud, even in text form, gave me a lot of clarity about patterns I hadn't consciously noticed.

From that, we simplified it down to something concrete: a few short statements I could come back to when things got hard. My core one was solve the loop. When things get tough, don't think about the race. Don't think about how many hours are left. Just solve the loop you're in. Do what you need to do to finish this one. Take a seat if you need one. Eat something. Reset. Then go again.

That framing kept me present. It's easy in a long race to get pulled into the future and start doing mental arithmetic about whether you can last another ten hours. That maths will break you. Solve the loop keeps you in the moment.

I also developed a mantra out of those conversations, something to say to myself on each loop when I needed a reset:

It sounds simple, almost too simple. But saying it out loud on the course, meaning it, having it be true at the moment you're saying it, that's powerful. It's an affirmation that's grounded in reality rather than wishful thinking. And it worked. It kept me moving when I was starting to spiral.

Where this is going

I'm interested in what real-time AI support during a race looks like. The idea of having your crew feed notes into an AI model each lap, building up a picture of how you're going, and getting recommendations back ("you're showing signs of sodium depletion, try some broth next loop") is genuinely interesting. We're not quite there in terms of seamless integration, but it's not far off.

For now, the prep side is where the value is clear. Use it for your training plan. Use it to rebuild your nutrition from the ground up. Use it to unpack the mental stuff you haven't said out loud. Spend real time with it and give it real information. The more you put in, the more useful it becomes.

It won't run the loops for you. But it'll make sure you've thought through everything that matters before you start.