Michael Sheekey

I first heard about Gaby after listening to Patto’s Backyard Ultra Podcast in January 2025.  I think Gaby was on 2 separate podcasts, and it made me realise that I had a huge knowledge gap based on the events I was planning to do in 2025.

Soon after, I joined Gaby’s Fuel to Thrive Academy and had a fantastic experience that also produced strong results in my 1^st 3 Backyard Ultras. In my 1^st event in Sydney in mid April, I was able to go for 32 laps / hours or 212km, and this was so much further than I had expected or had done before – previous longest run was 70km in December 2024 (see below), less than 4 months earlier.

The biggest factor was that I had a nutrition plan based on my work with Gaby & it has been well practiced & tested. In my 3^rd BYU in Sydney Sept 2025, I was able to complete 48 yards / hours or 320km. Once again, having a great nutrition plan and fuelling well during my training, were absolute key factors. 

Before joining the programme, I was in the process of increasing my running volume to prepare for my 1^st BYU in April 2025.  I was getting quite fatigued and my nutrition was not matching my training.  I had also been in an event about 3.5 months before (Narrabeen All Nighter-12 hour event) and had struggled with some stomach bloating and just general lack of energy and ended up quitting about 7 hours in.  

Gaby taught me the value of fuelling enough & correctly for my training & this made a big difference. Two of her key sayings that have stuck with me are along the lines of ‘your training session is not over until you have refuelled’ and ‘your correct weight for the event is whatever weight you are, after all of your training and proper fuelling’.  

I can’t recommend Gaby highly enough. In addition to the things above, she is just such a lovely person and very passionate about what she does and she sincerely cared about my progress during her course and also afterwards.