Ray's July Article:
No article this month but Ray does recommend you go to this site to learn the basics of kayak paddling. It's a great animated site. Check it out.
http://www.kayakpaddling.net/

Ray's June Article:
Training for a Half Marathon in 6 weeks : Lesson #5

Half Marathon. Just saying that out loud may sound daunting to the average weekend warrior trying to challenge him/herself. In reality, while it’s definitely a challenge, it’s certainly not the Mt. Everest of races. It’s absolutely “do-able” with the right attitude and a little bit of training. I’ll share my sample program, and if you follow it, you should be fine (famous last words!). This is a six-week sample for a person who in starting average shape, so find your race and six weeks out start training. I run three days per week (it’s too hard on my joints to go every day for weeks, so I try to get everything I can out of each run, then maximize rest time between workouts. The one thing I can’t stress enough though, is to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!
It is best to keep a heart rate monitor on if you have one to keep track of you running HR. Do not over do it and keep with in the proper heart rate for your age. Keep within 75% of your max heart rate for endurance running. Check out this web site for more information on HR.
www.runningtools.com

Good luck and have fun with your race!

Week One

Run #1             Three miles easy pace
Day off
Run #2             Three miles easy pace
Day off
Run #3             Three miles easy pace
Day off
Day off

Week Two

Run #4             Five miles easy pace
Day off
Run #5             Four to five miles, pick up the pace a little
Day off
Run #6             Five miles (include some easy hills in the run)
Day off
Day off

Week Three

Run #7             Seven miles (long slow distance)
Day off
Run #8             Five miles with hills
Day off
Run #9             Seven to nine miles (remember, you get two days off after this!)
Day off
Day off

Week Four

Run #10            10 miles (long slow distance)
Day off
Run #11            Seven miles with hills—more difficult pace
Day off
Run #12            Ten miler (race pace for the first seven, then easy last three)
Rest Day
Rest Day

Week Five

Run #13            Do the full thirteen (good pace, but not quite race pace)
Day off
Run #14            Ten miles easy pace
Day off
Run #15            Seven miles easy pace
Day off
Day off

Week Six

Ray's May Article:
First Aid During Races: Lesson #4

One of my coaching mentors always preached to his athletes that “There’s being hurt and there’s being injured—you need to figure out which it is!” “You can play hurt—that just means you’ve got an ‘owie,’ but if you play injured, you’re not helping anybody. Get healthy, rehab, and come back 100%”

As old school as that sounds, it’s actually pretty true. If you’re racing, truly racing, you’re going to hurt. Sometimes you hurt the entire time, other times it’s only for a portion of the race. Knowing how to deal with hurting in order to finish the race is key. When injuries happen, it’s also vitally important to know whether or not it’s wise to try to “drive on” to the finish.

I say this all the time, but I truly believe that you have to know your teammates. You need to train together, hang out together, and drink beer together. Okay, maybe you don’t have to drink beer together, but that’s always helped with the bonding process of teams I’ve been a part of.  When you know each other, you also have a sense of each person’s pain tolerance. This will give you a better idea of the severity of any injury. If your teammate is the kind of guy who never complains about anything, but spends ¾ of the race complaining about knee pain, perhaps there’s a problem.  You also have to be able to trust your teammates if you’re the injured one and you just can’t finish—they need to know that you’re not quitting, it’s just that you’re physically unable. It’s also extremely important that one of your team be the official “first aid guy” to help make the final call—either that you’re being a sissy and need to cowboy up and finish or that it’s a real injury and needs to be tended to by a professional—in which case, you humbly DNF.

Now, for the “nuts and bolts” of what I think are the vital first aid supplies for adventure racing.

1. Water. I know what you’re thinking, but it works for both dehydration (one of your number one enemies during a race), and to irrigate and clean wounds.

2. Band Aids. These are good for covering small cuts, but that’s about it when you’re in the middle of a race.

3. Duct Tape.  This is a must. You should always have a roll of duct tape. It has a million uses, but the #1 first aid use is for blisters. I have also used duct tape over the top of athletic tape to hold a teammate’s knee in a bent position (much like a knee brace), so we could finish the bike portion of the race (we were in first and desperately wanted to avoid a DNF). Great for splints too.  My wife will be the first to tell you that I don’t like to go anywhere without duct tape.

4. Athletic Tape. It’s got a million uses, just like duct tape, but it comes off the skin much easier. I like to start with athletic tape, then move on to the duct tape if necessary. It’s easy to apply, tears easily, and can be used in conjunction with gauze pads for a makeshift pressure bandage.

5. 4X4 Gauze Pads. These are great for covering cuts and road rash. After using the water, just apply one (or more if necessary) of these bad boys, tape it in place, and you’re back in business.

6. More Water. You can never have too much. The extra should be in your transition area—always have more than you think you’ll need.

7.Some type of antibiotic and alcohol pads.  These are for temporarily disinfecting wounds.

You may choose to have a more extensive first aid kit, but the way I see it, if you can’t get by with these things, you should go see the medics anyway.

Ray's April Article:
Hydration. The most boring vital thing about racing… Lesson #3

Probably the most overlooked, yet vitally important aspect of training and racing is hydration. Long gone are the days of Bear Bryant telling his football players that they couldn’t drink water during practice sessions. With more and more research all the time, coaches and athletes are starting to realize the correlation between being properly hydrated and peak performance. Rather than get into the physiology and kinesiology of mobility and how H2O works at the cellular level, let me just give you my philosophy and what’s worked for me (and my teams) over the past ten years or so.

1. Drink plenty of water when you’re not training. I think of this as building up the reservoir in your body. Before you go to bed at night, drink a glass of water (unless you really have issues with getting up multiple times per night). If you do get up in the night, drink a glass of water before you return to bed. When you get up in the morning, drink a glass of water before you do anything else (except getting rid of the water from the night before!). Before each meal, have a glass of water. This will accomplish two things—it will help you fill up before you have a chance to overeat, and will add one more glass to the reservoir. As a drill sergeant of mine used to say, “If you’re not peeing clear at least 6 times a day, you’re not drinking enough water!”

2. Drink plenty of water during your training. When you go on a run, have a waist pack, backpack, or some sort of hydration system. You need to train yourself to drink water during exercise, so that you can do it during a race. Consider it another form of training. Always have water bottles in the kayak or on the bike. Learn how to be able to pass water bottles between teammates during competition—if I’m dry, but my bottle is empty, I shouldn’t have to stop my bike to get water from a teammate. If one of my teammates needs water on the running portion, he/she should be able to get it from me without any of us stopping.

3. Start with a full reservoir. A trick that my teams did before racing was that we tried to have the same sort of “week before” routine. For the three days before the race, as you’re tapering your training and increasing your rest, drink a gallon of water per day. I know it sounds like a lot, but think of it as filling your reservoir to its peak capacity before you start to draw it down.

4. Don’t forget to drink during the race. This sounds so simple, but it never ceases to amaze me how many people end up being heat casualties because they don’t drink any water during competition. By the end (or sometimes sooner), they end up wilting and in some cases worse—throwing up, heat cramps, etc. Don’t rely on your dad’s version of dealing with heat (“just take some salt tabs and you’ll be fine”). I was in a race in the desert and ran across (almost literally) a team from Chicago who had a team member down in what little shade they could find, looking like he rolled in salt.  He had followed the (bad) advice of just taking salt tabs, but the bigger issue was that he was thoroughly dehydrated. We had to call for help for him and gave him our extra gallon of water.

Okay, I know what you’re probably thinking right now, “extra” gallon of water? Yes, when in a race longer than 3-5 hours, I like to keep an extra gallon of water for emergencies. I’d rather lug that extra 7.5 pounds around, than end up out in the middle of nowhere in an adventure race, not being able to move because of a heat related or hydration issue. In shorter races (the “sprints”) of less than 5 hours, I just like to keep an extra water bottle or two in transition areas—full water bottles are something that I like to overpack!

5. Drink a water bottle before you celebrate. Make sure you finish the water bottle, then CELEBRATE with your team. Whether you drink more water, soda, or beer, just be happy that you’ve completed another race (hopefully) healthy—and that includes being hydrated!

Ray's March Article:
Cross Country Running Strategy: Lesson #2

Strategy in the cross-country running portion of adventure races is very important. More important though, is how you’ve trained together as a team in preparation.  Each of your teammates will have one portion of the race that he or she feels the strongest in. With any luck, you will have worked it out so that at least one is good on each part, so that your team can really function effectively. Here are five tips for training (and racing) together for the cross-country portion of an adventure race:

1. Try to train off-road at least 50% of the time. Getting a good base of road mileage is important, but if you’re like me, it gets really boring pounding the pavement week after week. Take a drive to the edge of town, go to a large park, get out in the hills, use old logging roads, whatever. Just get off the pavement once and awhile! The races will be on varied terrain, so get used to it.

2. Try to do training runs with your partners.  Figure out who’s the strongest/most experienced runner and make that person “the pace guy” (or girl).  Your most experienced runner should be able to help you establish a strong pace, but shouldn’t kill you off in the process. Training runs are just that—training, not races, so don’t let them turn out that way.

3. Talk to each other. This sounds simple enough, but what I mean is this:  communicate how you’re feeling during the training runs, so you can work together for team improvement. If you’re dying, perhaps you either need to tether to a stronger runner or perhaps the pace is just too fast for a training run.  If you feel great, say something and perhaps you all can pick up the pace, or maybe it’s your turn to tether someone else.

4. Don’t be afraid to tether. There are different ways to do this. What we’ve done is use a flat woven canvas-like strap or a bungee with a carabineer on the end and stuffed it inside a pocket of my water bottle belt. I always tethered our slower runner during races. (I have also had to be tethered on the end of the biking portion as well, so I’m not claiming to be a superman) If you’re the person who needs to tether, make sure you’ve practiced it, so you aren’t stopping during the run. You should be able to reach into the pocket, grab the carabineer and loop it around your waist, fastening it, all without stopping. This is not a pretty site if it’s done for the first time during a race, so practice.

5. Race the race. Once again, this sounds overly simple, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t do this.  If the running portion starts the race, expect that some teams will take off at a sprint. While I don’t advocate doing this, I also think it’s a mistake to let teams break contact and get too far in front of you. This is where talking to each other pays off. You don’t need to say much, but communication is huge. Are you hurting? Do you feel great? Do you want to slow it down? Whatever, just communicate. When the cross-country portion happens later in a race, this becomes even more critical. Also, if it’s a staggered start, don’t panic if there’s a bunch of teams out there—just try to pick them off one at a time.
6. Remember to have fun. Sounds cliché, but one of the best runs I’ve ever had with my teammates, we told jokes to each other and to other teams as we passed them. We ran hard together, ran well together and had fun.

Until next month…..

Happy training!

Ray's February Article:
Teamwork:  Lesson #1

This is the first in a series of articles dealing with different aspects of teamwork and strategy in adventure racing.  The first lesson is simply this:  choose your team mates very carefully. Rather than a traditional article, this is a collection of my thoughts on the subject…

1. For an adventure racing team, teamwork is vitally important. You must know each other’s strengths and—probably more important—each other’s weaknesses.  Being able to get along when things are going well is the easy part. A true team functions well when they are fatigued.  Fatigue causes racers to make mistakes and often to become short tempered.  A well put together team knows this and can support one another during the race when race fatigue begins to mount…

2. I have been on great teams and I’ve been on teams that had no chemistry. The rule of thumb I tend to use is that I don’t want to race with someone who I can’t sit down and have a beer with afterwards. What I mean by that is you want to race with people who are competitive but also can let their hair down and have fun. There’s nothing worse than being in the middle of a race, tired and lost, and having tempers flaring and people blaming each other.  Remember, nobody wants to DNF…

3. Good team chemistry will keep people supportive—not everyone is going to be feeling good at the same time. It’s up to whoever does feel good to be the cheerleader and keep the others going when they’re slowing down. I love to run, but am average at best on the bike. When I race, I set the pace on the run and even tether our slowest runner to me to keep the pace. This can’t be an ego thing for the “tetheree” either—I’ve had to be tethered on the bike before, not because I wanted to, but because it was the best thing for our team to win our division…

4. Remember to have fun! This sounds cliché, but you’d be surprised how many teams stop having fun as soon as the race starts. Some of my favorite racing moments have been things like telling stupid jokes to keep people’s spirits up and the good natured trash talking between teams (and sometimes even within our team).  If you’re not having fun, why are you doing it?...

5. Having fun does not mean not being competitive. I’m extremely competitive in everything I do, so I like to race with people who are competitive as well. The trick is to find the balance between competitiveness and fun….

And, my friends, that is why I say that rule #1 of teamwork is to choose your team mates carefully. If you’re choosing friends, make sure you’ll be friends when it’s all said and done.

Next time, I’ll pass along my thoughts on race strategies for the cross country running portion of the race…

Racers Articles:

Beyond physical training: Lessons for your first adventure race.

by Teri Smith

"If you're thinking about competing in an adventure race, keep in mind the teamwork skills involved, accept any failures as learning experiences and talk to family and friends about your reasons for competing in such an event."


The teamwork aspect is what really drew me to the sport of adventure racing and it's what I still find attractive about it. It's the biggest challenge in the sport because you never know, from team to team and race to race, how your team dynamics will come into play. I think 98% of your success or failure within a race is dependent on your teamwork-whether it goes well or bad and how you deal with situations that come up because in every race something will crop up. But that's also the challenging fun part of the sport because if you do have really good teamwork and it's really strong, you can be super competitive and do really well.

Everyone has failures in training and racing. They're funny now when you look back. At the beginning they are just a disaster. I think that the biggest challenge was just dealing with situations where either I felt weak or was sick. I had hypothermia in a race which was my first experience with failure in an adventure race. I'm really glad I went through that because it was important for me to know that I didn't prepare my body for being lost. Our navigator got us lost for a couple hours in high mountain desert in Arizona and it gets very cold there. I wasn't prepared for that. I had all the necessary clothing but I didn't bring enough food and I didn't hydrate properly in that race. Being out on the course and having teammates sick or yourself not feeling well really challenges a team. That was early on in my race experience and looking back I think I really could have pushed through it. If we had done some things to take care of me early on in that experience, then it would have come out OK. That really taught me a strong lesson about preparation and I think we all need to go through some failure in our racing experience to make us understand what our weaknesses are.

I was participating in another race in Phoenix, Arizona and we had three teammates in this race, two guys and me. Each of us at some point in the race felt really, really bad. One of my teammates at one point said, "I just want to quit." And I said, "No you don't want to quit, we're going to continue, and what do you need." You pull together and work together as a team and the more experience you have a team and also as an individual in the sport racing with the same team or other individuals, you learn ways to cope. Through race experience you learn ways to help one another through situations and through experiences that , although not ideal, will in the end make you a better, stronger and faster team when you pull together.

For someone interested in getting involved in the sport of AR, I would say that if it's your passion and you think that you really want to do this, then go try it. Talk to your partner and make sure they are on board with what you want to do and they understand the reasons why you want to do. And maybe you don't even know yourself, maybe you just think it will be fun to go out and do a race. GO do it! Get some friends together and make it a fun experience and learn from it and learn about yourself. For me, ever since I began, it has been about the journey. It's been about the discovery of who I am, what I believe in, what I want out of life and then going after it. Go for that first race, and then if you're interested in moving on to the other events, then go for it. Have fun with life, live every day to its fullest. Just make sure all of your friends and family understand what you are doing and why, because you need their support to really succeed at the sport.