Planning your Adventure Race Training, by Paul Mahon

July 21st, 2010WAR: Wicklow Adventure Race is your ultimate goal. Your training program represents a series of smaller steps that lead up to the event. I subscribe to the theory that we need about 10 weeks of training to properly prepare for an Adventure race like WAR: Wicklow Adventure Race. Your training will also be affected by your personal goals. Do you want to THRIVE or SURVIVE. A training program should include four different phases; Base phase- skills and endurance; Speed phase- race specifics; Taper phase- recovery; Race phase- the event, gives you feedback on the effectiveness of your training.

Besides race selection, goal setting is one of the most important topics you will need to decide about. Whether you choose to THRIVE or SURVIVE, your choice will affect how you will set up your training program in terms of volume and duration. It will also probably affect your current lifestyle. You will need to evaluate your current lifestyle and determine what changes, if any, you are willing to change.

Goal setting can be broken down into two parts; the first part is dreaming the goal, and the second part is planning the steps to get to the goal.In dreaming the goal you have probably witnessed, in one way or another, an adventure race that has intrigued you. You have probably heard about the high numbers of participants that don’t finish. This is a part of the challenge, and a big factor that might keep you from doing an adventure race is fear, or fear of failure. Your first goal should be to overcome your fear, and give yourself the opportunity to find out what you can do. You will not finish 100% of the events that you don’t start. Once you believe you can do it, the journey will begin.

In planning the steps to get to your goal, start small and build up from there. The training plan is a series of steps that build on each other, leading up to the event. Everyone will need to design their own training plan. A plan has to take into consideration the starting fitness level of a person, their time available, and their ultimate goals. I will give you some basic building blocks that you can stack up to create your own set of steps. To begin, you need to have a starting line, and evaluating your personal situation will show you where to start..

Some of the questions you should ask yourself are:

-What do I want to do?

-How do I want to do it?

-How long do I have before the event?

-How much time in the day do I have?

-What skills do I have?

-What skills will I need?

-What are my weaknesses?

-What are my strengths?

-What is my current fitness level?

Answer these questions, and you will have an idea of where to begin. Try to include all your aspects; physical, mental, emotional, and mechanical.

The whole idea of a training plan is to show your body what it is expected to during the event. You will practice the sports involved, and show your body the skills. Then you will show your body the duration and distances that you will be using those skills for. Then, you will strengthen your body, and work on speed. Eventually you will work your way into the race specifics, and show your body the environment and the terrain that will be encountered. At first a 10 week training plan might sound like a lot. It looks more doable when we break it down into smaller steps. These steps, or phases of the training plan are; Base phase- skills and endurance; Speed phase- race specifics; Taper phase- recovery; Race phase- the event, gives you feedback on the effectiveness of your training.

The base phase is the beginning of your training. This is when you show your body the sport and the skills. In adventure racing, there are many skills needed. In a 10 week training plan, you should use the first 5 weeks for the base phase. So depending on your starting point, you may have more or less skills and technique to learn. You should adjust your plan accordingly. Give more time, if you need to learn more skills.

In the beginning of the base phase you should concentrate on learning the skills. As your technique improves, you can gradually build the distances and volume that you train with. The next part of the base phase is to build your endurance up to the distances that will be in your event. Here again, depending on your starting point, you may require more or less time to build up to the distances. Adjust your training plan accordingly. Remember that during this phase your pace should be easy. This phase is for endurance, you will build strength and speed in the next phase.

As part of your learning skills phase you can add in a short but similar race, like the HellFire, Tulfarris 10mile or Runways