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Adventure Racing 101You Know You Wanna Try It...by Robyn BenincasaOk, you know darn well you’vewanted to try “that crazy AdventureRacing stuff” for a while now. Andthis is your quit-being-afraid-andget-out-thereofficial quick startguide! One word of advice beforewe start. Run NOW! Before it’s toolate! Adventure Racing is the mostaddictive sport you will ever try, andonce you get sucked in, there’s nogoing back. So you may as well sellyour aero bars, completely clear outyour garage to make space for scadsof new gear, cut back on your hoursat work, give away your tangerineSpeedo, invest in some duct tape,and call all your closest pals—‘causeyou’re about to enter a world whereanything and everything is possible.Your course is often limited only byyour imagination, and you will learnway more than you ever wanted toknow about yourself and your teammates,for better and for worse. Andyou may never want to come back.Still in? Do I hear a “heck yeah!”?Ok, let’s do it. But when you findyourself eventually standing at thestarting line of Primal Quest or theRaid Gauloises questioning yoursanity, don’t say I didn’t warn you.Here’s an overview of the sportsinvolved, a brief training plan foreach, and some handy tips that we oldtimers had to learn the hard way….Hiking/Running/Scrambling:Many of your races will start outwith a run that turns into a hike orscramble, so you’d better be ready onall counts. Hiking and running musclesare very different, so you need totrain both, and practicing scrambling(on as many different types of terrainas you can find, including wet, slipperystuff) is the key to gaining that competitiveadvantage on the roadies.Training:• For a race of 12 hours or less, youshould follow a marathon trainingplan. But do most of your runs ontrails if possible.• For a race of more than 12 hours,you should follow a half-marathontraining plan and use the same guidelines.• Start doing hill repeats (4-6 setsat 80% effort on a hill that takes 3-4minutes to run) and interval training(2-3-4-5 minutes “on” with an equalamount of rest in the “off” phase)twice per week in the final month oftraining leading up to the race.photos by Will Ramos PhotographyAdventure World Magazine is a GreenZine 29