I have been wanting to write for the Performance Menu for quite some time now. I had individual article ideas that crossed my mind from time to time. However, I wanted to be able to contribute a year-long series in an area that most magazines, TV, or trainers rarely cover. Team Vertical Limit competes in extreme adventure races. Some people known as the “common public” would consider us crazy; we consider it a way to find our true selves, and test the animalistic nature of what we love to do.

We are based out of northern Utah. I stay in Ogden for the most part, while the rest of the team is mainly from Salt Lake City. SLC is a Mecca for outdoor sports, and a great training ground for our race twelve months from now.

Eco Primal Quest is the top dog of the extreme adventure races in the world. Ten years ago it was called Eco Challenge; ownership has changed, but the race practically remains the same. Year to year they change the location of the race. This year is in the Badlands of South Dakota. Last year it was in western Montana, and southern Utah the year prior. We will be competing in August 2010. At this time no one other than the race leadership has any idea of where this race will be. This secrecy keeps us on our toes with regard to trainin. Rest assured, though, it is highly doubtful that a race will ever be at or near sea level. That being said, let’s breakdown the race into its elements and give a brief overview.

Primal Quest is a ten-day race covering 600 miles of terrain. This includes climbing, running, hiking, swimming, biking, repelling, and more. We take the S.E.A.L. motto of “We are only as strong as our weakest link.” With that in mind, each team member will have a weakest area that we will focus on throughout the year. The same can be said for each team member having their stronger areas. As you will see in the following issues, a variety of training protocols will be incorporated, while practically none will be skipped over. Following are our main areas of focus. Programming will come into play later on in a specific issue.

Climbing

I will be the least experienced climber on our team, no matter who we decide on. Paul “Pablo” Stein will hopefully be on board to race, and he will help make up for my weaknesses. Odd point is for us, is we are taking a different approach. Each team member will be a climber first, and choose to become an endurance athlete. The how and the why will be in our specific climbing issue, as it is quite in depth. Personal opinion is that we will have the strongest group of climbers out of any team, no matter what. Most climbing will be done outdoors in the beautiful state of Utah. We are able to climb all types of rock such as limestone, granite, etc. At the same time we have access to sport, crack, or trad climbs from 1-5 pitch routes, up to 18 pitch routes within a few hours drive.

All indoor climbing will be done at Momentum Climbing. Jeff Pederson is the owner and the man I get to thank for getting me started on this amazing sport. It is the finest indoor climbing gym I have ever seen. It is where I got my start and I continue to climb there. They also have an awesome kids climbing team, and offer a climbing school, and clinics as well. It is also where I met Pablo Stein. No one has been more instrumental in my climbing progression than Pablo. Not only one of the top climbers in the world (5th place at World Ice Climbing Championships in Ouray, Colorado 2008), he is hands-down one of the coolest people I have ever met, and a great friend. If you ever visit Utah, make sure to stop by the gym—you won’t regret it.

The point and end goal of our climbing isn’t all that complicated. However, our way of doing it and our training sequences sometimes will be. Some people have a goal of climbing 5.14 sport routes, or climbing WI5 on ice. The goal of our training is to be able to climb 5.10 for 18 pitches (50-150 ft sections roughly) or eight plus hours, while the same could be said for WI4. The training protocol to reach that will be in much more detail in an upcoming issue.

Running/Hiking

A marathon distance run with at least 100 miles of hiking is almost inevitable. Luckily, living in Utah, we are in a prime training location. A mixture of interval training, 5k, 10k, sprints, and half-marathons will be a must to meet our goal. Some hikes or runs will have specific elevation gains. The point of this is much along the lines of having benchmark workouts, such as the “girls” that CrossFit is fond of in their training. HICT, which uses a HR of 120-150 BPM, will also be a mainstay. This application can be used in running, swimming, biking, etc. Hikes depending on the day and objective will be anywhere from 3-12 miles on average, along with extreme hikes done once to twice a month.

Swimming

When it comes to swimming, we are unsure of the distance. Best bet is a 10-50 minute continuous swim, hence the HICT that will be employed at least one day a week when swimming. One of the benchmark swimming workouts we will use is a BUDS entrance swimming test of 500 meters with Thirteen minutes to complete. The kicker is that breaststroke and sidestroke are the only ones to be used on that specific workout. The crawl will typically be used for distance or HICT days. However, any stroke can be employed as long as the HR is in the target range. The benchmark workout will be completed twice a week, most likely after lifting. The goal is to get as far under 13:00 as we can.

Underwater swims of 25-50 meters will be a part of training as well. Another key advantage to swimming is the fact that the impact upon joints and bones is negligible. While it is one of the smallest portions of the race, the limited amount of wear and tear allows us to train it more often. We will go more in depth on our swimming training in a later issue as well.

Biking

This will be one of our most complicated areas. We are sure that the race will entail road bike portions such as in the Ironman triathlon. On the flip side we are sure there will be long portions of trail riding as well. HICT will be used again as in all cardio protocols we use. At the same time we will use rides of over three hours quite regularly. Altitude and terrain will be on our side, as Utah has some amazing areas for this type of training.

Sprint-type training will be used on the bikes as well. While it may be an extreme endurance race, to ignore power requirements that arise from time to time would ensure failure. What types of bikes we will use has yet to be determined. Recovery between rides, leg movements, hiking, and running will be a slippery slope that requires acute detail.

Hill training will be another avenue we use. Unfortunately racing down the hill won’t count in practice. Uphill climbs of 20-40 minutes will max out all three pathways of physiological responses in one torturous workout. Trying to fit it into our training will be the fun part.

Diet

We employ a diet of moderate macronutrient ratios that is paleo in nature. Moderate to us is along the lines of 30/40/30 or 30/30/40. Some people call that low-carb; we don’t. Many years ago when on certain forums, I lost what little hair I had convincing people that gigh GI carbs are not needed post-workout for recovery. The same sort of misunderstanding is still out there. However, it is dogma that massive amounts of carbs are needed for endurance. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Mark Twight, Nancy Feagan, and other great endurance athletes have proven that fact time and time again. However, some people who have never competed in that sort of event, trained a promising athlete, or garnered a post-secondary education in nutrition are convinced otherwise.

One of the key points they always miss is adaptation time. Just like it takes the body time to adjust to metcon, GVT, 5x5, etc, the same is true for the body’s physiological response to a higher fat diet—it takes time to adapt. One or two weeks doesn’t work—three to seven weeks is when we see the “big swing.” This is my favorite subject, and will be discussed in great detail next month.

In closing, I am very much looking forward to this next year of training and writing. Whether it is climbing, lifting, running, or another activity, the results are close to the same. We all do it to find out more about ourselves. Almost none of us who read this go to the gym and simply go through the motions. A climbing friend once said to me, “Have you figured out climbing yet?” I was perplexed, not sure what he meant. After a short dialogue, he said, “Climbing is where you lose yourself, but completely find yourself.” I hope all of you find that in your training no matter what it is.