Alrighty...
It's been a super long time since I've used this blog. What better way to revive this blog then by documenting my experience(s) in planning, running, and musing all things Marathon des Sables (MdS). I figure I'll start with the preparation side of things since that seems to be the topic a lot of folks have asked me about.
So...I think we'll break this post down into training, nutrition, and gear.
Most people probably started their MdS training in full swing with all kinds of crazy workouts and long mileage and I envisioned my MdS training starting off in the same fashion. One issue...I was injured during my last marathon and have not been running for almost two months. So the first month of training like this:
School'd the Haro family clan in Nintendo Wii
Took a trip into the Strawberry Wilderness, Oregon for some elk hunting and hanging out with some good friends and mountain men. This was supposed to be my acclimation trip for JJ100. Instead it turned into a rehab trip to see if I could actually hike 5-10 miles a day. Awesome trip! This is a picture of Josh and Mark coming out of the range with some of our camping kit.
Here is a full-on sweat angel after I laid down, fully clothed, after a long run.
That sweat on the edge of the treadmill is through all of my clothing, wind jacket, and insulating jacket.
Fully equipped getting ready to do one of the last long heat runs. I think this was a 22-miler.
As an adventure guide and outdoor educator, one of my favorite experiences is to help facilitate the discussion and planning behind nutrition. Nutrition aka "food" always seems to be the ONE question that everyone has or the VERY first topic of discussion that comes up when planning a trip or expedition. In backcountry experiences a typical package for food could look something like this:
I knew that I definitely couldn't take this amount of ingredients with me to MdS, what I could do, is utilize the same principles of backcountry nutrition being taught to these students in my own nutrition planning for MdS. This did get a little tricky when trying to plan nutrition around running/hiking, recovery, and the limited space I had in my race pack. For solutions, I searched out case studies from other MdS experiences as well as academic research on nutrition in endurance events. In particular, one of the studies I anchored to was about a subject who was similar in weight and was training to compete in MdS a few years ago. The research article provided lots of statistical information about his training, fat percentages and average daily nutritional values leading up to MdS. Based on all this information, the researchers put together a plan based on his values for Carbohydrates, Fat, and Protein. After looking up my values, I devised a plan to use the following numbers for my 24-hour nutritional values: Carbohydrates (200grams), Fats (75grams), and Protein (90grams).
The MdS rules dictate that each runner must possess a minimum of 2000 calories per day which means that we all must start with a minimum of 14,000 calories for the entire MdS event. My goal was to stay as close as I could to 14K calories as well as meet my daily nutritional values. In order to accomplish this, I sought out a good friend, Stacie Murray, for advice. Stacie is a premier adventure culinary chef who spent a lot of time in the Antarctic, Greenland, Russia, and the South Pacific as a chef for remote science research stations. Her experience has inspired her to start a company called Hungry Hikers.
After a couple Skype sessions, Stacie and I devised a plan to make sure that I could stay close to the nutritional values and the 2k calorie per day goal. The main objective for my meals was to have ingredients that were packaged into meals but were small enough portions that allowed me to carry a variety of meals versus one expedition meal a day. I hoped to have 1-2 different meal types each day. This would allow for variety in case I wasn't liking a certain ingredient and stuck with it. It also provided me the ability to improvise with other ingredients to make a different meal if need be. So the meals broke down into: breakfast, race nutrition, recovery, savory snacks, whole meals, and fruit.
After all this stuff was figured out, I went crazy purchasing and packing! The meal packaging, weighing, and documenting final nutritional data took about two solid days of work. Here are some pictures of the process:
All of the ingredients and some meals laid out on a queen-size bed.
Full-on production and weighing of nutrition.
All meals after weighing each item and documenting the nutrition. This is my entire food kit for the seven days of MdS.
Here's a quick daily summary of what my nutrition plan looked like.
For the most part, my plan consisted of a fruit/protein shake in the morning, followed by race nutrition (Tailwind, Shot bloks, nuts, and pemmican squares), protein recovery drink, and meals (primarily high calorie soups). We managed to come close to most of the nutritional values with the exception of fats. I was good with this as long as I was able to bring in over 50% of my Fats requirement. I ended up with about 62% of my Fats requirement in my nutrition. I would rely on the fat stores within my body for the rest. Click here for a complete look at my nutrition plan.
PHD Minim Ultra Down Sleeping Bag
This bag weighs about 12 ounces. The one I purchased actually weighed 11.2 ounces.
Petzl TIKKA+
Super bright (140 lumens) with multiple settings to save on battery. Red light lens with multiple strobe patterns. A little on the heavy side but I'm not one to skimp on a good headlamp.
Suunto A-10 Compass
To reduce the weight, I popped the compass bezel ring from the baseplate and just carried the compass portion. The compass is still operational for traveling with a heading.
HardCase Survival -- Folding Razor / Saw
This is super light with just a razor blade and saw. I snipped the saw and just carried folding razor in the case.
Aspivenin Bite and Sting Kit (SUCKS!!!)
Research has proven these things don't work. I only took the pump and the smallest cap. I used the pump to wrap about 10 feet of duct tape and some additional microtape tape for medical.
Signal Mirror (Improvised)
Made this from a DVD. It's 3/4 x 3/4inches.
Pretty easy to make.
Ever Ready First Aid - Mylar Emergency Blanket
One of the lightest emergency blankets out there.
This is a big blanket so I trimmed close to 2 feet off the blanket length.
A 200 Euro note
Lighter than multiple bills and a required item.
Other Mandatory items not shown:
Safety Pin (10)
Small lighter
Whistle (On the Raidlight backpack chest-strap)
Topical disinfectant
Sunscreen
Passport
I also carried some snivel gear:
Brooks LSD Jacket III
This has always been my "go-to" jacket for wind and extra warmth. Super lightweight and compresses super small. Dries super fast.
Buff
This was given to me by some students who travelled from Taiwan to attend the Wilderness Education Association's annual conference.
NTSU=National Taiwan Sports University
Extra Clothes that I carried:
Injinji Run 2.0 Mid-weight Mini-crew (x2)
I love these socks and hardly blister in them. Not changing anything for this race. Wearing one and carrying two pairs
Zensah Compression Leg Sleeves
I use these for recovery and plan on bringing them out for the same purposes.
Here's a list of items I carried in a small medical kit:
Antibacterial Wipes
Chamois Butter
Pepto Bismal
Motrin (800mg)
Tylenol (500mg)
Sudafed
Glacier Gel Blister Tx
Chapstick
Q-tips with micropore tape on the stem
Butterfly Closures
Tweezers
K-Tape
Nicety Items:
Plastic Spoon
Small bottle of antibacterial sanitizer
Colgate throw-away toothbrushes
iPod with headphones
iPhone for camera application
25 feet of toilet paper
It's been a super long time since I've used this blog. What better way to revive this blog then by documenting my experience(s) in planning, running, and musing all things Marathon des Sables (MdS). I figure I'll start with the preparation side of things since that seems to be the topic a lot of folks have asked me about.
So...I think we'll break this post down into training, nutrition, and gear.
School'd the Haro family clan in Nintendo Wii
Tried to take some naps....apparently they are good for recovery.
Was in some major meetings with my business partners.
Worked on my mustache....
Took a trip into the Strawberry Wilderness, Oregon for some elk hunting and hanging out with some good friends and mountain men. This was supposed to be my acclimation trip for JJ100. Instead it turned into a rehab trip to see if I could actually hike 5-10 miles a day. Awesome trip! This is a picture of Josh and Mark coming out of the range with some of our camping kit.
The rest of 2014 was working on gaining strength back in my left leg and getting back to running. The monthly mileage leading up to April looked like this:
Training for MdS is a complete journey in itself. There are so many things that a runner must work on in order to feel competent during each of the stage runs. There is the fact that you are running over varied terrain and when you aren't running, you are hiking. First two major disciplines to work on: running and hiking. I had the fortunate opportunity that my travels took me to places like the Appalachian Trail (AT) in Virginia and the Trail 100 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Aside from gaining running and hiking experience, I also needed to work on moving efficiently with a pack that weighed around 20 lbs. (including water) and most likely taper down to around 8 lbs. in weight. Moving efficiently meant that I need to be able to hike/run with my pack on and drink and eat and access items I'll need both day and night. It also means learning how to size your pack and determine where those rub spots are going to occur. It was during this phase where I also learned that Marathon des Sables gives out free MdS tramp stamps...they look like this:
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| MdS Tramp Stamp |
A couple months leading up to MdS, training began to emulate the different stages of MdS. My coach, Liza Howard, put together a really solid training plan that incorporated six days of running with one rest day. Each of those were a percentage of mileage that resembled MdS---a couple short run days consisting of 7-10 miles, a hilly day, and a couple back-to-back long runs. If I remember right, 3 of the 6 runs were completed with the pack on. I chose to run with 20-25 pounds of weight only because I wasn't sure what my total pack weight was going to be for the race.
The month of March pretty much consisted of runs on the treadmill as well as heat sessions to start emulating the conditions of the race environment: HOT and MORE HOT. Living in Warsaw, Poland complicates matters a little more because it's still super cold in March. Thus, the treadmill sessions in a small, hot, and humid gym. The first week of March consisted of simply sitting in a sauna for 30-40 minutes at 90-100*. This may seem pleasant but when you are acclimated to 10-20* temperatures this feels like the Sahara. The second week, I doubled the time in the sauna with 30 minutes of sitting and 30 minutes of light movement such as Yoga and calisthenics at 105-110*. I did this once or twice a week. During the first two weeks, I wore a couple more layers when running to assist in raising the core temperatures a little. The last two weeks of March were the hardest weeks of training because a majority of my runs were "heat runs". Heat runs consisted of wearing 3-4 layers of clothing, a wind jacket, and an insulated jacket with pants and a fully weighted backpack. During the long runs, I would stop to refill my water and wring out my jacket and pants with sweat. The last week leading up to MdS was pretty much low mileage, no insulating clothes, and no pack. Here's some pictures during the "heat training stage".
I always felt drained after each of these runs.
Here is a full-on sweat angel after I laid down, fully clothed, after a long run.
That sweat on the edge of the treadmill is through all of my clothing, wind jacket, and insulating jacket.
Fully equipped getting ready to do one of the last long heat runs. I think this was a 22-miler.
I knew that I definitely couldn't take this amount of ingredients with me to MdS, what I could do, is utilize the same principles of backcountry nutrition being taught to these students in my own nutrition planning for MdS. This did get a little tricky when trying to plan nutrition around running/hiking, recovery, and the limited space I had in my race pack. For solutions, I searched out case studies from other MdS experiences as well as academic research on nutrition in endurance events. In particular, one of the studies I anchored to was about a subject who was similar in weight and was training to compete in MdS a few years ago. The research article provided lots of statistical information about his training, fat percentages and average daily nutritional values leading up to MdS. Based on all this information, the researchers put together a plan based on his values for Carbohydrates, Fat, and Protein. After looking up my values, I devised a plan to use the following numbers for my 24-hour nutritional values: Carbohydrates (200grams), Fats (75grams), and Protein (90grams).
The MdS rules dictate that each runner must possess a minimum of 2000 calories per day which means that we all must start with a minimum of 14,000 calories for the entire MdS event. My goal was to stay as close as I could to 14K calories as well as meet my daily nutritional values. In order to accomplish this, I sought out a good friend, Stacie Murray, for advice. Stacie is a premier adventure culinary chef who spent a lot of time in the Antarctic, Greenland, Russia, and the South Pacific as a chef for remote science research stations. Her experience has inspired her to start a company called Hungry Hikers.
After all this stuff was figured out, I went crazy purchasing and packing! The meal packaging, weighing, and documenting final nutritional data took about two solid days of work. Here are some pictures of the process:
All of the ingredients and some meals laid out on a queen-size bed.
Full-on production and weighing of nutrition.
Making my fruit/hemp protein salad mix.
Each day of MdS is marked on the floor to stay organized.
All meals after weighing each item and documenting the nutrition. This is my entire food kit for the seven days of MdS.
Here's a quick daily summary of what my nutrition plan looked like.
For the most part, my plan consisted of a fruit/protein shake in the morning, followed by race nutrition (Tailwind, Shot bloks, nuts, and pemmican squares), protein recovery drink, and meals (primarily high calorie soups). We managed to come close to most of the nutritional values with the exception of fats. I was good with this as long as I was able to bring in over 50% of my Fats requirement. I ended up with about 62% of my Fats requirement in my nutrition. I would rely on the fat stores within my body for the rest. Click here for a complete look at my nutrition plan.
MdS Regulations dictate a minimum (6.5kg) and maximum (15kg) total weight for equipment and food combined. This means pack weight is 14.33-33.07 pounds and there is no way I am going to be near the heavy end of this scale. For me, I've always been a "go light, freeze at night" type of person and this race is not going to change this mentality. So, with 8.2 pounds of food already accounted for, that only leaves 6.13 pounds for equipment. With lots of research and tweaking weights with my spreadsheet, I managed to get the mandatory items and niceties into 5.15 pounds. This made my total pack weight with food 13.35 pounds. I'm going to bank on the scale not being super calibrated and also packing a little more food for the first couple of days at the bivouac to make up that extra pound and change.
The breakdown for weight looked like this:
 |
| Click here to view my spreadsheet |
Here's a picture of my final race pack with everything packaged nice and neat:
Here's my kit starting with mandatory items first:
Raidlight Ultra Olmo 20L and 4L front pack
This is a pretty common pack for MdS. It's super light with lot's of pockets and variations for water bottles. It comes with a water bottle sleeve but mine didn't fit a 1.5L water bottle. I had to get mine altered once I got to Marrakesh because no one would alter it in Poland.
PHD Minim Ultra Down Sleeping Bag
This bag weighs about 12 ounces. The one I purchased actually weighed 11.2 ounces.
Petzl TIKKA+
Super bright (140 lumens) with multiple settings to save on battery. Red light lens with multiple strobe patterns. A little on the heavy side but I'm not one to skimp on a good headlamp.
Suunto A-10 Compass
To reduce the weight, I popped the compass bezel ring from the baseplate and just carried the compass portion. The compass is still operational for traveling with a heading.
HardCase Survival -- Folding Razor / Saw
This is super light with just a razor blade and saw. I snipped the saw and just carried folding razor in the case.
Aspivenin Bite and Sting Kit (SUCKS!!!)
Research has proven these things don't work. I only took the pump and the smallest cap. I used the pump to wrap about 10 feet of duct tape and some additional microtape tape for medical.
Signal Mirror (Improvised)
Made this from a DVD. It's 3/4 x 3/4inches.
Pretty easy to make.
Ever Ready First Aid - Mylar Emergency Blanket
One of the lightest emergency blankets out there.
This is a big blanket so I trimmed close to 2 feet off the blanket length.
A 200 Euro note
Lighter than multiple bills and a required item.
Other Mandatory items not shown:
Safety Pin (10)
Small lighter
Whistle (On the Raidlight backpack chest-strap)
Topical disinfectant
Sunscreen
Passport
I also carried some snivel gear:
Brooks LSD Jacket III
This has always been my "go-to" jacket for wind and extra warmth. Super lightweight and compresses super small. Dries super fast.
Buff
This was given to me by some students who travelled from Taiwan to attend the Wilderness Education Association's annual conference.
NTSU=National Taiwan Sports University
Extra Clothes that I carried:
Injinji Run 2.0 Mid-weight Mini-crew (x2)
I love these socks and hardly blister in them. Not changing anything for this race. Wearing one and carrying two pairs
Zensah Compression Leg Sleeves
I use these for recovery and plan on bringing them out for the same purposes.
Here's a list of items I carried in a small medical kit:
Antibacterial Wipes
Chamois Butter
Pepto Bismal
Motrin (800mg)
Tylenol (500mg)
Sudafed
Glacier Gel Blister Tx
Chapstick
Q-tips with micropore tape on the stem
Butterfly Closures
Tweezers
K-Tape
Nicety Items:
Plastic Spoon
Small bottle of antibacterial sanitizer
Colgate throw-away toothbrushes
iPod with headphones
iPhone for camera application
25 feet of toilet paper
There you have it....stay tuned for the next MdS post--Journey to the East
