Trekking is one of adventure racing’s foundation disciplines and it is arguably the one that should be given the highest respect.
Strengthening of your feet, doing the endurance training for the demands of trekking and strong navigation skills are key to successful trekking whether the stage takes two or 36 hours. Each of these three elements should be trained. [...]
Summer on the highveld or winter in the Cape, there’s a chance that you could be caught in a downpour during a race. One quick rainstorm is hardly a worry; hours or days of continual rain can wear you down mentally.
From experience, I have learned a lot about delicate anatomy, the human mind and other soft bits. And so, I feel compelled to share this with you because my psychiatrist said, as he was leaving from the 6th floor window, that he shouldn’t have had to be burdened with it all by himself.
At the 1995 Raid Gauloises (held in Sarawak, Borneo), the 1998 Eco Challenge Borneo (held in Sabah) and Borneo-based Outdoor Quest races, competitors contracted leptospirosis. As with malaria, the degree of infection and the severity of symptoms do vary from person to person.
Tick bite fever is an infection caused by bacteria from the Rickettsial family, transmitted by infected ticks to humans in their saliva when they bite. The bacteria can also infect through small skin abrasions when the tick is crushed on your skin.
Malaria is a serious disease, transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. The Plasmodium parasite, in the saliva of the mosquito, infects red blood cells, causing them to burst (lyse), spilling their contents.
Cholera is a severe diarrhoeal disease, well known for its rapid onset and debilitating effects. It is easy to treat but if left untreated may result in rapidly progressive dehydration and consequently, death. Cholera results from infection by a bacterium, Vibrio cholerae, often found in coastal saltwater, brackish water and estuaries.
You know the kind of heat that slams in to you like a 6-ton truck when you walk out of an air-conditioned room, leaving you immediately weakened? As a tourist, it isn’t much of a problem. After a few days you get used to being sweaty, sticky and lethargic, symptoms alleviated by spending hours at the pool-side bar drinking iced tea. But when you’re a competitor…
Energy is life. Energy is power. And power is what we need to run, mountain bike, paddle, climb… As the basal metabolic rate is the smallest amount of energy required by the body purely to keep you alive at rest, an additional quota will enable your body to react to environmental stressors like heat and cold by sweating and shivering to regulate body temperature and to perform work.
Rapid ascents and massive elevation gains are often incorporated into adventure races. Rarely will you pass through an area without visiting the peak of the highest mountain, scaling the slope of an impressive volcano or traversing a sky-high ridge.
