Trekking decider in Adventure Racing

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Wednesday, 17 March 2010 13:47

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Trekking Decider

Lisa de Speville

Trekking is one of adventure racing’s foundation disciplines and arguably is the one that should be given the highest respect. Strengthening your feet, doing the endurance training for the demands of trekking and developing strong navigation skills are key to successful trekking - whether the stage takes two or 36 hours. Each of these three elements should be trained.

As adventure racing legend Ian Adamson says in his book, Runner’s World Guide to Adventure Racing: “Your foot-travel skills may be the most important in your arsenal of talents.”

Why you should build strong feet

Feet adapt to regular punishment by spending time on them in training. There’s no need to hobble through any race, regardless of distance, on fatigued and blistered feet. Conditioning strengthens the muscles of your feet. Regularly spend time on your feet by doing low-intensity social hikes; steadily increase your training distances, as you would with running; and include more intense sessions where you vary (and increase) these parameters. And load the weight in your backpack, which has a profound effect on your feet and biomechanics.