As the old saying goes “You don’t know what you don’t know until you don’t know it. Speaking for myself, I can read, watch YouTube and listen to Zoom calls about something, but until I try it, experience it and make the mistakes myself, I don’t always understand or follow instructions (I have multiple degrees from the school of hard knocks 😀👨‍🎓 and some failures) very well. This definitely applies to all aspects stage racing including training, gear and the mental side. 

Training: As mentioned in a previous post I was fortunate enough to be able to spend 6 or 7 weeks prior to the G2G stage race training on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and in southern Utah in all the major national parks. By the time the race started I felt strong and confident in my preparation and really comfortable in most of race environment. I was also well acclimatized after training at elevations of 5000 to 9000ft (1500 to 2750m) for the 6 weeks prior. Most of the training consisted of running on unable terrain and a lot of hiking and climbing in and out of canyons. Many of the trails I trained on were on steep switch-backs, straight up a canyon wall and a small amount off flat to rolling trails. In the end this paid-off with all the hills, mountains, steep tracks, and deep sand that we encountered through-out the race. The terrain I trained on prepared me well for hiking. But I think next time I would dedicate more time training on runnable terrain and try to spend more time running during the race and running on tired legs. There were a lot of runnable sections during each stage that I might have been able to run if I was a little better prepared and get through each stage a little faster. 

From stage 3 through stage 5 almost half the mileage is in soft sand and quite a bit of soft deep sand. Learning to walk on the sand is important as much as you can instead of through it is important. 

Because of challenge G2G was going to be and not really confident in my knowledge and experience in proper training, I decided to get a coach. I choose Jen Segger (@jensegger) from the G2G website (See Training Corner on the G2G website). She is a highly experienced ultra, stage and adventure racer. She gave me weekly schedule of structured workouts with specific training to follow. She definitely gets some of the credit for the success I had at G2G 2023. 

My training advice for someone – Train for hills and steep ascents. Core Strength is important. Train a lot in deep sand, Spend more time on runnable terrain, Train in the race environment if possible, Training in the race pack at race weight is crucial. 

Consider a coach familiar with stage and adventure racing Keep in mind I didn’t do this race to be competitive, I’m a middle to back of the pack race at best. This was all about the experience, adventure and as it turned out the people you privileged to meet.