Speaker 2
Welcome to the thisABILITY Adventures podcast. I'm Andrea Anderson.
Speaker 1
And I'm Chip Dodd from team thisABILITY.
*music*
Speaker 1
Okay, here we are with another exciting mailbox. We got a question from Jade from California Jade Eagles and this is going to be a really good topic. It's going to take time because you know, I'm Going to make this one complicated?
Speaker 2
Well, also though it's one that we have not mastered. But we do feel. Like, we're constantly getting better at this one, so. You guys can be the judge.
Speaker 1
Either way, we spend a lot of. Time on this, even if. It doesn't work out in our favor. OK, so here's the question I was. Wondering if there's a good rule of thumb on estimating average travel times for each discipline we should consider. I understand the terrain, time of day, etc. can have an impact on this, but curious if you try and apply certain numbers to distance based on terrain and discipline.
Speaker 2
Yeah, so note that he wants specific numbers that's going to be hard, but we're going to come up with some rules of thumb here and there.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
But mostly there's just a lot of things that we're going to say you should consider. So obviously there's no right answers, just parameters and. You know, plans. Really go out the window almost right away, but there's still really important.
Speaker 1
And there's a couple of fun quotes. Most of them are from back in in war days, like Eisenhower and stuff like that. So one is plans are worthless, but planning is everything that's popular. Another War One. I can't remember. This is the same kind of thing with a different war. No plan survives first contact with the enemy. And how many times have our logistics? Clan blew off the rails in leg one. That's happened.
Speaker 2
Yeah, but then this one, everybody has a plan until they get punched in. The mouth, I mean.
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's. I think that's from Mike Tyson.
Speaker 2
It's a little violent.
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, well, either way.
Speaker 2
It's also those are a little violent so.
Speaker 1
You can get punched in the mouth and event racing.
Speaker 2
It has definitely felt. Like that a few times, I don't. Think we've literally ever been punched, OK?
Speaker 1
I've been whacked in the. Face with a branch you. Know whatever. I'm kidding. OK, so. Let's just start off. Teams race a lot and you can start using your gut. So I think experience matters a lot. Like you see the logistics plan, you can just eyeball it and be like no damn way. That's gonna take twice as long as they're telling me. Ron Eglin, somebody that's like that. He's like he can just look at it. He's got a photographic memory. He his brain does math. He looks at the thing and goes, oh, heck no. No, that's 48 hours right there. Like, what do you mean? 48 hours, it says. Right here. 24. He's like, “No, chip trust me.”
Speaker 2
Yeah, that leg.
Speaker 1
Me. It's going to be 48 hours in Africa.
Speaker 2
Is the example from Ron that he totally he got that totally correct.
Speaker 1
Nailed it. Nailed it.
Speaker 2
And it was not what the logistics planner said. It was quite a bit longer.
Speaker
He added like.
Speaker 1
18 hours to my estimate and he. Was right. He was right.
Speaker 2
That's why I say we're. Hi there. We are exactly not experts at this. Yet we are trying really hard though.
Speaker 1
You know. But hopefully this podcast will help you become more of an expert than wherever you start. So OK. And sorry Jade, we're not going to give you specific numbers. We're going to give you lots of data. To come up with your own numbers. OK, so let's. Start off almost every race, especially. The big races like expeditions, the race director is going to give you. At least they're going to give you. Fast times on how long do they think each leg will take based on a fast team actually doing their course and that way that's like the most legit number that you've got cause they've hand selected this team to vet the course they've hand selected them because. They are fast. And the actual team went on the actual course on the actual terrain, with the actual elevation. Now weather of course could change.
Speaker 2
Well, often though, when courses are vetted, it's not vetted all at once.
Speaker 1
That's true too. Yep.
Speaker 2
You know, even for them it's just an educated guess, but it's the best guess that you're going to get because they've had people on the grounds.
Speaker 1
Yeah, because you're right.
Speaker 2
On the ground doing the the activity.
Speaker 1
Because you're right there, the, the, the vetting team probably didn't do it beginning to end over a five day period. They they each leg end of it, so they're not worn out on leg four or five. Yeah. OK. That makes sense. So either way the the quick answer to all of this, if you're you just want a quick answer and you're done with this podcast. You don't want to get into the details. It's basically take the top team. Estimate and then cut it by how much slower you think you are, or faster you think you are than the typical fast team, right?
Speaker 2
In other words, that's adding. That's not cutting, you're not going to cut the fasting time, but of.
Speaker 1
I'm sorry, adding. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2
Course we use. Excel to plan all of that out. I mean, who doesn't love Excel?
Speaker 1
Because there's a lot of math involved.
Speaker 2
Some people don't, but they can't be my friend. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker
The other thing we we we create the Excel.
Speaker 1
Because there's a lot of math as you're going to find out, we we add in a lot of data and we slice it a lot of different ways. But then also we can print. It out prior to the race on write and rain paper and we take it with us.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So right now we're working on Croatia's logistics plan. That's what we call it a logistics plan. We do it. In Excel and we have columns for a percent more than the fast time. You could do it a percent less of the slow time, whatever works. But we also have that fast time split by the number of kilometers. To find out what the minutes per kilometer is for the fast teams that the race director thinks. So that's just one more metric you can look at and say, well, the race director says the fast team can go 7K on this track per hour. And you know, you might that might help you decide how much faster or slower you're going to be than the fast team. Of course, where you usually race if. You usually fall in the. Mid pack or? If you're usually front, mid pack, back, mid pack. If you're the slowest, at least you have that experience from past races and you can add your percentage. That way, but you know, you might not have that knowledge if you've only done one or two races or or none. So it's all a little bit.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
Of a. Guess and that's a good place to start.
Speaker 1
Though like you said, some restrictors give you the fast times and the slow. So it's kind of like this is what a slow team should take but but be real careful. The slow team estimates because like for example in Croatia fast team, they did not consider transitions in sleep. So the times you have to add back in transitions and sleep, but on the slow teams they added in transitions and sleep and.
Speaker 2
Yeah, you don't know how much. They added it.
Speaker
You don't know? Yeah, you.
Speaker 1
Have no idea what the variable variables are that. They add it. In so it so it it adds mud to the water I guess. And so the other thing on the slow teams, they may be a short course option that we don't know about and they've assumed that the slow team is going to skip, you know, Croatia, there's like 16 transitions. They might already know the slow teams are going to get cut off. Whole leg and they've removed all those checkpoints. So either way I I normally don't go off the slow teams, we put them into the spreadsheet, I pay a lot more attention to, you know, are we going to be, you know, 1.25 or are we going to be 25% slower than the fast team? But also, since we're talking about the Excel, what are some of the other columns? That we do, we parse the data. You look at it like you said, minutes per kilometer because now now I can compare that to my Strava or what our team normally does. We also take elevation into account, for example. If if they say the. Elevation gain and loss for this leg. Is 6/6. 195 meters. We take the distance. And divide it out to get a total meters per K of elevation change. Mostly the reason that I like to do that is so if you have two trek sections, one trek has a whole lot of elevation change and another trek doesn't have a lot of elevation change. We can speed up or assume that we're going to move faster on the one with less elevation. What are some? Other parameters that you put in there.
Speaker 2
Well, you know, I added places. For Texas and for sleep and to figure that out, it gets even trickier because you kind of want to know when you're going to be on a leg at night and when you're not. So one of the columns is formatted so you can see. What time it's going to be after that leg has passed and you can tell if it's night.
Speaker 1
That's because you. Actually, have it turns dark black. I think the the formatting is black if it's nighttime and yellow it's daytime.
Speaker 2
Yeah, thanks to Tomas.
Speaker 1
I think Thomas. Yeah, Thomas Diaz is. Like a wizard in Excel. So he gave us. That formula it's really. So so back to the TA. For example, in Croatia there's a couple. Some of the tags you drop your bike, you go on a trek, you're not building it, you're not taking it apart. Other tags you're gonna see your bike box. So now you have. To completely do whatever you gotta do. Does it disassemble your bike and get it into the a RWS bike? Box and then so we're having to take that into account that it it's not just. Drop your bike. And go, you actually have to stop. Another thing is rafting. Sometimes it's a canoe section or a paddle section. You can just grab your paddle bag, jump on the boat and go. Other times you got to inflate your pack raft and if it's white water, now you're strapping your gear to the pack raft. You you might have to fumble with some stuff to make sure you have access to water. If nothing's going to go yard sailing down the. Water. If you tip out.
Speaker 2
Right. And, like Croatia, has 13 legs so. That's 12 transitions, 1312 transitions.
Speaker
That's a lot. It's a lot.
Speaker 2
So it adds up really fast. And you know this applies to the shorter races too, even if you're doing a three hour race. If there's three different disciplines. That's two different TA's. That you're going to have to switch it up and you've really got. To think ahead. To what you're going to do and how you're going to do it when you get there.
Speaker 1
Right. Also in the TA's a lot of times it's the almost all the time the the race director is going to tell you what amenities are at the TA. For example, is there hot water at the TA? Sometimes there's nothing. It's just like basically you're just going to drop your bike, grab your your gear, bend and go. Other times, there's bathrooms. There's a place to sleep. There's hot water, there might be a food truck, or there's a town, so you have to take that into consideration in your spreadsheet. You're like, whoa, there's going to be a a. There's going to be a store there and hot water, maybe we do take a little bit more time to heat up some Mountain House. Get a real meal in our bellies. Maybe that's the place you're going to choose to sleep because there is indoor places to sleep when we've had races where the TA is at. Hotel the teams will get a hotel room for three or four hours, take a shower and get real good sleep on a warm, nice cozy mattress before they go back out. But you know that this is when you're racing for five or seven days, you know, but either way, we include that on the spreadsheet. So hopefully you get good at Excel and you can start parsing this out and then print it out. If you don't, you can get right and rain. Paper from usually like an REI. You can also buy it on Amazon I. Think even, UM. Actually root stock selling it right? Isn't it root stock that's selling? The right rain paper either way. You can get that. You can take it, it does need to be printed on a laser printer, so go to like a normal print shop and and and get the stuff printed out. And maybe leave some blank. So that you can make. Changes when you get to the race because you're not going to have a printer, most likely at the race.
Speaker 2
And though a lot of times you don't get the information until a couple of weeks before the race, and sometimes you don't get all of the information that you want, so you're only working with what you.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
And I would say even in some circumstances, what the race director sends out is going to be all you need because they don't send out that much. There's not much data to parse. Just keep that in mind.
Speaker 1
OK, so now that now that you've got the top team data you want to have your. Data like how. Fast is your team move, so hopefully you have a chance to train with your team. For example, go on a two or three hour mountain bike ride and track it using your smart watch or your Strava or whatever, and then you can look at your own data of how quickly do you move. Because it's not about the fastest person, it's about how quick does the slowest person go on your team on different terrain. And so it's in paddling is the same way. I mean get into this, you know, 1617. Canoe and go paddling for a while and and see. What is your average speed? After a while you'll get to know kind of what what you can do on on a paddle section. But remember, do it for long periods of time. Don't Don. Here's how fast we did for one kilometer. It's like, no, no, no, it's it's after you're tired and you're eating and you're drinking while putting on sunscreen. So so try to get your your time overall of a longer period to give you a better average.
Speaker 2
But it's quite a luxury if your whole team lives in the same place and you have time to train together. So I think looking at Strava, looking at the everyone's travel, you know you can't necessarily go any faster than you can get your slowest teammate to go, and even on the fastest teams, there is this lowest number. So just keep that in mind.
Speaker 1
OK, so other. Other parameters because even though, let's say you're, you think you can do 18K. Per hour on a mountain bike on single track. Well, then you got to. Take into consideration the elevation. Change going up or down, right? That's going to. Either speed you up. Or slow you down. You have to consider that you have. To modify your your rate of travel based on. Your elevation relative. To your home. So when we did Ecuador or guidance I you know it's like 10,000 feet like you're not running up and down hills like we do here. In Virginia Beach at. Sea level right? So you have to take the total elevation into. Let's see elapsed time racing. That's the other. Thing, that's why. The spreadsheet really helps is because you can. You can slow yourself down. You're going to fatigue over four or five days. So you're you're what you're you're, you know, everybody's, like, running in the prologue and then you don't see hardly any teams running on day four. Everybody's like limping along, just trying to not die.
Speaker 2
So or if they're going full rates of speed? They've probably had a good sleep. So you know, when you when you've had your. Last sleep when? You've planned to factor that in there. I think the logistics planner is best almost for that to to force you to realize you need sleep. And since you've planned it at this place, go ahead and take it.
Speaker 1
And we're going to get into sleep in another. I think we have that coming up. In another mailbag podcast or or. Or maybe? The one attached to this one. OK, so let's get into some other stuff. Of course you have to add in a little bit for hunting CPS and this is. Going to depend on race director. Some race directors are a little lazy and they the the CP is right along the road so they can reach out their car window and hang. The hang the bag.
Speaker 2
I'm not going to call her lazy. Come on now, some race directors have different goals for the people that are participating.
Speaker
OK.
Speaker 1
OK.
Speaker 2
You know? Are they beginner racers or? They experienced racers and a lot of times they'll be points that are, well, they'll be races that are intended for both. So some of the points will be super easy to get, just a couple of seconds right off the trail. Some will be pro points or expert points or whatever, even if they're not called that you could identify ohh. These particular points are going to be harder. There's more. Bush whacking there's more elevation or whatever, so. To be fair.
Speaker 1
So the longer the race, usually the checkpoints get a little further, a little harder. Little little it. Takes a little more time for the team.
Speaker 2
Or this style.
Speaker 1
To get them right for the style.
Speaker 2
You know, sometimes, for instance, an expedition style where you're going point to point. Say like expedition Africa, there were in Lesotho there were only. Like 10 points for the whole race over seven days.
Speaker 1
And they're really spread out, yeah.
Speaker 2
So once you actually got to the point it was not hidden, you did have to be in the. Right place, of course, but.
Speaker 1
Because there were no roads like the whole. Place is hidden.
Speaker 2
Country is hidden.
Speaker
You're just walking.
Speaker 1
Out. That's 100 miles of wilderness. Oh, look. At that, there's a checkpoint. There's a.
Speaker 2
Checkpoint. I can see it from 3K away.
Speaker 1
Yeah, no attack point. It's like mountainside.
Speaker 2
But you know what I mean. The style of the race is in a real game race where you're just it's a free for all. Go for whatever points when and where you can. That can be a lot different, but yeah, yeah. Consider the style of the.
Speaker 1
Yeah, especially bushwhacking, like that's definitely just because it's 10K does not mean you're going to do it the same as 10K walking on trails.
Speaker
Race correctly.
Speaker 1
It's bushwhacking. You know, the the Wildcat that that Lattanzi puts on like that is like you're totally going through rhododendron. You're moving really slow. Either way, OK, so let's move. Moving right along so. Consider how hard it is going to be to get to the C. If you're, if you're, I guess we're going to get into biking later, let me skip that one night time. The travel is going to be a little bit slower because the NAV is a little bit slower at night. You don't have the big references like. You can't look around and.
Speaker 2
See the mountains and things like that. And honestly, as far as navigation goes, the more confident. The Navy. Later, generally the less time it's taking to decide. Where to go? And the less you know, talking amongst the team of where to go and how to get there, that'll be faster too. So your style of navigation matters as well, yeah.
Speaker 1
Big time. Yeah, if you got two navigators that's stopping and talking every CP to figure out what to do, that's really slow versus 1 navigator.
Speaker 2
Although if you're not getting lost it. Could still be faster than the people that are darting from point to point. So yeah, that's not just going to say there's also weather considerations.
Speaker 1
All right. The other thing. Oh, sorry.
Speaker 2
You know, if it is it hot, is it? Is it raining, man? I feel like raining slows you down a lot.
Speaker 1
And slows you down. Especially if it starts getting muddy, like just walking down the road. One thing but walking through clay that's sticking to your feet or sticking to your bike is terrible. Also, if if. You've raced quite a bit. Try to track your time in other races. That way you have a you and your team have now done different things and you can go back after the race. And kind of post mortem, the race and see how fast did we move through that Trek section in that bike section. I wish we did. That more often.
Speaker 2
Good luck remembering that's the that's the real problem.
Speaker 1
You would have to really. Have somebody's job is really to write it down to say how long were we? That leg and then go back and compare it to the times that would that would be. That's probably what the fastings do.
Speaker
It's a lot.
Speaker 1
The proteins they, they post mortem, their, their whole race.
Speaker 2
No, I don't think so. They don't think about that, they're just going balls to the walls and they're trusting the race directors fast time and they're expecting to meet it or exceed it.
Speaker 1
Or beat. Yeah, back.
Speaker 2
So yeah.
Speaker 1
So another one hot. Travel like if. It's really hot outside. You're having to take a lot more water, drink a lot more water, additional water filtering sunscreen, stuff like that, but also your heart rate starts to spike. When you're when it's super hot outside, so people are just, they're not going to. Go as fast as normal.
Speaker 2
And just don't forget, it's easy to get done when your heart rate is high. It's just harder to think you got to slow down to. Think clearly.
Speaker 1
Yeah, and that don't matter if. You're running or. If it's just hot either. Way, if your heart rates. Above like 135 one. 40 You're you're probably going to make some errors.
Speaker 2
It's yeah, it's why often your navigator shouldn't necessarily be the person that's pushing the hardest at that time.
Speaker 1
I mean just it's hard to think. OK, so now let's talk specific water travel. We we said earlier. Like if you have pack rafts and you have to strap your stuff in because it's white water that's going to take up a lot of time. So add that in. You get to know the. The flow of the river and a lot of times you can, I mean in the states you can get river app or some other thing like that to see the flow and and the predicted flow on a river. So you can kind of figure out how.
Speaker 2
If you know what river you're not going to know.
Speaker 1
Is it going? If you know river? Oh, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2
And you? Yeah, I mean, you just not going to know that.
Speaker 1
Right when you. Doing the Shenandoah Epic, I know that this, the Shenandoah and then I can look it up and see it so.
Speaker
OK.
Speaker 1
Some races, you know the river, so either way, consider the flow of the river is.
Speaker 2
So some races, you'll know.
Speaker 1
It flat water. Is it moving water?
Speaker 2
Is it a lake? Is there wind?
Speaker 1
The wind is a big one. Wind and and tide is another one. In some situations where it's tidal you can you could look up the tide chart so. That way you know if the paddle section is the second section and the tide is going out. It's going to take. You longer than maybe? If the tides going in, if you're going up river, so either way, take take all that.
Speaker 2
Do we have any rules of thumb for water travel?
Speaker 1
3 miles an hour or whatever. I guess that that's typically kind of. What a a big boat moves. And then a lot of rivers can flow anywhere from 2:00 to 422 to 5 miles an hour, I think. So you can kind of add those two together just for. But again, it depends on the size of the boat, because of course the longer, skinnier boats go way faster than the short fatty. So if you're a solar racer and a 12. Foot Pelican, you. Know you're gonna. It's like a barge.
Speaker 2
Yeah, the boat you're in matters so much too, but.
Speaker 1
So it's not going to be a fast, yeah. The other thing is two person or three persons faster than one person, typically because if I need to eat some food or drink some water, only one person stops paddling. But if you're solar racer and you stop paddling, the boat usually spins. You know and stops.
Speaker 2
So 3 miles an hour is about 5K an hour. And you're thinking that's flat water for a.
Speaker 1
Kind of just flat. Yeah, no end flat.
Speaker 2
Hot water for a canoe. Yeah, with two.
Speaker 1
People with two people.
Speaker 2
That still, that's. A loose loose number, but you wanted number, so that's a loose number.
Speaker 1
It is a lease number too. Yeah. And what did you do in solos? You you were doing 1010 minutes per day?
Speaker 2
And that was. In a a solo kayak.
Speaker 1
50 minutes per wow.
Speaker
That's a lot.
Speaker 1
But that's a solo kayak.
Speaker 2
That's what you were using.
Speaker 1
And at night. At night. Yeah, I I know. I think I was going about the same speed. Yeah, I'm. Slow and paddle though I.
Speaker 2
She had a very nice vote anyway, so many factors.
Speaker
All right, so.
Speaker 1
So many factors, yes, This is why this is not an easy answer. So we're giving you parameters, you build your own spreadsheet, do your own research, and take take all this stuff into consideration. OK, so here we are in trekking. What are some things that we should consider when? Coming up with the tracking thing.
Speaker 2
Well, obviously the extra time it's going to take for fixing your feet. You know, I think that's that's. Just so important that you're going. To need to be. Airing them out, looping them, you know, every every six hours. If not, you know when you're wet, maybe every three hours, you know, it's not going to take a lot of time, but it's going to be worth it in the end. So and of. Course you know how often you need to fix your feet depends on the terrain. Have you been wet? Have you been bushwhacking?
Speaker 1
Up and down. That makes your feet get jacked up.
Speaker 2
How much elevation change have you?
Speaker 1
And for shorter races, if it's a 12 hour race, you're probably not doing this. We're mostly talking about the bigger races where you know you're in the sea to sea and you have a 18 hour trek in the hot sand. This is that you you have to just schedule time to fix your feet because. If you don't, your team is gonna, when somebody on the team is gonna be like, oh, I'm just not gonna tell anybody. I've got a hot spot and before you know it, their feet are destroyed, so it's better just have everybody pull over and fix your feet, meaning dry them out, relieve them, get the sand out of your socks and move along. But it takes 5 minutes or anytime everybody stop. It's just like before. You know it, it's a it's a party and you're. There 10 minutes later so.
Speaker 2
Well, and if the leg itself, the. Length of the leg itself matters if you're in a 35 kilometer trek, you're going to be going at different speed than if you're in a 5K trek. Yeah, you might be shuffling as opposed to hiking, or you might be running as opposed to shuffling.
Speaker 1
And a lot of times if it's flat Rd. a lot of times, it's like basically you're shuffling the downhills and sometimes the flats if you're not carrying a lot. And then you're you're marching the uphills fast.
Speaker 2
But think about it, if you're doing a really long leg, you know if you expect to be on your feet for 24 hours, you're also going to have a heavier pack. You're going to have more food. You might have your sleeping gear that you wouldn't have had otherwise. You might have your poles that you might not have had otherwise. Sometimes you're going to need to. Be carrying a pack raft.
Speaker 1
Or a wet suit or a dry suit.
Speaker 2
That's a lot of extra lot of extra weight.
Speaker 1
No. Pack rusts are heavy. Because then you're carrying the paddles and the life jackets on top of. Everything sometimes you.
Speaker 2
Remember, in Rodriguez, we were carrying our wet suits and our fins and our masks and our snorkels.
Speaker 1
So heavy. Oh.
Speaker 2
And we had to have water shoes too. I think we had water shoes separate from our.
Speaker 1
Ohh that was so heavy.
Speaker 2
Hiking shoes that.
Speaker 1
And then of course, we talked about bushwhacking as way slower than than if you're using trails and then, oh, but we do have a couple ways of doing on trekking. Like at A at a good. AR March down a dirt Rd. Flat right. We normally think that we can move about 100 meters every one. Minute, right? So it's basically 10 minutes per kilometer and then?
Speaker 2
So that's micro NAV.
Speaker 1
This is microwave.
Speaker 2
You're not going to have this in your spreadsheet or anything, but it does help when you're.
Speaker 1
Well, 10 minutes per kilometer.
Speaker 2
Hunting for the CV.
Speaker 1
Basically 10 minutes because remember, in the spreadsheet we converted everything to minutes per kilometer and so 10 minutes per kilometer.
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1
We know is our pace on flat ground that that we can we can sustain that.
Speaker 2
We know that tempo well, yeah.
Speaker 1
It's not high heart rate, we know that. Tempo well also when you're. Bushwhacking I normally consider about and I'm talking not dense roto. I'm talking just going through. The woods where? You're stepping over stuff and going around stuff. It's usually 1.5 minutes bushwhacking, so that that's kind of what I take into consideration 1.5 minutes per 100. All right, let's talk about the bikes.
Speaker 2
Well, a lot of the same things. You know, you're going to be considering the elevation change, the type of surface you're on. If you're on the roads or trails or. Single track or fire roads. That can all play into it.
Speaker 1
The main thing is if it's a big race, especially an RWS race, you're putting your bike in and out of a bike box and it takes a while. I mean you can. Get a lot faster by. Thing but the but the the the average team it just takes time to to take your bike in and out-of-the-box because a lot of times you're putting on a pedal, you're. Putting on your front tire. Sometimes your brake pads. Got closed because you screws you, didn't you? Didn't put shims in? And now you can't get your front rim on your front tire on. You got to sometimes you got to put the the lights and the blinkies and all the stuff back on. As you took it off, so then it knocked off.
Speaker 2
Well, that's during a TCA though, but. During the leg itself. You know there. Is a little bit of additional time I'd say because you will be needing to fix your feet sometimes. Not nearly as much as if you're tracking, but if you're wet, you'll. Be needing to. Do that, and of course, if you have any mechanicals, not that we factor a mechanical into the schematic. For the logistics plan, but.
Speaker 1
If there's a cutoff, we do. If it's like, we've gotta, we're going to the finish. It's like we're leaving 30 minutes. For a flat tire.
Speaker 2
OK, I agree with that.
Speaker 1
Another thing during transition is, is on big burly bike legs, a lot of teams will have like you take some of the stuff out of your pack and you put it into the bike. Like if you have a frame bag or a seat bag, it takes a little bit of extra time in TA. So to add that into your TA. If you were having to build your bike and transition your gear over to your bike and reattach your lights and your blinkies because you didn't want to get knocked off in. Your bike box. So alright, last little bit we're. Talking about sleep. And in Texas, So what do you think about that?
Speaker 2
I think that is probably the hardest thing to incorporate into a plan. Mostly because you're just not going to know when the conditions are going to be ideal, but we still put it in there and generally this is really generally speaking, we say no sleep the first night, 2 hours the next night.
Speaker
Right.
Speaker 2
If it's a longer race, then we might start out three hours each night. Maybe even more and honestly that kind of depends on once we play with the numbers. So we'll put it in the spreadsheet, we'll say OK, we need to get to the finish at this time. Now let's fill up that time either with sleep or, you know, maybe highlight the legs that we think. We there's some options if we can get more points on a certain leg, but that's where playing with the numbers I think comes in. What do you think about that?
Speaker 1
Totally no, you're exactly right. And and we when we say we skipped the first night, that's if you got a good night's sleep the night before. If it was crappy night sleep the night before, then you probably gonna have to sleep on the first night. The minute you start having hallucinations or sleep monsters. A lot. We basically have two different modes. It's either safety, stop, which is usually 20 to 30. And it's which is just. You have a teammate that's falling apart, and you just need to get the hallucinations to go away for the next two or three. Hours to get. The daylight or whatever. So we we probably on first night we would pull a safety stop before we would do a legit bed down. And then every night after that, we do the two hours. Or a little more, maybe 22. And a half to three. Primarily because 90 minutes is a full sleep cycle, and so you want about, you know, 15 minutes on the front end of the back end. Get to bed down and and get back up and go. But you want a minimum. If you're a real sleep is at least 90. Minutes of actual sleeping.
Speaker 2
And we don't include the safety sleeps in the logistics plan.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
That's kind of.
Speaker 1
Right. And then? The the last little bit I should have put this right in the beginning. Start from the end. Of the race and work your way backwards when you're coming up with you with your times, because obviously the finish line is. A big deal. And so you want to make sure that your time leading into the finish is the. Most accurate so. If you start at the beginning of the race and then start adding. Time you're you're adding in lots of variables, so start with the finish and work backwards and then that way you put arbitrary cut offs on your sheet so it keeps you on track and that way you know when to start giving stuff. Up or moving faster or whatever.
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, we didn't mention a couple of other things that you know you just mentioned. It's self-imposed. Cut off, but like Croatia, has two different. Actual cut offs. If we don't make it in time, they're going to short course us and the. Oh, was I thinking?
Speaker
I don't know.
Speaker 1
Brain part.
Speaker 2
Had something to do with that.
Speaker
OK.
Speaker 1
OK, so I think that. Kind of wraps up our thoughts on Jane's question I. Believe we gave. Some very detailed information to come up with your.
Speaker 2
Ohh I figured it.
Speaker
Out I.
Speaker 2
Just remembered. So again, planning your sleep and how much of the course you're going to get. You know, a lot of us have. The goal of wanting to see every part. Of the course, but not necessarily. Really getting every checkpoint, but the type of course it is matters a lot. So for instance for Croatia the scoring you need to keep getting consecutive points even though some of them are optional. The scoring is such that once you skip one optional. Then you're going to be ranked below the rest, so that's when you're effectively called short course. But like in Ozarks, you weren't considered short course until you missed a cutoff.
Speaker 1
Are mandatory.
Speaker 2
A mandatory. So in that race we could look at the legs and say, OK, there's optional points during this leg we can cut that leg shorter if we need to and but for Croatia we don't have that option.
Speaker 1
Right. So read the race. Usually the race director puts out the race rules ahead of time and that will help you on your logistics plan. So if like so you said, for example Croatia, we don't make any decisions, we're going to go after every single checkpoint and the race director is going to make the decision for us to short courses, right? So we're not giving up checkpoints, but Ozarks, we were allowed as long as you get all the the mandatories you can give up the optionals with no penalty.
Speaker 2
And one other thing, dark zones the the Croatia race has a dark zone, so in the first stage of the race there's a track.
Speaker 1
OK.
Speaker 2
If you don't do that fast enough, you're not going to be off the water in the second track.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
So your our percent greater than the fastest team. Can't be consistent throughout the whole race because we want to be really close to the fastest teams for that first leg so that we don't have to do any trekking during that Cattle Lake because what they said is once it turns dark, you're going to drop your boats and you're going to have to hike in the rest of that.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Giving up the paddle.
Speaker 2
Leg anyway.
Speaker 1
So sometimes you gotta move faster than you want. You you. You have to like. OK, team, we'll run it.
Speaker 2
You have to decide where you're going to.
Speaker 1
They're gonna.
Speaker
Burn it, yeah.
Speaker 2
Push it and where you think you can pick and choose.
Speaker 1
Are you going to read?
Speaker 2
I guess that's the bottom.
Speaker 1
OK, so now we're.
Speaker 2
Now I think they've covered it all.
Speaker 1
OK, there's no easy answers if you guys have any other other things that we didn't touch on, put it in the comments or reach out to us because this is a, this is one of these topics that we're constantly learning and trying new things.
Speaker 2
Yeah, we'd love to. Know what other teams do to figure this stuff out?
Speaker 1
All right, good luck with your race planning.
Speaker 2
All right. So our next question is from Megan Moore from Vermont. She had another question sent to us through our team Facebook Messenger. So feel free to send questions that way as well, and she asks, should I carry a sleeping pad or not when expedition racing? I know a lot of people will only have a pad in their TA bin, but on the chance that you hit the sleep wall and need to sleep out on a leg, well, if you're gonna sleep. It seems a good idea. To get the best sleep possible and the pad. Can help with warmth. Comfort. Or is it just extra weight? Mine is 12.5 oz. So not too bad and one should just deal and or assume that if you have to do an unplanned sleep, it's because you're absolutely exhausted and should be able to sleep anywhere. Like even on rocks face down :) so. This is going to depend a lot like all of our other answers to the questions, it depends. So what do you think, Chip?
Speaker 1
We've we've done it both ways and I am definitely a fan of sleep pads. But after you the like the 1st 30 hours like you're not going to see me at the Shenandoah Epic 24 hour carrying a sleep pad. Because saying the Dang way, I'm laying down and sleeping cause it's a 24 hour race, you ain't got time for that. But on a multi day race.
Speaker 2
And that's what she's asking for.
Speaker 1
That's what she's asking. Multi day. OK, so I'm a huge fan of the sleep pads, but. I'm also like as I look around, I don't see many other people taking.
Speaker
Them but.
Speaker 1
Like maybe I'm just a big Pansy and I just. Want my comfortable? Sleep, but I think it's worth the wait.
Speaker 2
No, don't think that's true. And so it's almost like what are the chances that you're going to sleep? I think that's the. First question you ask yourself if you're going to take it along with. You or not. So during the first 24 hours for our team, the chances are we're not going to sleep at all. So then the next. Tonight, the chances are. Really high, we're. Going to sleep somewhere, sometime and I think you're right, Megan. That better sleep is preferable to, you know, cold, uncomfortable sleep. And so we have been taking our paths along with us. Basically, anytime after the first night, and sometimes that includes even during the day because you never know when you're going to have an unplanned or you call it a safety sleep somewhere, sometime. Uh, so that in mind, though our sleeping pads are pretty basic and minimal. They are the accordion type, but we actually got ours from Walmart. So they are, yeah, I.
Speaker 1
Sponsors of expedition Ozark.
Speaker
Think actually it's.
Speaker 2
The Ozark Trail brand. But so we got one and we cut it in half. So I use half of it. Chip uses half of it and honestly that the point where your hip is against the ground and your shoulders against the ground, if you side sleep or even if you're on your back and your **** and your shoulders are on the mat, we usually put our heads on our backpacks or even we sometimes we use our helmets. Like if you're wearing your helmet. It's actually kind of a comfortable pillow, a good neck angle. So you don't necessarily need the full length of the pad. Yeah, I I definitely think it's worth it. But what else do you use it for?
Speaker 1
I use it for all kinds of stuff, but but you're exactly right. The typical pad you buy at Walmart or or any place is going to be full length, right? It's kind of they just put. Under your sleeping bag, if you're. Camping so just hit the shoulder is all you. Need for me at least, because normally there's I always want something kind of underneath my legs and something underneath my head. So a lot of times, like you said, bike helmet. Or a dry bag. You can kind of inflate your dry bag, put it behind your head and everything. But another reason for the pad. The funny thing is, once you've got it all of a sudden, it's like, OK, I'm lugging this thing around, I'm going to use it. So every time we stop to fix our feet, especially at night, I don't want to sit down on the ground where it's Dewey and wet or muddy and get my **** wet so I can use the sleeping pad sleeping pad. Just plop down, and now I got a place to sleep or place to sit.
Speaker
When you get to.
Speaker 1
TA even NTA you. You to open your bin and you. Want to sit? Down fix your feet a lot of. Times the ground's wet, so I use it for everything.
Speaker 2
Yeah, but you might. Have it in your bin but not with. You, but of course some of the fast teams.
Speaker 1
Right, the TA sleep sucks.
Speaker 2
Are probably like just. Like something patches off.
Speaker
Cracking after like This is why this event really starways mid pack.
Speaker 2
Like what you should have had. Down to sit down, to treat your feet, you can sit anywhere. So I mean there is that is it.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
The thing is once you've got it along. It's it's so easy. Like we put it on the side of our pack with the two side straps and we use the out. There packs usually. So it's really easy and it's right there. So once it's there, you kind of find a lot.
Speaker 1
Of uses for it and it's it's quick in. And out with the out there pack, you got two different straps, just two clips. You can take it out. And use it and put it right back.
Speaker 2
Yeah, and it doesn't add much weight and it's but the thermal quality I think is almost as important as the comfort factor. Like when you don't have anything between you and the ground, it's amazing how much colder it is, so the temperature of the race might matter too if you're. Yeah, it just that. That would make a difference. Maybe if you're. Trying to decide. Whether to take it along or not.
Speaker 1
Yeah, also concrete. A lot of times like it's especially at night, you'll come by, let's say, a church or somewhere. There's, like, an awning. You get out of the dew. You can find a dry place to lay down, but the concrete will strip you of your temperature quickly. So having that pad there just to like you said to keep the thermal barriers is important. And I think the the main thing and she alluded to it in her question. You have to sleep at some point during the race. Quality sleep is way better than fitful sleep where you're not really sleeping. You're uncomfortable, you know you're wet or you're cold, you know? And even if one teammates fine, if there's any teammate that, that that doesn't get good sleep, then the team doesn't have good sleep. So I I look at it like it's like this insurance that I'm, yes, I'm carrying a little extra weight. It's a little harder bushwhacking, but man, when I lay down on that mat I am out and I don't wake back up until the alarm goes off. And I I feel like I got quality sleep.
Speaker 2
Well, and even if it's just a 15 or 20 minute nap. You know, if one person on the team didn't. Sleep at all. For that 15 minutes, it makes a big difference. I mean, I feel I'm. I'm not going to say I feel completely refreshed, but I feel like a new person, like my mental capability, especially once I've had a 15 or 20 minute nap is just so much better. Like, I just feel more alert. And it doesn't any longer feel dangerous to be. We like riding a bike, for instance, so we do even when we're riding bikes they they're on our packs now. Sometimes we've got to position it in the right place so that when you're getting on your bike, you're not, like knocking it on the seat or something. Or when you're bushwhacking, it's like not interfering with, you know, ducking under things. Even when we're on bikes in a paceline usually chip is breaking the wind, but this last time I was carrying his sleep pad on my mat so I can kind of duck in behind him and he has. Less less of a drag, yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And so that may be something to consider is if you have somebody that's not as strong on the team, the Sherpa carries their sleep pad, but if everybody has one, it it kind of would make sense if if one person is going to have no, everybody has them because it either because you operates A-Team. So either you're all kind of hard to bushwhack or not, but it is a preference. The other thing she asked about the TAS. And you know. The logical like it's almost like the race tractor, it says oh. Well, there's a place to sleep at the TA, and you can put your tent. In your gear bend. But it seems like every time we've ever slept at a TA, it has sucked. It's noisy and teams come in and out. They're talking, they're laughing. Gear bins are opening and shutting. There's a generator running. There's a there's a dog licking your face like. Or ohh yeah yeah.
Speaker 2
Clay, those are. Waking up to a dog looking your face. Don't know. I feel like that's been kind of 5050. I've had some really good. Sleeps at the TA. But it was mostly because I have a sleeping bag there and only had a biggie sack, biggie sack out on the leg.
Speaker 1
Earplugs and an eye mask.
Speaker 2
But yeah, but I, you know, the eye mask and the earplugs I carry that everywhere too now.
Speaker 1
Every ever.
Speaker 2
But yeah, quality sleep. That's almost a whole nother question, but. Do you take? Your pad with you or not out on a leg.
Speaker 1
Think that that's dependent upon the leg if it's a.
Speaker
It's it's, it's.
Speaker 2
Dependent on the.
Speaker 1
6 hour leg.
Speaker 2
Way it's dependent on how far into the race.
Speaker 1
Right. And are you going to see your gear bent again because a lot of times if it's gear bend A&B in a bike box, you might not see your sleeping pad for two days and a big expedition? So you may. Want to carry it with you but. If you're going. To see it again and you know. You don't need a safety stop or you're willing to take the risk and don't take it or have two, right? Because they're pretty small. Because again, we cut them in half. So maybe you put. One in each gear bin so that then you can rotate it.
Speaker 2
And of course, like you could just go try. Then make sure you're real comfortable with it on your pack. Like if you're bushwhacking. And it's irritating you to the point that it might not be worth it for you.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Where did Ben, right.
Speaker
Now I don't.
Speaker 1
Now would really suck with a sleeping pad.
Speaker 2
I mean, but we've done it.
Speaker 1
One thing is, yeah.
Speaker 2
And so how you attach it to your pack is kind of important too, like one of our teammates, Rachel Nolan, had a backpack that here was an insert inside the pack. That had the pad and you can. Pull the pad. Out and use it. It was. It was a pretty small pad, but it looked like it worked perfectly for her. Some people carry it on the bottom of their packs, you know, horizontally. But yeah, try it.
Speaker 1
So if you do that.
Speaker 2
Out and see.
Speaker 1
So I think like REI in some places, they got those Velcro straps with a loop on one side, kind of like a watch band would be. And so you're going to want to get two of those straps if you're going to connect it to either the top or the bottom of your pack, like the out there, pack the side. It automatically comes with a strap, so I don't have to have any secondary straps, but now the other thing like you were saying.
Speaker
Especially if there's but.
Speaker 1
Tracking if you have it vertical on your pack it's you can make it so it's. Not sticking up too. High so that as you duck under trees and stuff, it's not getting hung up. But when I see people wear it horizontally, it's almost like too wide. And then as they're bushwhacking through stuff, it gets caught. And so I much prefer it vertical, either on the side or the back. Of the pack. Versus across your shoulder sticking out or across? Your **** sticking out.
Speaker 2
But if you have a vertical in any which way, you're interfering with using those pockets that it's covering them, which is a lot of the reason to use an Out-There pack is because of all of the pockets are so great.
Speaker 1
It does cover the pockets.
Speaker 2
So you know, there's there's nothing perfect there. It it, it would be nice if there was something small enough that would fit into a pack like I was saying with Rachel's pack itself having it built in.
Speaker 1
Yes, that is a consideration. Right.
Speaker 2
Anyway, I I have gotten over looking a. Little bit dorky? For having. An accordion sleep. Mat on my pack like in midday. I just. I really like it and. I don't know it we. Didn't always use it, it's it just seems really well worth it.
Speaker 1
Right. And Paraguay is like the World Championships. I think we were the only people at the start line with the sleeping pad. But that leg won.
Speaker
We were so glad to. Have it.
Speaker 1
Yes, it took us 3. More than three days, this is like. Doing the entire CC and it's just. Like 1. So we slept many times on that pack. Not not only big sleeps. We also had safety stops. We had a lightning storm. Where we're on concrete in the cold, shivering. We were on our pads and we were super comfortable.
Speaker 2
We had a few.
Speaker 1
So even though.
Speaker
Things that didn't.
Speaker 2
Go out to plan during that leg. Which do you plan for the unexpected? Depends on who you are, how much risk you want to take, and what you're risking.
Speaker
OK.
Speaker 1
So one of the things some people are fans of the inflatable sleeping pads, which that's fine. Obviously, if anything that's inflatable, can be popped and so every time I've never spent like a lot of money on a high brand. Every time I've gotten. Like a mid. Level brand inflatable. It always works. For a handful of times and then before you know it, I'm waking up and I'm on the ground again, right? It's just like, and then it's hard to find the hole and.
Speaker 2
Well, then you're taking the time to. I mean, a lot of them are self-inflating, but even so deflating, you're just taking a little extra time, I think, and I don't think the weight differential is enough, especially if you're using half of a.
Speaker 1
And quite nicely.
Speaker 2
Foam pads.
Speaker 1
It's the size because you can you can take an inflatable and it goes inside your packet small.
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1
It's not sticking out, but the idea. Is the the the.
Speaker 2
I see what you mean.
Speaker 1
Accordion ones we're using. They're so cheap, they're durable, and the idea is that you know that you're getting near the finish. You know you're 10 hours away from the finish. You're not sleeping. You can put it in the trash can. It's like, it's not like. $150.00 inflatable thing that you're going to protect it it literally like you go buy another one at Walmart for nothing and. Cut it in half and start over. Not that.
Speaker 2
You should, I mean.
Speaker 1
Not that you. Should just saying it's it's basically disposable, yeah.
Speaker 2
We've never had to replace ours. Kind of makes me think I should cut mine down even a. Little bit.
Speaker 1
It could. I could too.
Speaker 2
It might not need to be as.
Speaker 1
I agree.
Speaker 2
I don't know. Anyway, that's that's our. Thoughts on whether?
Speaker 1
That sleeping pads.
Speaker 2
You should take a sleeping pad or not.
Speaker 1
But but again, we are talking from a we and we've said this before in podcast. But I'll reiterate since this is a new mailbag episode. Our goal on these big expeditions is do as much of the course as possible get to the finish line as a full team. No injuries or illness. Still, friends, having had the best. Time of our life. Right. We want to be. Pumped ready to sign up for the next race. We are not aiming for the podium of an AR WS race. It's just not going to happen. We we we're happy ecstatic if we get near the top. Then so the comfort.
Speaker 2
But often, better sleep means a better performance. Better sleep means you're having more fun. So sleep is way. More important than I think I gave it credit. You know earlier, right in racing.
Speaker 1
But either way, if you're a top team, super competitive or you're thinking about joining a top team, super competitive, you're running the whole time, you're suffering the whole time you're carrying less layers, lighter gear. Don't show up to the to the team with.
Speaker
A big old sleeping.
Speaker 1
They're probably in the, you know, take it away from you, right? It's just like that.
Speaker 2
Therefore, it takes away from me they.
Speaker 1
They probably take it away like you are not not right.
Speaker 2
Thought and they've been. Though I mean.
Speaker 1
Then maybe maybe in their bed. Listen, listen to the Bend Racing podcast.
Speaker 2
They have to sleep too. They just.
Speaker 1
They will ask them questions about how to go fast and. The podium and do they sleep on pads? That's a Jason Chelsea question.
Speaker 2
Yeah, usually their backpacks are like so small like.
Speaker 1
We like the comfort.
Speaker 2
It's clearly not a sleeping pad in there.
Speaker 1
The concrete complaints, because it gets warm when. They sleep on it. That's how ****** they are. Concrete though, either way, OK, so I.
Speaker 2
That's fun.
Speaker 1
Think we answered the sleeping pad versus no sleeping pad. Check with your team.
Speaker 2
And make sure that lets you bring it.
Speaker
OK.
Speaker 1
Thank you so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. Please take a moment to leave a rating. And a comment.
Speaker 2
If you have a question for the next mailbag segment, call 757-354-4795 and leave us a voicemail or a text with your name city. You are calling from and your question.
Speaker 1
To find additional content, including the video versions of these discussions, you can search for disability racing on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 2
We hope this podcast inspired you to focus on your abilities and plan your next adventure.
Speaker 1
See you on the trail.