Tara and Oybek take on the world of adventure challenges, mountain biking and CrossFit in a race to get fit!
It’s 9:00 a.m. The wind is howling, and I’m making my way up through a spectacular wadi. I’m trying to focus metres ahead on the terrain, but I can’t stop looking at the wadi walls starting to close in on either side of me and the growing lunar-esque summit towering above as we inch closer to the top.
It’s technical and it’s not easy. I’m winding my way slowly but steadily up to the top – my legs are burning and lungs are on fire, but I’m still pushing on. Taking the lead through the rocky wadi bed is Bobo from Mountain Biking UAE, who I’d met by chance at the Showka Dam meeting point. It’s been one of those days where everything went wrong: the GPS, the timing, the meeting point, the group I was supposed to leave with, but yet I’ve made it – I’m riding.
Once at the top, we took a break at the summit point of the single track, I could tell I was holding him back. I was starting to feel a bit broken after the first two hours. The wind was still putting up a good fight as I looked down on what was to come. Bobo reassured me, “It’s all downhill from here, but you should take it slow, and don’t look down when you cross the bridge.”
I didn’t, I kept my focus and kept a steady pace once back on the bike. I was trying to keep up, but lost sight of Bobo. I then noticed a steep incline, leading up to a rocky silhouette opening only to the sky. I pushed up and through, and suddenly found myself looking down a steep face. My tyres dig into the loose rock, then hard rock, then loose rock again. Uncertain, I stupidly break, the back wheel comes out, I hold the position onto the hard rock for a second or so, but then get scared, I break again. This time the back wheel slides all the way under me, and my leg is trapped under the bike as I’m sliding down, trying to get it back up so I can get back on it, but as I stand I’m falling forward…
Let’s rewind slightly. This little crusade of mine all started a few weeks ago when I was asked if I wanted to enter the Al Ain Wadi Adventure Race 2. I said yes without thinking. It only occurred to me a week after I gave my registration details that “real” people will be entering this event, the ones that run half marathons, do triathlons, cycle 92km and the list goes on. In a bid to make myself feel better about saying yes, I also convinced OutdoorUAE’s designer Oybek to enter as well.
I’m not a big fan of regimented activity and I believe that getting fit should be fun. I mainly give into peer pressure and get roped into things that are above and beyond what I’m capable off (for instance a 16km technical mountain bike ride at 7.00 a.m. on a Friday morning) – exciting and fun things that do require some sort of fitness level. I do them, wipe myself out for a couple of weeks and then find something else to hurt myself with. It’s a vicious cycle!
Unfortunately for me, surrounded by long-day specialists here at OutdoorUAE, it was only a matter of time until I decided to say yes to bite off more than I could chew.
Time to commit
By the time this goes to print, there will be only 19 days left till the Wadi Adventure Race 2. It will be held at the Wadi Adventure water park in Al Ain, and it’s a head-to-head individual race that incorporates five challenges.
So far, they have only told us that it involves a 3km cross country run with a twist; water retrieval; 5kg bag run; surf pool traverse; whitewater river navigation; raft leap frog; balance beam; barb wire crawl; wall climb; bag toss; extreme obstacle course and so on. They also have a picture on their Facebook of a huge rope on the side of the wave pool with three bodies auspiciously climbing up it, waiting to take a seriously big wipe out. ( Pictured left). Their prerequisite is that you should be a good swimmer, have a basic level of fitness, be over 1.2 metres tall and expect to have a fun day (Wadi Adventure mentions the whole race should take an hour or so).
In a bid to find out more about what type of fitness we needed to prepare ourselves for the race, we got in touch with Lee Bradbury (one of our contributors this month and a coach at Reebok CrossFit LifeSpark, who also enters adventure races, challenges, midnight and morning desert 20K runs). He put us in touch with Candice and Ben (the gym owners) of Reebok Crossfit LifeSpark in JLT, a facility that prides itself on enabling its members to say YES to any challenge. (LifeSpark believe that fitness is essential to a great life. Their coaching focuses on teaching movement techniques and skills, physical conditioning and the development of healthy workouts and eating habits).
Lee suggested that with the mountain biking that I had taken up, we should also include CrossFit and some running into our workouts at least three hours a week to prepare ourselves for a good level of fitness for the adventure race.
Having not really any idea what CrossFit was, or what I would be in for, I said yes – a second time.
The verdict
This is the most regimented training (apart from PE class in school) that I’ve done in a long time. Run by Lee, the class started with some dynamic stretching and warm-up movements that prepare you for the WOD (Work Out of the Day). The WOD can include anything from dedicated strength work to stamina, endurance and flexibility training. That day the skill work was endurance focused with 2 x 800m sprints with five minutes rest in between. In the WOD, we focused on stamina, adding in weightlifting movements using kettle bells and medicine balls. It was the longest eight minutes I’ve ever been through and was followed by a cool down. I was aching, to say the least. My legs, muscles and lungs were burning, but I felt good, and caught myself laughing a few times at my disbelief that I was “pumping some iron!”
CrossFit uses functional and compound movements with shorter, higher intensity cardiovascular sessions aimed to strengthen and condition your body, developing foundational fitness for other athletic endeavours or life. CrossFit view fitness and health on a continuum ranging from sickness to wellness to fitness. You can’t have true fitness without health first. CrossFit training improves the 10 components of fitness; cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance and accuracy. All the things I would probably need in an adventure race and could build up in a short space of time.
I really enjoyed the class despite my initial concern about it not being fun. CrossFit is as much and as little as you need it to be and it is different every time you go. Everyone who enrols goes through a three-hour fundamentals class which is run by Ben (head coach and co-owner), which educates you in the basics CrossFit movements and principles, WOD protocols, nutrition and much more. It is definitely more of a lifestyle choice and Oybek has already confirmed he’s going to continue doing it even after the adventure race is over.
In regards to training for specific skills for the race, there is a space on the member’s board where others have already signed up to the Wadi Adventure Race 2. This means that one of the nights during the week will be set aside to help build on skills essential to the challenges, which will be really helpful. The gym has not only great equipment, but it is run by people who want to help you get better and feels very community driven, the doors are always open and I would recommend signing up for a session to give it a try.
“Ideal Training Schedule”
2-3 Hours per week of CrossFit
1-2 hours or running per week (treadmill, park, or swimming if able to)
2-3 Hours of continuous exercise once a weekend (Mountain Biking/ Surfing or Paddleboarding)
Hoping that with all of this training and a spot of luck,I maybe able to finish the race. Make sure you get yourself down to the event and give Oybek and myself a cheer on the 19th of January. OutdoorUAE will also be down there giving away free magazines so come say hello.
