Adventure Racing Tips from Mike Kloser
Training
1. When I'm gearing up for an event, I research what disciplines the race will offer and prepare accordingly. I try to work on my weakest
areas of strength or skill. It's always easiest to just go out and work on your strengths, but in reality, you really need to get out and spend some serious effort on improving your weaknesses.

2. I generally try to stay pretty fit year round so as events pop up on the calendar, I'm not too far from descent fitness. If I stay healthy I can essentially work on specific skills related to the race and be reasonably prepared with in a few weeks. The down side to this general fitness principle is, it can be a challenge to peak for some specific race on the calendar that might require a very specific training program to reach optimal form.

3. In order to maintain a fresh, enthusiastic attitude towards training and racing after 20 years of competition, I try to keep my training as enjoyable as possible. I kept on a pretty intense program while racing bikes for 10 plus years, so now with Adventure Racing, I try to mix it up as much as possible and keep fresh outlook on training and racing. With adventure racing being a combination of skills, it's much easier to have a diverse training program and remain enthused to train year round.

4. For my high end fitness and training needs, I participate in quite a few different races throughout the year. These might range from a 20min. time trial on a bike to a 7 hour solo adventure race. This is my substitution for speed work in training, although I will still do some speed specific workouts as needed, I find the intensity of racing is a much easier way to achieve this and if all goes well it can be rewarding as well. At times, I may find myself racing as many as 2 to 3 times a week, and other times no racing for several weeks. Rest and recovery are a very critical and important element in training.

5. I mix up my training quite a bit and try to include my family and friends in my outings as much as possible, company and conversation can make for a much more pleasant experience at times.

Final race day prep
1. Try to share responsibilities with team mates as not too over burden yourself when it comes to acquiring gear and taking care of logistics.

2. Get your gear lined up or purchased well in advance and make sure you have had a chance to go out and test it in an environment as close to that of racing as possible. If you break it out the package on race day, you are setting yourself up for disaster.

Transitions
Ian has pretty well nailed this, I would add that as Ian said if you finish your task in a TA prior to the others, don't stand there barking orders such as let's go, hurry up, etc. it will only frustrate them (I've been guilty of this on more than one occasion). As Ian stated, ask what you can do to help assist the team in getting back on the trail, you will in essence be helping yourself and the team both.

Mountain Biking at Night by Mike Kloser
Mountain Biking at night, don’t let the dark of night scare you, riding off road at night can be a lot of fun and a great experience. I often enjoy getting out for a night time ride with friends, especially in the fall when the nights start to cool off and the long days of summer have passed. For us day jobbers, it may be the only way we can log some legitimate hours or miles on the mountain bike.
Here are a few pointers that I’ve learned over the years that should help in making your night ride more pleasurable, who knows, with time you might actually find yourself looking forward to those short days of the fall and winter?

Get a good light. Don’t wait to learn this lesson the hard way, go out and invest in a quality bright light. This may run you several hundred dollars, but think about the money and agony you could save yourself from a trip to the emergency room. I used to be all concerned about the weight and convenience factors while racing through the night in big adventure races like the Eco Challenge. I’d use little trekking headlamps with disposable batteries, thinking I could save weight and time. As it turns out I probably lost time, as I had to go slower and needed to change out batteries with in a few hours time. Now I use the Jet Lites system and can run up to 8 hours on one battery, which fits into a water bottle. This 12watt system is a little jewel that lights up the trail like that of searchlight in a prison yard!

Mount the Light on your Helmet. It may at times be easier to mount your light on your handle bars, but your handle bars aren’t always pointed in the direction that you want to see or travel. Make sure when you purchase your lighting system that it has a helmet mount. If you want to see around the bend and you’re headed straight, the handle bar setup won’t do you much good. I often find myself looking in various directions to find trail or road intersections and it’s a lot easier to manage this with a light mounted to your helmet than it is on your handle bars.

Look up and ahead. Like most sports that require forward travel, it’s easy to find yourself focusing on the trail or object right in front of you verses off in a reasonable distance. If you can get in the habit of looking several bike lengths ahead you will find travel much easier, fluid and faster. During long races as fatigue sets in, I sometimes have to remind myself to quit looking down at the trail just in front of my wheel and focus my attention up the trail. Looking ahead is especially true on twisting and technical single track. Try to look as far in the distance as is comfortable for your skills and continue to work towards looking several bike lengths ahead, eventually you will find yourself trying to out distance your lighting system.
Ride in the front of a group or give sufficient space. When ever possible, I try to ride at the front of the pack at night, this allows me to go my pace and I don’t find myself becoming mesmerized by the lights and bikes of those around me. It can also be very helpful when the trail becomes dusty or foggy in the haze of moisture. If you’ve ever been behind a few riders at night heading down a dusty single track, you know how difficult it can be to see your way through the dusty haze in hopes that you don’t plow into some rock or ditch. If you aren’t in the front, back off and give enough space between you and the riders ahead to allow for a good line of vision.

Have fun and be safe. A good pair of clear lens glasses and a simple blinking rear light should be part of your gear, just as your helmet is. Riding at night has its challenges and rewards, ride smart so you can enjoy your next ride even more than the last!


Adventure Racing Tips from Retired Team Nike Member Ian Adamson
Race Day Checklist
1. Make sure you double check the mandatory equipment list. A written list is very useful so you can check off each item as you put them in your boxes.

2. Make a second list of items that are necessary to race with, over and above the mandatory gear. Things like extra apparel, food, spare equipment and medical supplies are useful for long races.

3. Tape a gear check list inside your gear box(s) - if you are doing a long race.
4. Make sure you eat well but don't over eat the night before a race. Meal planning for the morning of race day is also important as it is the last chance you will have to eat and hydrate without physical stress on your body.
5. Pre-race sleep is important, especially for multi-day races. With this in mind, try to have all your clothing, equipment and food prepared before you get to the race site and then use any extra time to rest or nap.

Transitions
1. Practice your transitions. This means setting up your food/apparel/equipment just as you would have it for the race and do a few timed run through's in each of the likely combinations. You should be able to do a major complicated transition in 10 minutes with practice, although most teams take 40 - 60 minutes and 20 minutes is pretty good. For sprint races your transitions should be well under 5 minutes, with the best times a minute or less.

2. Think through each transition well in advance of getting there. It helps to talk it through with your teammates and mentally rehearse what you are going to do.

3. Know what sport you are doing next. One trap teams fall into is not knowing what is ahead. Many athletes rely on their teammates to think through the race, but everyone on the team should know so you can all be using your brainpower (which is at no athletic cost, but a huge time cost if not used).

4. Assign tasks. Generally there will be tasks that have to be done for the team as a whole, or ones which can be separated out - such as organizing food, questioning officials or preparing maps. These tasks should be pre allocated for the transition to keep it smooth and to cover all necessary tasks.

5. Help each other out. If you are finished with preparing your personal items in a transition look to help your teammates and ask to help anyone who is lagging. Conversely if you are slow in the TA, ask your teammates for help.