food and nutrition
Deciding on the right food for your adventure race will be one of your most important and toughest challenges. The longer your race the more important it is to get it right. Believe me don't under estimate this area of adventure racing, we did and on the last XPD race a couple of us got it wrong, we got sick and most of us had problems eating. Our fluid intake wasn't the best, not because of the lack of water but not enough electrolites.
We have made a lot of mistakes and we are bound to make many more but we will let you in on our experiences and hopefully it will be helpful for you and your team. We will give different points of view as everyone has different likes and dislikes.
What is important is that you take food that you enjoy eating and can continiously eat throughout the event. You taste buds will crave bland foods and your stomach won't cope with lots of spicey foods even if it sounds tasty before the event. It is advisable to get a good variety of food as after days of the same food again your stomach may not cope and start rejecting your food as ours did.
You will be drinking a lot of water, any where between 3 - 6 litres a day so it is important to replace the electolites in your body. With drinking this amount over a few days all your electrolites will be getting flush out of your system. We use Endura, this is a great electrolite repalcement suppliment including high levels of magnesium and low on sugar, through an activated co-transport system making them readily available into the bloodstream to maintain and optimise cellular metabolism. Your standard sports drink will work as well such as gatorade and powerade but they are high in sugars and this can cause your body to have extreme high followed by a crash.
Protein is another that you need a lot of, in the last XPD race we basically survived on Aussie Bodies Lo-Carb Protein Revival drink. This really helped us get through with 30g protein and 1058KJ in every 375ml serve. Just what you need for that extra boost.