Preparing for Panama

We write this from home when we should be in the middle of the Panamanian jungle on an eight day multi-sport challenge – the toughest endurance event of our lives so far; two back to back marathons from sea level to 2,500m followed by four 20km days carrying 18kg through the depths of the jungle ending with two days paddling to the Caribbean and a BIG party! This is one of three bucket list adventures organised by Rat Race, a UK based adventure sports company (https://ratrace.com/bucketlist/) and one of millions of trips that have been affected by Covid 19.

We signed up in the new year of 2019 and after pilot testing another Rat Race event in September (https://tiptotoehebrides.com/) we turned our attention to preparation and realised that this was not going to be a walk in the park. Upon printing the suggested training programme we took deep breaths; after a gentle start of 24km of running/ hiking per week the plan ramped up over 4 months to 126km per week. How on earth were we going to combine that with working 60-70 hours a week? And in the middle of winter (which would be one of the wettest and windiest ever)?

Well we did it! We’re probably the fittest we’ve ever been in our lives although we’ll never know if we were tough enough 🙁

Trevor regularly ran 20-25km in the dark before breakfast, Vicky ran 15km through the jungle every day while on holiday in Goa, we walked ankle deep in mud, we hiked with 15kg packs on our backs and even slotted in the odd gym workout, spin, swim and yoga session. It was mentally as well as physically challenging and the Fat Boy Slim song ‘Eat Sleep Rave Repeat’ became our anthem, with a small adjustment: ‘Eat Sleep Train Repeat’. Our social life fell off a cliff as a) we were too exhausted to be good company and b) we needed some time for usual life admin. Also, the shopping list for the event was long and complicated – imagine trying to decide what hammock, tarp, underquilt, stove, jungle boots, first aid to buy when you have no prior experience of needing such things. Help was on hand in February when we attended a two day bushcraft skills course run by Luke (https://www.dewolfbushcraft.co.uk/) and Alex (https://www.alexukbushcraft.com). We learnt how to tie knots, put up our hammocks, make fires, pack our bags and use our new super light stoves and our eyes were opened to all the potential medical challenges: pathogens, vectors, diseases, illnesses, injuries, heat issues, blister, trench foot, fer-de-lance….the list goes on. Even more fun was trying to sleep overnight in our hammocks in the middle of Storm Dennis – at least it will be warmer and stiller when we finally get to the jungle.

It is so disappointing that we will not achieve our goal this year; the event is now planned to take place in January 2021. So now what? Our plan is to try to maintain 60% of our running fitness while enjoying being on our bikes again and just hope that the training isn’t quite so gruelling the second time round.