Adventure Race Preparation - Creative Hill Training

I often need to be efficient with my workout time because of the two young kids and wife that thankfully still love to hang out with their man.  One of my bigger challenges is getting in sufficient Hill Workouts on short time.

Richmond Virginia where I currently reside has by most standards pretty flat terrain.  We've got the Shenandoah Mountains to the West but they're a 2 hr drive that makes them an all day affair.

Adventure Racing often requires biking and hiking over some pretty serious terrain with elevation gain in Spades.  That will certainly be the case with the upcoming Rev3 Shenandoah Epic 26 hr Adventure Race which we know is centered amongst some pretty respectable ridges of the Shenandoah Mountains.

You need to get a bit creative around Richmond to get in a good hill workout but where there's a will there's a way!  Repeats on stairs with a heavy burden is plenty to wear you out but why stop there?  Here's one of the ways to get it done.

Below are a couple of shots from this past weekend's training run.  Jason and James, his 17yro Taiwanese exchange student/guest, met me down at Gillies Creek Park in Southeastern Richmond.  It's a cool park with a new BMX bike course and solid Disc Golf course.  For a warmup, we grabbed some discs and played 18 holes of *booming voice* EXTREME DISC GOLF.   For an extra challenge, Jason and I carried a 35lb training backpack for 9 holes each.

Next, we snagged another 25lb kettle bell and the 80lb heavy bag fondly known as "Chuck" out of my trunk and trekked a 1/2 mile over to the base of Libby Hill Park. Each of us had one of the heavy burdens and hiked the 157 stairs up to the fountain.  At the top, we'd pass our piece to the man on our left and head back down again. After 3 rounds of this, James politely bowed out and Jason and I did a couple of minutes of unweighted box jumps up onto the benches around the fountain.  With legs sufficiently fried, we made our way back down for the last stair challenge.  I trudged all three burdens up the stairs while Jason ran an unweighted stair run up/down/up seeing who would finish first.  When done, we were both smoked to satisfaction. 

After the stairs, we still had some time left on the clock so decided to play another 18 holes of *booming voice* EXTREME DISC GOLF (sorry, can't resist) but this time without the pack.  The other players were cool with us playing through and very helpful in a couple of spots when we couldn't quite figure out where the course went next.

Back at the cars, Jason unveiled the last element of his plan for the day which was to go check out Poe's Pub, a popular local and enjoy a Guinness for our troubles.  Let the record show that James dutifully enjoyed his hot water with lemon and that I definitely want to come back and try out their food selection.

Note: 2.5 hours of training for the day.  Only ~23 hours more to go!