The Beginning:
I have gotten a lot of questions on the 100,000m Ski Birthday Challenge that I did with Roza and a great friend from Manhattan, Antonio Cordova. As a gift for my birthday, Roza asked me if I would do a 100,000m Ski ultra-marathon. Of course, loving a challenging and being open to most things Roza proposes, I said I was “in.” This word “in” began the journey that culminated in 100,000m SkiErg ultra-marathon on Saturday, March 17, 2018.
Luckily, Roza got a great friend of ours, Antonio Cordova, who is a great athlete, to come and participate in my Birthday Challenge. Without him, Roza and I would have been doing the challenge for close to 7 hours. With Antonio, we were able to complete this adventure in 5.38 hours of constant work.
The Preparation:
Workouts – We had to prepare physically for the Birthday Challenge. We started about 1 month before we were to start the Challenge. Of course, we were in good shape before so, with a foundation we added the following to our routine:
• We bumped up the SkiErg volume adding in 30min efforts throughout the week and two a day workouts with the second workout being only SkiErg
• On the weekends we did 1-2 hour sessions playing with stroke rate and damper
• We did a lot of structural supplemental work and adding in extra curls and tricep push downs to strengthen the ligaments and tendons
Food – We started our preparation the day before. I don’t think it’s necessary to prepare further than the day before in advance. The day before the Ski, we ate extra carbs for breakfast and lunch. Instead of lean protein and salads, we added the bread for sandwiches and we had breakfast burritos. You don’t have to go crazy with carbs, but just some extra bread will do the trick.
The day of our Ski, we ate pancakes for breakfast to make sure we had full glycogen levels starting the event
The Ski:
The Strategy – Before starting off the 100,000m event, I had designed various strategies for us to execute during the ski. We executed as necessary and changed the strategy when needed. We started off with Antonio and me doing 5min efforts, and Roza throwing in some 2min efforts. After about 1 hour, Roza and I switched off for 30sec while Antonio rested, and he did steady efforts while we rested. We quickly went to a three-person rotation, switching every 30sec, which helped keep the pace lower. This is the strategy we executed all the way until we had 5k left and then went to 20sec work for all of us. For any strategy, you have givens. If you drop the pulling amount it is hard to go back to longer paces so be prepared when you make the switch.
We ended with a 1:41.5/500 average rate. This event took us 5:38 hours to complete, and we burned almost 8,500 calories. I was extremely happy with the pace and the end result.
Some Miscellaneous Information:
The key for a long endurance event is to stay ahead on nutrition and fluids. If you don’t, then you’ve lost the battle, and you most likely will fail and not be able to complete the event. For us, we ate something every 30mins (smoothies, energy blocks, fruit, and honey — bananas, blueberries, and honey nut chews). We also drank electrolyte solution throughout the event.
A good rule of thumb to follow is: when your heart rate is high take in liquid calories and when your heart rate is low you can take in whole food. When eating food or electrolytes, always flush your system with water to protect your stomach.
The 100,000m SkiErg ultramarathon is one of the hardest things I have done physically and mentally at the pace we kept. Our bodies were slowly shutting down, and mentally it was a huge battle the last hour. We kept moving the damper down to protect the muscles and keep it more breathing. This ultra-marathon was way harder than when I did Ironman – Wisconsin in 2012. I learned a lot about the SkiErg and myself after this experience, and the good thing is when you succeed at something like this everything feels easier.
The Recovery:
The 100,000m Ski ultra-marathon depleted most of the nutrients from our bodies. So, we ate pizza afterward to replenish our glycogen. We were also dehydrated, even though we had taken in a lot of fluids during the ultra-marathon. Therefore, we drank much water, along with some Pellegrino. Pellegrino has sodium. Sodium is good to take in, along with water, to replace the water and salt lost during over 5.30 hours of sweating.
My body also needed work. After the ultra-marathon, I was beginning to feel the soreness and tightness. I made sure that I rolled out my entire body to get the blood flowing through the muscles, and to ensure I had no knots. Also, I iced the tight areas to reduce the inflammation to keep the blood flowing and to avoid restricted areas.
After the pizza, we had a good meal at night. The meal was well balanced. It had a lot of protein and a variety of veggies and healthy fats.
In Conclusion:
A test such as this 100,000m SkiErg ultramarathon is good once in a while. It’s not made for everyone, but it teaches you how to control your body and mind in very stressful situations. I learned a lot about my mind, the SkiErg, and myself. I won’t be doing something like this in a long time, but I am glad I did this marathon.
I could not have made it through without the support of the athletes who cheered us on in the gym, and on social media. Thanks for all your support.
