A few weeks back we were contacted by the team from Rock The World Race, a group who is putting on Rugged 5K races in Michigan.  They offered us the opportunity to participate in their upcoming 2012 races and provide training information and reviews on the experience.  While we weren’t able to make the journey to participate, I did put the word out on Twitter and found Adam Krist and Brody Berson, two MyFiveFingers.com readers who wanted to give it a go.  Each of them will be writing about the upcoming events, what they are doing to train, and providing a post-race review.  Today Adam provides infromation on the race he is participating in and how he is preparing for it.

Enter Adam…

Rock the world is a rugged 5k run like no other; it is 3.1 miles of trail courses laced with at least 12 different obstacles. They have promised the obstacles won’t be the typical boring ones that you see all over the place nowadays. They have designed them to be really challenging for the competitors, no details about what the obstacles will be yet except the names have been released. With names like Great Wall, Mighty Mac, Swiss Alps, and Great Pyramids, they sound menacing and challenging to say the least.

The race I’m participating in (Detriot) will be held at Willow Metro park in New Boston, MI on its 1,531 acres of mature woodlands on September 29^th. Things kick-off with the first starting group at 9am and go every half hour until 7pm. Anyone aged 14 and up can register for and run the race, making for a extremely diverse group of racers that will be competing (with or without costumes). For myself, well, I’m putting together some ideas for a really good outfit to try and win best costume this year.

Training for a race like this can be very challenging when trying to decide what you should add into a routine, with cardio being the obvious choice. Because this isn’t a typical type of race to rain for (like a 5k, 10k, or whatever), I really had to think about how best to train. I sat down with a friend and we figured out a plan:  interval training.  We thought that would be perfect because not only do you get a good muscle workout but its also challenging and fun to do. With things like level drills, squat push-ups, power jumps, and weight training it should be an interesting mix of a little bit of everything that gets great results.

Here are some pics of us training:

We're taking detailed notes on our training and tracking our progress

We started with upper body one day, lower the next, core after that, and abs/cardio throughout all days. Since the race is a few months away we figured we would start with 3 to 4 days a week, then when the race comes closer really pick it up and do 5 to 6 days a week and really focus on our cardio rather then weight training. Both will play an important role when running the course, especially if we are going to have to climb walls, swim through mud pits, swing on ropes and other crazy things I have seen in the past. With lots of time to train and get ready for the event, the next few months should be filled with fun and excitement.

Come September we will Rock the World!