What does it really take?
TRAINING
FOR THE
X-ALPS
by GAVIN McCLURG Adapted from my blog post: www.cloudbasemayhem.com/thinkingabout-competing-in-the-red-bull-x-alpsread-this-first/
W
ell, we’ve done it again! Team USA 1 is in the Red Bull X-Alps 2021—our fourth race. The thought of all the mileage, sweat, and tears necessary to build a solid campaign kept me in the “probably no” category for most of last year. Still, my team kept reminding me how much fun we have had in the past events, not only in the run-up to the event but also during the 12 days of fighting to reach Monaco. In the end, on the day the application opened, I threw our hat in … one more time. After that, for nearly a year, it is always the same: endless checklists and refinements, flying as much as possible, 22 U SH PA P I LOT
and of course, the physical training handle (and could we prepare for) the that just kept getting harder… and hard- inevitable conflict and stress the race would throw at us? And the scariest of er… and harder until finally the blessed taper arrived two weeks before the race them all—did we have what it takes? Huge projects are like huge goals. kicked off. Then there’s nothing but anticipation and unsettled nerves until They have to be broken down into manthe gun goes off in Salzburg, Austria. ageable segments. Otherwise, they can In a change from the prior stories I’ve never be tackled. So let’s break it down. written for USHPA Pilot, I would like to delve into the ins and outs of this THE PHYSICAL demanding race and the training reDuring the race, for 11.5 days, athletes are allowed to move from 5 a.m. to 10:30 quired to get there. When I think back p.m., and for one night of their choosto my team’s first campaign in 2015, the race’s most unwieldy aspects were all ing, all participants can keep moving all the things we didn’t understand and night. Known as the night pass, the top couldn’t anticipate or prepare for. How three competitors of the prologue can hard was it really when it came to the use two night passes. So other than one physical aspect? Could I fly safely in night (or for the (un)lucky three who the conditions the race required? What podium in the prologue, as I did in 2015, about all the logistics? What were the two nights!), pilots are moving either critical things my team needed to be on the ground or in the air for 17.5 comfortable doing? How would we hours a day. On unflyable days the top
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athletes will cover 90-120 km in those 17.5 hours. That’s with a pack, carrying all of their gear (7-10 kilos typically without food and water), going up and over and across the Alps. Keep in mind, if it’s unflyable, athletes are traveling in the rain, snow, and wind, often on busy roads with a ton of traffic. In each of my three campaigns, I’ve climbed at least the height of Everest four times (that’s 120,000 feet) which averages out to at least 10,000 feet each day (many days end up close to 20,000 feet). Even in good flying years, athletes cover at least a marathon a day in distance on foot. I’ve averaged four flights per day in all three campaigns. And, even though the Alps have established launches everywhere, I can count on two hands the number of “normal” launches I’ve used and even fewer when it comes to landings. Last year I touched down briefly on a winding road with a car barreling down on me before winging it over a waterfall.
« If you’re considering participating in the X-Alps, don’t just read those numbers and assume you can tough it out. Think ultrathon every day. » If you’re considering participating in the X-Alps, don’t just read those numbers and assume you can tough it out. Think ultrathon every day, WITH a pack, WITH a ton of very sketchy flying, WITH endless decision-making, WITHOUT much sleep. You cannot simply will yourself across the Red Bull X-Alps course. Blisters alone take out several athletes every year. You need to train!
TRAINING
I read that Chrigel Maurer, who has won the last six Red Bull X-Alps races, shoots for 30,000 meters (a bit over 98,000 feet) of vertical per month in the months leading up to the race. As I write this in January, last week I did 18,000 feet of vertical, and this week I
will be at 22,000 feet. In the fall, I’ll do the vertical on foot and fly as much as possible, and in the winter, I’ll do the vertical on skis and either ski or fly down. Typically, I’ll travel as much as possible to places like Valle de Bravo, Mexico, or Colombia in the winter to stay current in my flying. Obviously, this year, with COVID-19 complicating travel, it’s easier (and safer) just to stay home. For each race, the training begins in earnest on September 1, which gives me a little over nine months to prepare. My team and I break the nine months down into three specific three-month periods. The first is dedicated to a ton of time in the gym. I work on core strength to accommodate the pack
HERE The X-Alps demands launching…and flying in conditions that are rarely recreational. Gavin considers his options above the Davos turnpoint, day 5 of the 2019 race. Photo by Vitek Ludvik. OPPOSITE Strength training in the gym builds durability, resilience and a strong core for carrying the pack and the long miles on pavement. Photo by Jody MacDonald during training for the 2015 race.
and establish the muscle cushion that will take the beating and help save my joints. I also do a substantial amount of heart rate threshold training (think uphill intervals that make you want to puke) and limited time poking into distance. I do quite a bit of walking and hiking, but nothing more than 20 km. After the first period, we spend three weeks in a diabolical “stamina” phase meant to really push my limits. This phase is painful, filled with evil intervals and long bursts of max heart rate work and muscle endurance training (bounding uphill with a heavy pack, intervals, and generally stuff that just hurts) that uphill athletes use to springboard to a higher performance level. The second three-month segment is dedicated to aerobic base training. Most workouts are done at a moderate heart rate (around 145 bpm), which is where I spend most of the race, and I go uphill A LOT. This is all done on skis or foot, almost always with the pack, and sometimes the pack is loaded up with a lot of weight. This period also starts to condition my feet. 24 U SH PA P I LOT
I commit about 10-15 hours per week to training in the fall (this does NOT include flying, ground handling, logistics, team planning, etc.—this is just the physical training). Right now, in January, that’s up to 20-25 hours per week. By spring and the final phase, this will be up to 30-35 hours per week, and I will keep that pace until the last couple of weeks before the race. The final phase of training includes all of the above, with several multi-day race simulations each month to model the output, sleep deprivation, and caloric needs I will experience in the actual race. My secret is Ben Abruzzo, my trainer and one of my team members since our first race in 2015. Overtraining is as sinister as undertraining, and getting it right should be handled by a professional. Having a competent trainer allows me to unload one huge stress point—will I be physically ready?
en-time competitor Tom de Dorlodot. Michael Witschi (one of the best comp pilots in the sport) threw his reserve, and veteran X-Alps pilot Michael Gebert pulled out because the conditions were so sketchy. In the 2017 edition, Antoine Girard got so broken trying to launch on day two of the race he had to pull out. I saw two other super talented pilots crash in violent foehn conditions later that same day. The thing is, to be remotely competitive in the X-Alps, flying in conditions that we shouldn’t fly in is part of the game. You need to have wicked ground handling skills, acro skills, and be super-duper comfortable flying in the lee, in rotor, and generally in conditions that would and should terrify most pilots. From interviews I’ve done with veterans of the X-Alps for my Cloudbase Mayhem podcast, most of the competitors would classify themselves as “professionals.” In other words, flying FLYING The Red Bull X-Alps is not a race for rec- is their main job. Some are test pilots for wing manufacturers, others are reational and even most competition sponsored athletes who make a living pilots. In 2015, the legend Toma Cocofrom flying World Cup Competitions, nea nearly lost his life. Ditto for sev-
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and several are Red Bull athletes. They all have one thing in common—they fly a LOT. Most put in well over 300 hours per year. Also, many are accomplished professional ultramarathon runners, but the fastest distance runner in the world wouldn’t have a chance at placing well in the X-Alps. Although the race is always won in the air, you need to be comfortable and competent operating in often quite hostile mountain environments. In the 2019 race, an unusually high spring snowpack left all of the high mountain passes buried in deep snow. Ice axes and crampons were mandatory equipment. Pilots need to have top-landing dialed, should be able to safely launch in REALLY strong winds when exhausted, need to be very comfortable with cross country flying in conditions that are really on the outer edge of “safe,” be able to ditch it into postcard landing spots in rowdy conditions, and be very adept at assessing weather on the fly. There’s no safety director in the X-Alps to dictate when conditions are too dangerous. Every move is 100% the call of the pilots and their teams. This all takes years of practice. When the Red Bull X-Alps race committee selects participants, they want to see that a pilot can be autonomous in sketchy places and make good decisions. They don’t want yahoos who say things like, “I’m fearless, and I’m going to kick ass!” This race isn’t the place for that attitude.
turnpoint in Switzerland. Much of that was traveling on snow in overcast and rainy weather. Very few athletes run or even jog during the race—there’s too much trauma on the joints, and the pack grinds you down. Pilots have to be very efficient at moving fast all day, especially uphill. You can cover a lot of ground in 17.5 hours! My team
knows they have five minutes from the moment I land to have my next launch mapped out and sent to my phone. You cannot get stuck. Walking down is to be avoided at all costs.
KNOWLEDGE OF THE ALPS
The Alps are a complex maze of dense, imposing mountains that create their
GROUND GAME
On average, pilots will launch three to four times every day. Sometimes it’s a big haul from the valley bottom 2,000 meters into the alpine to find a usable launch. Other times it’s just a quick pack and 500-meter ascent to clear a col after a slope land. On rare days when it’s completely unflyable due to rain or snow and wind, the fittest athletes will cover over 100 km on foot. In the 2019 race, on day six and seven most of us had back-to-back 4,000+ meter days on foot to reach the Titlis
ABOVE During COVID, training required getting creative. A log, a 60 lb sandbag, and his daughters' support in this case does the job! Photo by Mattie Mulick. OPPOSITE Strength training in the gym builds durability, resilience and a strong core for carrying the pack and the long miles on pavement. Photo by Jody MacDonald during training for the 2015 race.
Neynens from New Zealand and I were both rookies in 2015, and he’s been competitive every edition despite not living in the Alps. Nick’s vast experience with vol-biv around the world allows him to make excellent decisions on the fly.
YOUR TEAM
own weather systems. It can be flyable in one valley and suicidal only 15 km away! Did you watch Chrigel fly from Davos up the Rhine and top land Titlis in the 2019 race? Not many pilots on Earth could have pulled that off that day, but I’d gamble that number goes to zero if that wasn’t your backyard, as it is for Chrigel. For every competitor, especially non-Europeans who will never get as much time flying and learning this vast mountain region that the race covers (the course changes every edition but typically goes through at least six countries), their team is critical when it comes to route decisions. Reavis Sutphin-Gray is my weather and tech guru. My job is to go where he tells me as fast as I can. It’s his job to calculate everything else, and the list is vast. From the moment I land, he is working on finding a nearby suitable launch (enough tree clearance, aspect of slope, hazards, slope angle, is there a trail or discernable route, time of day, sun angle, overdevelopment, wind, etc.). When I’m in the air, Reavis updates me on the weather (improving, deteriorating, dangerous), route choice, and a long list of other things. We spend a great deal of time as soon as the course is announced in March pouring over past tracklogs, XContest flights, and Google Earth, but nothing replaces actual time flying in the Alps. Before my first race in 2015, I had 26 U SH PA P I LOT
several seasons of flying in the Alps, and before every edition, I’ve always spent at least a month training on the course line, but it’s a fraction of what the European competitors get. Nick
Without an amazing team, you don’t have a chance. That’s just a fact. Your team gets less sleep than you do and will be doing almost all of your thinking. The X-Alps is 12 days of physical chess with a big dollop of random thrown in to make things interesting. You can’t bull your way across the course; you have to think. You’ve got to get along with your teammates and have a blast even when shit isn’t going right. They have to juggle not killing themselves AND not killing you.
TOP Gavin grabs a quick dinner with his team during the 2019 Red Bull X-Alps. Photo by Vitek Ludvik. BOTTOM Gavin gets in some vertical training while dialing in his gear in Southern California three months before the race. Photo by Ben Horton.
EN/LTF-C
Your team is in charge of just about everything. Cooking, charging instruments, packing gear, updating social media and content, finding suitable places to stop the van for the night, assessing the route, weather forecasting, maintaining group dynamics, driving, stocking the van, mapping, and navigating. They are also responsible for athlete assessment—how much juice do I have and can I get in the air before the deadline. I have to carry mandatory gear (see below) all the time, but Ben can carry anything extra—dry pair of shoes, water, food, rain jacket, dry socks, external battery, supplements, sunblock, repair kit, spares, etc. He hikes to every launch I do whenever possible. So he’s carrying more weight than I am and doing a good chunk of the same vertical. He’s a beast! My other supporter, Keith Cockrum, drives a separate vehicle to get out ahead of the race van to give me support if I land in a place the race van can’t reach. He shops for food whenever possible and handles the million little crises that crop up on any given day. The supporter role in the X-Alps is
about the furthest thing from a holiday there is. The race is incredible on so many levels—the flying, the incredible beauty of the Alps, the intensity, the competition, seeing what you’re made of, and a lot more. All of that is awesome. But I keep coming back for more because none of it compares to the experience you have with your team. You’re going to battle for 12 intense days with people you completely rely on, and the laughter and joy we experience isn’t replicable in anything else I’ve ever done.
WHAT’S IN MY PACK
Mandatory: Wing, harness, helmet, phone, XC Tracer (vario for backup logging), Flymaster Live, Garmin InReach, safety flare Optional: External battery, extra clothes, gloves, water, food, supplements, electrolytes, goggles, POV camera, trekking poles, balaclava, earbuds, catheter and pee tube, sunblock, sun hat
COVID-19 AND THE 2021 RACE
I still don’t know where I got COVID-19, but it was probably training in my gym
at the end of September. I found out just after arriving at the Red Rocks Fly-in, and thankfully, to my knowledge, everyone in my vicinity avoided the dreaded disease. I immediately headed for home and luckily was only sick for a few days which I spent camping solo on the beautiful Mt. Harrison. There, I was able to continue training and even got a couple of nice flights.
C
OVID remains a pretty serious threat to the race. The organizers remain optimistic, but as of this writing, U.S. citizens still can’t travel to Europe, which is in the midst of a third wave and cross-border traffic remains impossible or difficult. There is talk of the race being delayed to August. All our teams have been vaccinated or will be soon, so we remain optimistic too! I figure the worst-case scenario is I’ll have spent nine months getting super fit (there are undoubtedly worse things!), and Team USA 1 will be “forced” to spend all the money earmarked for the X-Alps on a killer bivvy trip instead! But we’re hopeful we’ll be in Salzburg June 16 when the gun goes off, and we hope to make you all proud.