Previously on Racing Georgia.
Well, that was a good day.
Probably the most enjoyable stage yet.
The sun came out quite early and we had beautiful views of the lake
and the surrounding mountains.
Our route for Stage 4 was stunning
and the weather has finally begun to improve
although nature still had a few surprises up her sleeve.
We're on day 4 of a 7-day stage race
in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia with Racing the Planet.
We're running 250 km through a remote region of the country
while carrying all of our food and supplies for the week on our backs.
Probably could have used our ponchos.
Good morning.
It is day 4, the morning of Stage 4.
It's about 6:30am.
I've already packed up my bags and I've gotten dressed
and taken care of a couple things.
I brushed my teeth, and I'm about to eat breakfast
and have my coffee.
Last night was a little rough.
We all went to bed quite early because it was raining
and there were thundershowers throughout the night,
lightning, a little bit more hail, quite a bit of rain.
But we woke up to relatively clear skies.
Looks like mixed conditions, so who knows what we're gonna get today.
But at least for now it's dry, people are in good spirits
and today is another relatively short stage before tomorrow's long stage.
So I think it's about kind of maintaining, trying to be consistent
but not going out too hard, and saving it for tomorrow's Long March.
The leaderboard remains unchanged heading into stage four.
On the women's side though things are getting interesting
where Magdalena has managed to really widen her lead on Anim
who now has Nicky hot on her heels.
Matt how are you feeling?
I'm feeling okay. I mean, my mattress pad popped on me.
But I'm actually genuinely feeling pretty good.
It feels like it's gonna be a hotter day today
but yesterday morning felt like it was gonna be a colder day.
I didn't put any sunscreen on
and so I'm trying to just be prepared for anything today
because I think anything might happen.
You should just step out of your tents
and get some vitamin D quickly if you can.
I don't know how long it's gonna stay there.
How are you feeling?
A little bit tight on the knee. Ankle is swelling up.
But it will hold. I just need to manage it.
Well done. Here we are, stage four
and I think yesterday was probably one of the one of the better days of three.
We got a little bit of sun and seeing you come across the finish line
I'm so impressed with all the big smiles
even though you put so many km into your legs.
And it's not just plain old kms, it's up and down
and rivers and mud. Lots of mud.
I've seen mud on all parts of you.
So well done, congratulations.
We are now about to start Stage 4. You are all amazing.
So in today's course you'll be going through many villages.
So you're going to really get to experience daily Georgian life.
It's quite cool, some very nice villages and people will be very curious.
I've been told that there shouldn't be that many dogs on this course.
You're not going to be out in the mountains with the shepherds and the sheep.
So you won't have as many dogs as you've experienced recently.
After leaving Camp 4, our route for Stage 4
will wind through a series of quaint villages and over rolling hills
before finishing on the outskirts of a village
where we'll then be shuttled to Camp 5 next to the Ablari River
for a distance of 38 km with the moderate amount of elevation change.
Have a good run.
Running through this mud is just so taxing on the body.
So Matt pulled ahead of me pretty early on.
He's a few hundred meters up.
But I'm pretty confident I can catch him on the back half.
Just gonna take my time through this first 10k.
Get warmed up then lay it on a little thicker at the end.
I'm already thinking about tomorrow, about that long stage.
I think this is gonna be sustained.
Yeah, I think so too.
I caught up to Matt here. We both put our jackets on.
We probably could have used our ponchos.
Well Matt and I've been wrapped up in conversation here
and just realized we haven't seen a flag in a while.
So it looks like we went a good km out of the way.
It's our own damn fault.
We've gotta pay more attention.
There they are up ahead.
Okay, we're back on course.
Hey guys.
We're through checkpoint one.
The rain stopped. It's still kind of cool though.
I don't know about you Matt but I'm gonna keep my hardshell on for a bit
just for insulation.
We ran one extra km, but that's okay.
This was my second event with Racing the Planet.
The first being back in October of 2021 when I traveled to Namibia
to run the Namib Desert race.
There I finished fourth place which I was perfectly happy with
since it had been more of a 'B' race for me that season.
I hadn't trained specifically for it
nor did I do much training at all with a heavy pack.
But this time was different
and my goal in Georgia was nothing short of a podium finish.
My training started in earnest back in March
as I focused on speed work early on
before I began to build volume.
I also experimented quite a bit with different nutrition strategies throughout the season
including the use of powders
which had seen a few of the leaders use in Namibia.
So I'm experimenting with powders today for this long run.
I'm going to use Skratch Labs Super fuel.
Four scoops should give me about 200 calories.
So I have some spares already...
And of course I did plenty of running with a loaded pack
including several runs over 60 km.
I'm running today with my XA25 pack.
I've got about 13 pounds, just over 13 pounds with full bottles.
I knew that Georgia would be a very runnable race
and I aimed to do most of my long runs at the average pace
I expected to run during the race of about 6 mins/km.
But I also knew that there'd be a fair bit of elevation change involved
with long and gradual climbs.
So I had to be very careful in planning my routes,
aiming for roughly 1,000 meters of elevation gain per 40 km.
Just over 50 km in, close to 5.5 hours
and as usual at this time in the long run, I'm ready to be done.
The last 10k is always a bit of a slog
and I think that track workout yesterday has finally caught up with me.
But none of this training matters unless you can show up to the start line healthy.
So I doubled down on my recovery efforts as well.
Okay, I'm through the last checkpoint.
7 km I believe to the finish.
This territory is believed to have been inhabited by prehistoric people
since the Paleolithic period
and nearby archaeological excavations have unearthed the remains
of settlements, weapons, and tools dating back to the Bronze Age.
In fact, Georgia is home to the earliest evidence for the presence
of early humans outside of the African continent.
Almost there.
Yeah Matt, bring it home.
Another stage done and with that we are well past the halfway point.
I had a good day. I finished second again.
I took it easy for the first 3/4 or so
and then kind of enjoyed that downhill rolling to the finish line.
From there they've actually bussed us to where we're set up here for the night
in some shelters for the night.
Because last night I think after the two or three lightning storms that moved through
they were a little bit weary about leaving us out in the field again for the night.
So we're actually at the site of a couple of old Soviet buildings.
I think one of them is still being used as a community center.
The other one I'm not sure if it's in use.
But it's kind of cool actually.
So we're right in the center of a town here
and it's a good chance to just dry out some clothing
and kind of warm up tonight and reset
because tomorrow is the long stage.
I'll just stand here for the rest of the day.
We got lost but we realized our mistake quite soon.
The scenery was incredible as usual.
The villages are fantastic and the locals are just amazing.
So friendly. A very cool experience.
It was a challenging start with knee-deep mud basically
and then a thunderstorm with heavy, heavy, heavy rain.
That's always the fun thing, you know.
At first, you try to keep your feet dry and then doesn't really matter anymore.
Then you just commit.
Yeah, you just plunge through every piece of water you can see.
I could eat a whole bag of this right now.
Matt what do you have there that you're enjoying so much?
Almonds.
Oh, almonds.
Salt and vinegar almonds, and I'm not above licking the inside of the package.
Another stage was behind us, but the most difficult was yet to come
because tomorrow was the Long March
and everything so far had really just been a warm-up.
It's too far.
No, it'll be okay. Namibia was more than 80 km.
On the next episode of Racing Georgia.
Well, it's the morning of the long stage.
This is where the race is won or lost.
We're running about 4:30 to 5:00 min/km. Not bad.