So I'm here today in North Vancouver doing what is a relatively small but an important run
and that's because I'm carrying a really big pack. This pack is loaded with everything that I'll be
carrying for my upcoming race in just under two weeks which is a seven day staged race through
the desert in Namibia - and don't worry, I had to look at a map too. It's just above South Africa.
This is part of the Racing the Planet 4 Desert series which follows a similar format to Marathons
Des Sables. We'll be racing six stages over seven days while carrying all of our own food and
supplies for the week. I did a similar race called the Grand to Grand Ultra in the USA six years ago
and as you probably know I've been doing a lot of fastpacking these last few years. In fact,
last weekend I was out doing a 50 mile fastpack over two days on what's called the HBC Heritage
Trail here in British Columbia, but I thought it would still be important to get out today
to test out how my pack would feel with exactly what I was going to be carrying come race day.
So in this bag I've got my sleeping bag and pad, warm clothes for at night,
waterproof layers, some emergency supplies, some camera gear,
and of course seven days worth of food, including breakfast, run food, and dinners. So with all of
that, it weighs about 15 pounds and that excludes water. Once you add a liter and a half of water,
I'm up to about 18 and a half pounds. But the good news is that it will get lighter with each day,
and by the fifth day when the 80 km stage rolls around, my pack should be much lighter
because I'll have eaten about four days worth the food. So why don't I head home
and unpack my bag and tell you a little bit more about what I'm carrying for this race.
Okay, so I'm back at home and i've got everything unpacked and i thought i
would start by talking about my gear and then I'll move on to nutrition. So starting with
my sleeping system, I'm going to be using the Western Mountaineering Summerlite bag.
It's a 0 degree bag. It's the same one that I use for all my fastpacking and that just barely
meets the minimum requirement for the race of 0 degrees. I'm going to have it in a stuff sack
here. I'm also going to be using a sleeping pad although you're not required to use one.
But I have a really lightweight one here from Therm-a-Rest the Uberlite
and that's gonna add just a little bit of warmth but also comfort on the potentially rocky ground.
Then I also have another optional item, a blow up pillow from Sea to Summit. Call it a luxury item.
But again, this is really going to help me get a good night's rest and it doesn't weigh very much
and it packs up really small. We are required to carry a hard shell. I've got the Salomon Bonatti.
This actually isn't the one I'll be bringing. The one I have is in with the tailor to get my patches
sewn on. We're required to wear patches, a flag and Racing the Planet patches, on all of our tops
of our jackets and shirts. So those are with the tailor at the moment. I'm getting them back this
afternoon. I'll be wearing this hat. The Speed Bob hat from Salomon. We are required to have a hat
with neck protection or a buff but I actually have this old neck protection from a Salomon desert hat
that I've had for years and it actually velcros on the inside of the Speed Bob hat so I can take
it on and off and kind of get the best of both worlds. I've got a nice wide brim along with
neck protection. Now we're not required to have a puffy jacket but we do need a warm top and for
that I'm going to use my Arc'teryx Cerium SL puffy jacket. Many of you will have heard me talk about
this jacket, this top, quite a bit before. I use it for fastpacking, I use it for peak bagging,
it packs up really small, it's really light and as you'll see here I have it in a Ziploc
bag and that's going to be a theme throughout all this when I talk about packing. Ziploc
bags help to keep things not only dry but sort of compressed and segmented. They slide in your pack
really easily. It really is the secret weapon for packing your bag efficiently. In this bag here I
have other base layers. I have a thermal top and tights and a warm thin toque. All merino wool,
all Icebreaker. We are required to have tights in addition to shorts and so this is going to
satisfy that requirement but also this is what I'm going to change into at night. I'm not going
to have a change of clothes. I'll have a t-shirt and shorts, I'll be running in those every day,
getting nice and sweaty and dirty. But at least at night I can change into something warm and clean.
We need three pairs of socks. Of course, I'll be wearing one and then I have two additional pairs
here. That's the minimum but that's I think all I'll need. I'll probably change every couple of
days and it's also nice to have a clean pair for at night. I am going to bring a buff as a backup
and we need two pairs of full-fingered gloves. That's all in that bag there. Now as far as the
little stuff, some emergency gear, some other personal hygiene items. I'm going to be carrying
some Squirrel's Nut Butter here, some anti-chafe, so I can lubricate each day. We're required
to carry our own pins so I have ten of those. We need nine masks, a fresh one for each day,
including one for before and after the race. I have a toothbrush and toothpaste, of course.
We're required to carry at least 60 ml of hand sanitizer, as well as chapstick, something with
some UV protection for our lips. I have a face mask and ear plugs again just so i can get a good
night's sleep. That's something I always bring when I travel and when I race. We need a tensor
bandage as well as some other emergency supplies, including a full blister kit. I have a mirror,
a compass, a whistle, and a knife, all part of the required kit, and we also need an emergency bivvy,
and that's not just a blanket but an actual bivvy sack, and a poncho in case of sudden
rainstorms and that can go over your entire kit. I've got a spork and a small cup for coffee,
and then sunglasses of course for running in the desert. I've got a pack of these wet wipes,
so I've got about two per day so I can clean myself off before sleeping. Sunscreen, we're
required to carry this, but of course why wouldn't you, and we are required to carry two headlamps.
One is a backup along with a small flashing red light that we are required to put on the back of
our pack. As far as my watch, I'm going to use the Coros Vertex 2 which is my new favorite watch. You
can check out my review about that. There won't be any navigation on this course but I do want
a nice track, but more importantly I want to have a battery that lasts for the entire week without
charging so I don't have to mess around with battery banks, and the Coros Vertex 2 is going
to do that for me. Now as far as hydration goes, we need to have at least two and a half liters of
capacity, although we only are required to leave each checkpoint with a liter and a half. I have
these two flasks as a backup and then I have this bladder which I can keep in the back of the pack
for that additional capacity, but I am waiting for two bottles from Raidlight which I hope are gonna
arrive today. They are hard plastic bottles with straws on them but they're ergonomically shaped
to better contour your chest. They're 800 ml each so I'll be able to satisfy the minimum
one and a half liter requirement while keeping all my water up front which is great instead of
further loading the rear of my pack. But worst case, I have this system as a backup. Of course,
I'm going to have some camera gear with me and spare batteries and cards. And all of
this needs to be packed into a waterproof dry sack. This isn't a dry bag, this is a dry sack,
meaning it's meant to go inside of another bag, and that's exactly what I'm going to do with
this one. This is one from Sea to Summit. It's 35 liters, which is the minimum requirement, and this
is going to go inside my pack to line my Salomon XA25 since that pack isn't technically waterproof.
It's sort of water resistant but this is going to keep the contents of my pack nice and dry,
in addition to those Ziploc bags that I have things packed within. So let me clear this
stuff out of the way and we'll talk next about what I'm gonna eat for seven days in the desert.
Okay, so this is what just under 15,000 calories looks like, but I wanna explain a little bit more
about how this race is structured. So just like Marathons des Sables, it's 7 days but there are
only actually 6 stages, and the reason for that is the long stage, the 50 mile stage
or the long march as it's sometimes referred to, they actually give you two days to complete it,
and that's because we're not running on road or or even rocky terrain. This is sand. We're running
through sand dunes, on sandy roads, and the last time I did a race like this, the 50 mile stage
took me close to 12 hours, and I think I finished second in that stage. That tells you just how
slow even the faster runners are running in races like this. Now in my case, again I hope to finish
that stage in the first day which means I'll actually have the second day to just relax and
recover. So I won't be actually running that day which I'll talk more about in a second. So
starting with day one, I have instant oatmeal for in the morning, and this is a few hundred, maybe
three or four hundred calories, with two packs, along with a small instant coffee from Starbucks.
Now for during the run, I've got about 200 calories per hour, and I'm estimating about 5
hours so about 1,000 calories worth of run food from a mix of gels and blocks, Honey Stingers,
as well as electrolyte tablets. Now for right after the run, I have a protein shake,
a recovery drink mix from Hammer Nutrition, and this is a mix of carbohydrates and whey protein,
so it's a perfect thing for right after your run, and they come in these very convenient packs.
I love these. I use these for fastpacking as well. And then for dinner, I have a variety of
dehydrated meals. This one's from Yak Express. I've got the shrimp curry with rice. But all my
dinners are around 800 calories, and it's nice to have a nice solid dinner for afterwards. And then
I have a bit of toilet paper for that day as well. You have to bring your own toilet paper. I've got
it partitioned for each day and I'm not going to tell you how much toilet paper I'm bringing
because that's personal. So for day 2, day 3, and day 4, same thing. I've got oatmeal for breakfast
and coffee. I've got run food for about 5 hours on feet, along with some electrolytes. So about 1,000
calories in total. Recovery mix for right after and then a nice dinner of about 800 calories.
And then day 5, that's stage 5, that's the long march, so that's the big one where the
main difference here is I've got about double the calories. In fact, I think even a little bit more,
about 2,200 calories worth of run food here because this is double the distance, but it's also
going to be even a little bit longer in terms of time on feet. And then day 6, well that's my day
off, assuming all goes as planned. So I've still got a breakfast and coffee for in the morning,
but then I also have a dehydrated meal for lunch. This is a sort of smaller portion
from Nomad Nutrition. It's a Canadian brand that I love and I've mentioned them before in my videos
and this one's only about 500 calories but that'll be a nice thing for lunch to carry me over until
my big dehydrated meal for dinner. But I don't need any run food for that day because it is a day
off. And then for day 7, the final stage, again breakfast and coffee for in the morning, and then
I have just a little bit of run food for that 10k which should only take an hour and a half,
maybe two hours max. So I probably don't need much for that. And then I don't need any lunch
or dinner because the race will be over and we'll be heading back to the hotel that afternoon. But
I do have some additional snacks here and this is something I learned at the last stage race I did
six years ago, the Grand to Grand Ultra in between meals, especially when I finish my run, say around
two o'clock. And I have my recovery drink as well. I still have a few hours to kill before dinner
and I won't have really had a lunch so I'll be getting pretty hungry and that's where these
snacks come in. So I've got these Cheese Crisps from a brand called Wisps, and these are similar
to like the Moon Cheese, but iI find that these pack down a little better. They're a little more
dense, but with the same caloric content. I also have some of these Banana Bites, again from Nomad
Nutrition. These are just a tasty snack, mostly carbohydrates, but there's lots of potassium
in those as well and a little bit of protein. And then I have a few of these Justin's cashew
buttercups. I was trying to find the individual packs of Justin's Nut Butter that you can get
and that way there wouldn't be any chocolate because I am worried about the chocolate melting
in the heat, but unfortunately I just couldn't find those. You can find them online though so I
definitely recommend bringing small portions of peanut butter. It's a great way to top up your
fats, your protein, and get a little bit more calories, and it's nice and filling. And then last
but not least, I have a little plastic bottle full of olive oil. This is 30 ml and I'm gonna pour a
little bit of this on each dinner each night just for a few extra calories, a little bit more fat,
and a little bit more flavor. This is a tip I got years ago from friends who do adventure racing.
Olive oil is just your best bang for buck in terms of getting some of those healthy fats,
and you can actually buy small pre-packaged olive oil packs as well, but again those wouldn't have
arrived in time, but for next time I'm definitely going to order some of those. Now in total,
this is about 14,800 calories, and that's just over the required minimum of 14,000 calories or
2,000 per day. Now, is that enough? Not nearly. I'm probably going to be burning somewhere
between 40-60,000 calories that week, running 250 km, on top of my base metabolic rate which
is itself about 2,000 calories per day. But it's sort of a trade-off between additional weight,
which will slow you down, needing to be on your feet for longer, needing to carry more food,
and so on. But I am considering throwing maybe a few hundred more calories in with all this food.
I've calculated that I have about 320 grams of fat with all of this food and about 400 grams worth of
protein, and it's really important to consider macronutrients like fat and protein as well
for multi-day races. It's fine to fuel your run just on carbohydrates, and that's why all my run
foods are simple sugars, but when it comes to your food after your run, your recovery and your
dinner, you definitely need some fat and protein, and not just to help you recover but also just to
satiate your hunger. So my breakfasts are mostly complex carbohydrates, and my dinners I've picked
mainly for their fat and protein content, and you'll notice a theme here. I have a lot of
cheese-based foods, and that's because I've just learned over the years that cheese
dehydrated cheese and also dehydrated milk really is your best bang for buck in terms of calories,
fat, protein and weight. Balancing all those things is important and it's hard to beat cheese.
I'm sorry for anybody who's vegan or maybe anybody who's lactose intolerant
or just chooses not to eat a lot of cheese product. That really is going to be your
best bang for buck. When it comes to packing this food, you'll see that I've already unpacked these
snacks and I'm going to keep them in Ziploc bags and throw away the original packages.
But once I get to Namibia, I'm also going to repackage my dehydrated dinners and I'm going
to put those in some extra Ziploc bags, and again Ziploc bags are your best friend here. I'm going
to write on the front what the contents are and how long to rehydrate it for. I'm actually going
to smash it up a little bit too just to make sure it folds up nice and small. These original
bags are are too bulky. It's not the weight, it's really just the bulk that I'm worried about in my
pack. Having said that, they never rehydrate quite as well as in their original packages, so I know
some people will actually carry maybe at least one of these packages and they'll keep reusing it each
day just to rehydrate their meals, but I'm not going to bother. It should be fine in the desert.
But I wouldn't do this in colder climates. And the reason I'm doing this when i get to Namibia is I
just don't think it's smart to travel with a whole bunch of powders that aren't properly labeled,
especially if you're going to the USA, so I'd recommend bringing the food with you
and repackaging it upon arrival. And then everything goes in a separate Ziploc bag,
I've got one for each day clearly marked for what day it is so that I don't mix them up or
accidentally eat too much or too little food on any given day. I also really like these smaller
ziplock bags. You can buy variety packs on Amazon that come with smaller bags that are
sort of a dime bag size, perfect for things like electrolyte tablets, up to these medium and larger
sizes that are super convenient as well. So all of this weighs four kg or about 8.8 lbs, and that's
on top of the 7 lbs or so worth of gear that I'm carrying as well, and that's excluding water. Once
I have water in, it'll be a few more pounds, so I'll be up to about 18, maybe 18.5 pounds,
but that's at the start of the race. With each passing day, I'll be eating through my food and
my pack will be getting lighter and smaller. So when I hit day seven for that final 10 km stage,
I'll have basically no food left so I should be down to about 7 pounds of base weight plus a
couple of pounds worth of water and my pack should be feeling pretty good. So I'm pretty much all
set. I'm just waiting for a couple more things to arrive. Those bottles I mentioned, as well as my
desert gaters, although I do have a backup plan. I have some Salomon gaters I can use in a pinch. And
I'll be bringing a bunch of camera gear with me, of course to film footage both before and during
the race. If you want to learn more about the type of gear I bring to make these documentaries and
how I travel with that, check out the video I made recently exclusive for channel members where I
go through all that in detail. You can get access by clicking the Join button below this video, and
thanks as always to my existing channel members. If you're new to the channel, be sure to subscribe
so you'll be notified about the documentary from my race. I leave in just a few days and I'll be
in Namibia for three weeks, so I can't wait to put the film together from that once i'm back.
Look what just arrived.
Oh yeah, my new bottles and my desert gaters, just in time.