Going Long

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How carefully do you plan your diet?

I am an octo/lacto vegetarian, so I’m pretty careful with my diet. I try to eat healthy, but I do love pizza. I also love sushi and pasta, and eat a lot of fruit, such as apples, mango, bananas and grapes. I also love my PowerBars and gels, and eat them regularly. When I’m training, I usually don't eat or drink too much on runs. I like to train in the worst possible conditions so that on race day, when I have water and PowerGel, they really work for me. I don't take supplements.

You’re married with a son and keep a full-time job. How do you juggle training and racing with other obligations?

I try to do my training before it has a chance to interfere with my work or family obligations. I wake up early, and I like to be running by 6 a.m. Lately I’ve been running at lunch—I’m so lucky to have a supportive group of people at work who help me balance my training with my job. 

Do you plan to encourage your son to run?

I want Pierce to do what makes him happy, but I definitely will try and show him what a great lifestyle running can be and how to make it a part of your life. Pierce and I run around the house every night and he’s a quick little guy. Jennifer supports our "races" and even has a waterstop/crew area set up in the kitchen. It’s awesome.

How do you view your talent, and what are your lifetime goals?

I really don't think I have much talent. I just try to work hard and improve. I have never really been great at anything, but I don't mind working and working until I get better, and I know that eventually, I will achieve my goals.

Scott Pleban

Scott Pleban knows his way around the world of adventure racing. As a world-class orienteerer and strong multisport athlete, Pleban has helped lead adventure racing teams around the globe, including the AR World Championships, Primal Quest, and the USARA Adventure Race National Championships, where his teams have twice finished second. When he’s not logging serious hours in the woods, the 43-year-old Colonial Beach, Va., resident is under the gun working as a rocket scientist with the U.S. Navy. Despite his seaside locale, Pleban manages to pursue his passion for ski orienteering and won a silver medal at the 2008 World Ski-Orienteering Masters Championships in Switzerland in January.

Expedition adventure races often take more than a week to complete. How do you train for that kind of effort?

Typically on the weekends, I get in a monstrous workout like a 40-mile trek with a full pack or a 100-mile mountain bike ride or a 6-hour river paddle. I can spend easily 12 to 16 hours training on the weekends. On weekdays, I usually do two one-hour workouts per day, alternating between arms and legs, so it could be paddling and running one day and biking and weight training the next. It’s as much about getting calloused up and dealing with blisters as it is about working your heart and muscles.

Sounds like you’re going non-stop.

Non-stop is right. There’s no free minute in the whole day. I get up, train in the morning, go straight to work and then train at night. My work has some flexibility, but the hours can get really crazy. There are times when I have to go out for a week to ten days on a ship and I struggle to keep training. The good part is that when it comes time for a race, it almost feels like a mental break to only focus on that one thing.

Adventure racing is physically taxing, but doesn’t being a navigator add to the mental challenge?

Definitely. If a team has only one navigator, you have to concentrate every instant of the race. If you don’t take care of yourself it’s easy to make costly errors. People who are not orienteering can get away with letting the mind wander a bit.

How do you keep yourself fueled during a race?

I like a variety of different stuff. If you take a lot of the same thing, you tend not to eat because you get bored with it. I love high-calorie things like fruit pies, Nutrigrain bars or packets of crackers. Sometime I eat pepperoni or take small slices of cold pizza. Small stuff like little chocolate bars and gummy bears are good to keep popping in your mouth. At a [transition area] I’ll pop cans of Beefaroni and wash it down with a Mountain Dew. When I’m not racing I’m a healthy eater, but during a race the thing that’s more important is the calories.

Have you ever felt like your life was in danger during a race?

The most scared I’ve been was during a sea kayak session on Lake Superior during an Eco-Challenge qualifier in 2003. There was a total of 115 miles of sea kayaking and the wind was causing huge swells. You couldn’t stop paddling because if you did, you’re dead. We were in the kayak for more than 22 hours and we were completely exhausted. That was complete misery.

What are your future goals in the sport?

Even though I’m competing, I don’t have any specific goals in terms of placings. My goals are more along the lines of working well with my team, fighting until the end and finishing with class. So much can go awry during a race. You just have to accept it when it happens and communicate as a team. I want to walk away from every race with each team member pleased with the effort.

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