Word: rusch
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This is the toughest part of the race for Rusch. Men tend to start out strong and finish weak; female racers, by contrast, gain momentum. "The first day is survival for me because everyone is so amped and they go out fast," says Rusch of the five-man, one-woman team she leads. "I'm just hanging on so I don't fall back." After just two hours, she has used up most of her glycogen--a form of energy derived from sugar and stored in muscles and certain organs--and her body starts running on fat and whatever calories...
Marathoners work their bodies hard. So do triathletes and those who make their living playing sports. But nobody pushes the envelope of human endurance quite as far as extreme racers. Burning calories and shedding electrolytes faster than their bodies can replace them, athletes like Rusch will lose up to 10 lbs. of water, fat and muscle in the course of a five-day race. By the time Rusch crosses the finish line, her organs are faltering, her muscles are deteriorating, and she's hallucinating wildly. "I don't understand why I do it," says Rusch, who has racked...
...adventure racing is the Raid Gauloises World Championship in September. The culmination of a series of shorter qualifying races throughout the year in places such as Australia, Sweden and the U.S., the contest this year will lure more than 200 competitors--including Team Montrail, the six-person American team Rusch captains--to the French and Swiss Alps for a 372-mile trek up and down the mountains...
...give TIME a sense of what it's like for these superathletes, Rusch took us through a typical grueling week of racing...
...Rusch, this is the sweet spot of the ordeal, the day she falls into the rhythm of the race and no longer feels as if she is playing catch-up with her teammates. "As the race gets longer, women tend to do better and better," she says. "I think that has a lot to do with body fat, since women, even athletic and fit women, have more stores to pull from. Guys have about 6% body fat, while women will carry about 12%." The calculus of human exertion, however, is working against all the contestants. Adventure racers typically burn...