Godzone Adventure Race

Team Rogue - Racing in the Name of Science

Rob Howard / 06.03.2014

It’s probably the most asked question of adventure race teams; “How much sleep have you had during the race?”  I often think it’s a bit pointless as they are so sleep deprived they can’t remember! (Nor would I put it past the top teams to give a misleading answer so as not to give away strategy!) 

At Godzone Adventure it is a question Team Rogue from Australia are going to try and answer more accurately as part of unique scientific study.

The effects of sleep deprivation combined with all the other stresses of expedition racing (physical fatigue, change of diet, climate etc.) were clearly demonstrated with the dramatic scenes at the end of the last World Championships when Jackie Boisset was in a state of near collapse and unaware of his surroundings. There’s the question of how long racers take to recover as well.

Team Rogue hope are now in New Zealand for the race and are already wearing the  Respironics Actigraph watch which they describe as “ a nifty little device capable of recording measurements of activity, sleep, sleep latency (that is, how long it takes to fall asleep) and even light exposure.”

Their aim is to set a base line level before the race, then collect data during the competition to analyse their sleep deprivation, to see exactly how sleep deprived they are and the effects during and after the race. (They will wear the watches for 2 weeks after the race as well to monitor recovery.)

The team-based nature of adventure racing provides an excellent control for the case study given the mixed gender of the teams and the fact that all team members travel the same route and are exposed to the same stresses during the race.

The team say the data collected will be analysed and prepared for publication in the scientific literature but it will be of interest to all expedition racers as well.

You can find out more about Team Rogue on their website at http://www.rogueadventure.com/

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