Jacob Milius, Adventure Racer

Melissa: Hey, Jacob. Thanks for joining me this morning. So, you’re doing your very first endurance adventure race? That’s very cool!

Jacob: Yeah, yeah.

Melissa: Alright, so, let’s go back a bit. Were you an athlete in high school?

Jacob: Yeah, I did soccer. I played a lot of soccer. That’s pretty much it. I was in a small school, so there wasn’t very many athletic programs and what there was, I wasn’t very interested in. I like soccer. I like that you get to run around and kick the ball and shit, so it’s a lot of fun.

Melissa: Very cool and that’s an excellent endurance sport. So, after high school you joined the marines. Is that right?

Jacob: Uh huh.

Melissa: Okay, and what did you do in the marines?

Jacob: I fixed helicopters for about nine years. Yeah, so I joined the marine corps, went through the school and everything. They taught me how to fix helicopters and that’s what I did. It was a lot of fun. Pretty challenging. I got to go on a lot of deployments, see different parts of the world, meet a lot of different people.

Melissa: Very cool, so you’re pretty mechanically inclined then if you’re a mechanic.

Jacob: Oh yeah.

Melissa: Okay, alright, and how long did you serve?

Jacob: Nine years.

Melissa: Alright, and before we go any further, I just wanted to thank you for your service. That is awesome. Totally got the utmost respect for guys who serve. So, now that you’re out of the military, what are you doing as far as work?

Jacob: I work for General Atomics right now. I’m helping build a fusion reactor or parts of a fusion reactor that’s going up in France.

Melissa: Wow!

Jacob: Yeah, so it’s really challenging work. A lot of machines and stuff like that, but it keeps me on my toes.

Melissa: Yeah, I bet it does. Alright, well, speaking of your work. You’re able to workout on your breaks. Is that correct?

Jacob: Yeah, yeah. They have a lot of really excellent facilities, so I’m able to do all sorts of weighted exercises. I can do anything I want to really. They have large open fields, they have soccer fields, softball fields, they have a saltwater pool, Olympic size. There’s all sorts of little details like a heavy bag. All sorts of things that I can use for just training.

Melissa: Oh, sounds like a great place. That’s great you have that at your dispense. Tell me a little bit about your workouts.

Jacob’s Workouts

Jacob: So, I’ve been trying to tailor my workouts more towards endurance and specifically with my legs and a little bit of upper body, so I’ve been splitting up my workouts between two, three workouts per day. I do weighted workout in the morning. That’s generally my first workout and I focus mostly on balance and stabilization. Torso balance, core balance, and stuff like that. I do some dead lifts, squats, I do my kick-outs, stuff like that. Planking.

And I just work strength building and stuff like that and then my later two workouts are generally ones that I do at work that I really use field for or they have a nice little floor that we exercise on. And then I’ll do more towards Tabata cell exercises, cross training style exercises where I’m doing tire flipping and hammering and stuff like that to build more of an endurance type base. So, also spreading my workouts throughout the day. I’m trying to sustain activity throughout the day through a 24-hour period and then as I keep training I’ll be ramping that up to encompass the entire 24-hour period.

Melissa: Okay, alright, very cool. And that brings me to what exactly does your adventure race consist of?

Jacob: So, well, it starts with white water rafting and I believe that’s 30 to 60 miles with that and then right after that it’s straight into trekking. So, we trek into the mountains. There’s mountain biking and it’ll pretty much be switching between trekking and mountain biking for the rest of it. But yeah, they’re not really open with the details, so.

Melissa: Oh, okay, so element of surprise. Very cool!

Jacob: And we don’t get the maps for it until the day before and we do all of our own navigation and it’s bike safe navigation, so you have a compass and a map and that’s it.

Melissa: Okay. Alright, that’s exciting. Alright, so I take it your training is going and progressing as you had hoped, then?

Jacob: Yes, yes.

Melissa: Okay. Alright, excellent. If you had one tip to give to an inspiring athlete that wants to get into this, what would it be?

Jacob: Do it. Just do it.

Melissa: Just like the Nike saying, huh?

Jacob: Yeah.

Melissa: Alright, well thanks so much for sharing a glimpse into your life along with your training concepts. Appreciate it, Jacob.

Jacob: No problem, no problem.

Melissa
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