My first Adventure Race...
And it was a complete blast. I do feel a bit guilty though for wishing I had been with a stronger team. But it did feel really good being the strongest member and not the weakest. Results and pictures haven't been posted yet so I will add those when they are.
I got to the race venue at 6:50 AM and took the canoe to TA2 (transition area) to drop it off. Drove back over to TA1 and met the other members of the team. We had never met before, I put a post on an adventure racing site looking for a team and they responded. It was a family, they had five members but needed a sixth to make two complete teams.
It turns out there were over 100 teams signed up for the race so it was quite a turnout.
AT 8:30 we had the team meeting, we were handed our maps and the rules were reviewed. There would be 18 required CP’s (checkpoints) and a plethora of optional CP’s.
It turns out that the race would start with a 0.5 mile swim for one member of the team while the other two would run about 2.5 miles to get the first three CP’s. Since this was a family I had connected with the two teams would be staying together. That’s fine, it is my first one and I had wanted a team that was more interested in fun then winning, and they were lots of fun.
We all lined up at the start line, the whistle blew and we were off! Uhmm, hmmm, are we off?? Can we get moving?? Guys?? Hello??? Well ok now we are off. The race director had said go, someone else had said not yet, some teams went some stayed others turned back, it was all very confusing but then the volunteers all started waving their hands and yelling GO GO GO.
This race was held at one of my three home trails for MTB’ing so I know it very well. This was actually going to pay off very well for us over the course of the race. We ran up a powerline trail to get the first CP, and then followed the MTB trail to the next two, we got to TA2 to meet our swimmer and get the canoe, our swimmer came in about 10 minutes after we got there but the other member of my team was already having issues and needed a break.
The swimmer came in and off we went on the canoe stretch. We decided to skip the optional CP’s and just do the mandatory, we could tell it would be a hard day since the temperatures were rising and the humidity was around 150% . We saw lots of people over the course of the race in varying degrees pain, I ended giving out lots of endurolytes. We hit both the required CP’s for the canoe section, total of about 4miles paddling. Our one team mate did not paddle much, he was complaining he was tired.
We get back to TA2 and run to TA1 to pick up the bikes. Guys, when you get to a TA don’t stop for lunch… please? We spent a solid 15 minutes in transition, I don’t know why. Finally the guys say we can go, so off I go, I head for the trail at a good clip, hit the first hard climb, fly up it, look back and realize no one else is with me. They do catch up and we are off again. We hit the first bike CP and head off to the next, I take a short cut that eliminates a good chunk of trail unfortunately the members of the other team (remember it’s a family, we have to stay together) didn’t see me turn and went the long way. That slowed us down some more but the member of my team having problems is now resting again. The misdirected members catch up and we are off for the next CP again, this time I make sure they see all the short cuts I take and we make up some good time and manage to pass quite a few teams. We blow through the next few bike CP’s without much problem, we are moving slow because one of the members is not a very strong bicyclist. I am coaching him where possible, getting them in the right gear, this seems to help and we move a bit better.
YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY! CP11, the fourth bike CP is on the other side of a ravine almost impossible to see, I was ahead of the other team members and just happened to stop to wait for them, looked over and saw it. It turns out lots of teams passed it and had to come back to get it from the next CP. Not fun having people flying on down hills in the wrong direction in violation of the rules cursing you out for being in their way. I hop off the bike and slide down the steep hill into the bottom of the ravine and realize it’s all poison ivy. Great, I’m allergic. Manage to get the CP and head out. At this point we have one bike CP left, halfway there and “that member” cramps up. He has not be eating anything or drinking properly, I force him to take some endurolytes and GU and he starts to recover.
We finally get the last bike CP and return to TA1 to do the last run. The problem is we are running out of time. We have three CP’s that we must get on foot and then we have to portage the canoe from TA2 to TA1. We are down to 1:10 left. There are penalties if you come in late. If we try to hit all three we will have to do a swim back to the canoe for the portage and with “that member” cramping a swim is not the best thing. We decide to go for one last CP that is on a fairly level trail and we can do it as an out and back, it’s about 1.5 miles away, we change out of our bike stuff and off we go, but something feels funny, genius me, I have on one bike shoe and one running shoe, I tell them to go on, change shoes and take off after them. We get the last CP, return to TA2 and portage the canoe to TA1.
We finished in 4:45, there was a five hour cut off. Of course the volunteers on the trail take this opportunity to tell us they have extended the time by one hour. Yeah, thanks, we could have gotten the other two required CP’s if we knew that before.
The race was a lot of fun, I look forward to doing another one. The people I raced with were very enjoyable and I have to give credit to “that member”, the heat and humidity took it’s toll on lots of teams and he hadn’t done this length of race before so overall he did very well.
And it was a complete blast. I do feel a bit guilty though for wishing I had been with a stronger team. But it did feel really good being the strongest member and not the weakest. Results and pictures haven't been posted yet so I will add those when they are.
I got to the race venue at 6:50 AM and took the canoe to TA2 (transition area) to drop it off. Drove back over to TA1 and met the other members of the team. We had never met before, I put a post on an adventure racing site looking for a team and they responded. It was a family, they had five members but needed a sixth to make two complete teams.
It turns out there were over 100 teams signed up for the race so it was quite a turnout.
AT 8:30 we had the team meeting, we were handed our maps and the rules were reviewed. There would be 18 required CP’s (checkpoints) and a plethora of optional CP’s.
It turns out that the race would start with a 0.5 mile swim for one member of the team while the other two would run about 2.5 miles to get the first three CP’s. Since this was a family I had connected with the two teams would be staying together. That’s fine, it is my first one and I had wanted a team that was more interested in fun then winning, and they were lots of fun.
We all lined up at the start line, the whistle blew and we were off! Uhmm, hmmm, are we off?? Can we get moving?? Guys?? Hello??? Well ok now we are off. The race director had said go, someone else had said not yet, some teams went some stayed others turned back, it was all very confusing but then the volunteers all started waving their hands and yelling GO GO GO.
This race was held at one of my three home trails for MTB’ing so I know it very well. This was actually going to pay off very well for us over the course of the race. We ran up a powerline trail to get the first CP, and then followed the MTB trail to the next two, we got to TA2 to meet our swimmer and get the canoe, our swimmer came in about 10 minutes after we got there but the other member of my team was already having issues and needed a break.
The swimmer came in and off we went on the canoe stretch. We decided to skip the optional CP’s and just do the mandatory, we could tell it would be a hard day since the temperatures were rising and the humidity was around 150% . We saw lots of people over the course of the race in varying degrees pain, I ended giving out lots of endurolytes. We hit both the required CP’s for the canoe section, total of about 4miles paddling. Our one team mate did not paddle much, he was complaining he was tired.
We get back to TA2 and run to TA1 to pick up the bikes. Guys, when you get to a TA don’t stop for lunch… please? We spent a solid 15 minutes in transition, I don’t know why. Finally the guys say we can go, so off I go, I head for the trail at a good clip, hit the first hard climb, fly up it, look back and realize no one else is with me. They do catch up and we are off again. We hit the first bike CP and head off to the next, I take a short cut that eliminates a good chunk of trail unfortunately the members of the other team (remember it’s a family, we have to stay together) didn’t see me turn and went the long way. That slowed us down some more but the member of my team having problems is now resting again. The misdirected members catch up and we are off for the next CP again, this time I make sure they see all the short cuts I take and we make up some good time and manage to pass quite a few teams. We blow through the next few bike CP’s without much problem, we are moving slow because one of the members is not a very strong bicyclist. I am coaching him where possible, getting them in the right gear, this seems to help and we move a bit better.
YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY! CP11, the fourth bike CP is on the other side of a ravine almost impossible to see, I was ahead of the other team members and just happened to stop to wait for them, looked over and saw it. It turns out lots of teams passed it and had to come back to get it from the next CP. Not fun having people flying on down hills in the wrong direction in violation of the rules cursing you out for being in their way. I hop off the bike and slide down the steep hill into the bottom of the ravine and realize it’s all poison ivy. Great, I’m allergic. Manage to get the CP and head out. At this point we have one bike CP left, halfway there and “that member” cramps up. He has not be eating anything or drinking properly, I force him to take some endurolytes and GU and he starts to recover.
We finally get the last bike CP and return to TA1 to do the last run. The problem is we are running out of time. We have three CP’s that we must get on foot and then we have to portage the canoe from TA2 to TA1. We are down to 1:10 left. There are penalties if you come in late. If we try to hit all three we will have to do a swim back to the canoe for the portage and with “that member” cramping a swim is not the best thing. We decide to go for one last CP that is on a fairly level trail and we can do it as an out and back, it’s about 1.5 miles away, we change out of our bike stuff and off we go, but something feels funny, genius me, I have on one bike shoe and one running shoe, I tell them to go on, change shoes and take off after them. We get the last CP, return to TA2 and portage the canoe to TA1.
We finished in 4:45, there was a five hour cut off. Of course the volunteers on the trail take this opportunity to tell us they have extended the time by one hour. Yeah, thanks, we could have gotten the other two required CP’s if we knew that before.
The race was a lot of fun, I look forward to doing another one. The people I raced with were very enjoyable and I have to give credit to “that member”, the heat and humidity took it’s toll on lots of teams and he hadn’t done this length of race before so overall he did very well.
Must be someplace I can locate a group like that. I can swim, paddle a canoe and maybe climb a little bit, but my running and off-road biking would require a lot of charitable patience from other team members. 
