Team Canada AR Takes 3rd Place Co-Ed at the Shenandoah Epic Adventure Race in Virginia

On April 14^th, Nathalie, James and Jason joined up with Kevin Poirier, a fellow adventure racer from the Ottawa area, to head down to Front Royal, Virginia for the Rev 3 Shenandoah Epic adventure race. The race was billed as being 26-hours long, but after seeing the maps and having the race briefing, it became apparent that the race would be won in under 18 hours, partly due to having to cut the paddle short because of low water levels. The race format was quite straightforward – paddle, trek, then combination bike/trek to get the remaining checkpoints.

Jason got the race started at 9am on Saturday morning with a ~1 mile prologue, which only required one team member to complete. He came back tied for the lead and off we went on the paddle. There were a number of CPs along the way that could be gotten any time during the race, so we opted to grab the ones closest to shore as we paddled by. We could see that teams adopted different strategies here, so right from the start it became nearly impossible to tell who was in the lead during the race.

We were one of the first teams off the 12km paddle section which ended with teams having to designate one or more team members to traverse the boats to the opposite shore of the transition area and them swim back across the river (about 50 metres). James was “voluntold” for this task and paddled the attached canoes across and swam back in the very cold water and the team headed on the trek section.

The first portion of the trek was mainly uphill, ending at a 100 foot rappel site. The team was the second to arrive at the ropes, seconds behind one of the Rev 3 teams. A quick rappel had them regain the lead as they headed back up to the ridge and then worked their way down to the river below. The chosen route down turned somewhat sketchy and made for slow travel. Once down at the riverbed, the team expected easier travel, but due to being prohibited from crossing the river, we were forced to traverse along the steep rocky edge of the river for about a kilometre before finally getting to some flatter ground. The slow trekking along the river and difficulty finding a CP in this area allowed couple teams to get ahead of us at this point.

Once arrived at the next TA, we transitioned onto the bikes, opting to carry our running shoes for a 15+ km section that we planned to cover on foot. The first half of the bike/trek section had some roads, as well as a fair bit of technical trail riding. Again we worked our way up to a high point in the mountains where the trail seemed to get more technical. The plan was to ride in as far as we could and then begin trekking from there, since this section was basically one big loop from the start of the ridge. We rode a few hundred metres along the ridge and then decided to drop our bikes there and put on our running shoes. However, as we progressed further along the ridge on foot, we realized that the trail was rideable quite a bit further than where we had dropped our bikes. We saw bikes from the teams ahead of us further up the trail as we went along, which confirmed our thoughts about being able to ride further in. We arrived in the vicinity where we expected to find CP 16, only to spend about 30 minutes looking for it to no avail. We finally decided to move on and look for this CP while on the way back to our bikes at the end of the loop, since these CPs could be gotten in any order. We had little trouble finding the rest of the CPs to complete the loop, however it was a long steep climb back up to the ridge from the lowest CP in the section. Once back at the top and headed back to our bikes, we once again struggled to find CP 16, wasting another 15 minutes before stumbling upon it. After the race, we confirmed that, in fact, the CP was not in the right location – but all teams did manage to find it eventually.

From here we worked our way back to the start/finish, which acted as the final TA in the race. There was a word puzzle challenge to do here, which we guessed correctly on our first attempt.  We quickly refuelled and headed out on a final bike/trek o-course in the surrounding hills. The singletrack trails were flowy and relatively non-technical, however there was quite a bit of climbing to do in the area. We did a combination of biking, trekking, bushwhacking, and bikewhacking in this section. For the most part things went well, but we struggled to find a few CPs quickly and the bikewhacking and bushwhacking up hills was slow and difficult. There was a bonus CP in this section for which clues were given at 3 unspecified CPs in the section. After getting the 3 clues we made our way to where we expected to find the CP but couldn’t find it initially. Assuming we had incorrectly plotted the bonus CP, we searched the obvious features in the area, eventually finding the CP at a nearby high point. From here it was a quick ride to the finish line, crossing the line in under 16 hours. This was good enough for a 3^rd place finish in the co-ed 4-person division.

Overall the race went well, but the places where we struggled to find CPs cost us a fair bit of time. Combine this with the fact that it was an early season race (there’s still snow on the trails in Nat, James, and Kevin’s training grounds!) and the team (particularly Nat) is better-suited to multi-day expedition racing, we are pleased with our 3^rd place finish. The best part about finishing in 16 hours instead of 26 hours was that we were able to get some sleep before having to drive the 10 hours back home in time to work on Monday morning!

A huge thanks to our sponsors, whose gear and nutritional products were an immense help in the race. Our Osprey Rev18 and Rev24 packs were perfect for this style of racing, and the 2XU compression gear and Pearl Izumi cycling gear were excellent in these conditions.  We relied heavily on NUUN, StrongBars, and the Pacific Health Labs line of products (Accel Gels, Accelerade, and Endurox R4) for our nutrition during the race. James at not one, not two, but 3 Strongbars at once near the end of the race, after going a little too long without eating anything. Finally, since there’s still ice on our rivers and lakes at the moment, it was great to have a PaddleOne kayak ergometer to be able to get the paddling muscles ready to perform in this race.