After such a long
winter, here it was, the first adventure race of the season!!!
James has raced Storm
the Trent at least 5 times now and I (Nathalie) was at my third time.
This 8h adventure race
doesn’t require great navigation skills, which was perfect for us.
Indeed, in our team of
four, James and I (Nathalie) are not the navigators. With Untamed New England
(5 day race) coming up, we wanted to improve our orienteering skills since we
will all have to do part of an orienteering relay alone during that race. Storm
the Trent wasn’t hard navigation but it would at least give us a little
practice.
After camping the
night before at the Golden Beach Resort (the host site) we were ready to tackle
the race. I was a little worried due to the lack of training from my end on the
biking and paddling. With the long winter and almost inexistent spring we had,
my paddling and biking took a massive hit. However I was run fit which I guess
helped a lot.
We hopped on a bus and
were transported away from the resort to the start of the race. I didn’t
realise it at the time but apparently we went a fair bit downhill on the bus..
But I would realise that a little later on whilst on the bike, climbing,
climbing and climbing again…
We started on foot by
a 4-5km trek. We ran well and the nav was spot on (I was navigating but it was
very simple). We finished the run with only a few people in front of us. James
took the maps and we went on a 30km MTB through paved and gravel roads and a
lot of sand :/ Everything went very well for this part too and we got to the
second transition in first place.
It was warm… a lot warmer than any temperature we have seen in months. I couldn’t get myself to eat much and I was drinking a lot. I took back the maps for the second trek/run. Nice little trails and once again very easy to find CPs. James had been pushing me and pulling me a lot already and I was worried he would bonk but nope… He is a MACHINE.
It was warm… a lot warmer than any temperature we have seen in months. I couldn’t get myself to eat much and I was drinking a lot. I took back the maps for the second trek/run. Nice little trails and once again very easy to find CPs. James had been pushing me and pulling me a lot already and I was worried he would bonk but nope… He is a MACHINE.
We managed to get out
of the second trek tied for first place with a solo male competitor.
We left on the second
bike in first place. The single track section of the MTB was coming and I was
worried about the technical stuff but it went super well.
James was spot on on almost
all the CPs, but we made a little navigational mistake that cost us a lot of
time (about 10-15min). Once we finally found the CP, the second co-ed team
(team of 4) was arriving and saw us at the CP so they were able to easily find
it. We left again and made another small error, which led us to be passed by
the other team. Shortly afterwards we caught back up and passed them again,
trying to hammer it to the last little run (about 1km) before the last 2kms on
the bike.
At that point we were
both very dehydrated and couldn’t wait to get to the paddle section, which was
the final leg of the race.
The little run up and
down the hill on the 1km trek was very hard for us, but we managed to stay
slightly ahead of the other team. We hopped back on our bikes and hammered to
the paddle section. We hadn’t had any water for over an hour at this point and
were so happy to be getting to our PFDs which had water in them. Happiness
didn’t last!!! When we got to the transition area, they announced to us that we
will have another run to do because the paddle section was very windy and had
been shortened. Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
We told them we were
expecting to see our water by then and they said we could go and get it but it
cost us a bit of time and we could only drink a few sips since it was in a
camel back, in the PFDs…
That run was about
3-4kms and it was the most awful I have felt in a race for quite a while.
I had barely had a few
candies and half a bar in those five and half hours up to this point in the
race and I was dehydrated on top of that… I was feeling more than Blah!!! James
started to feel not so good either. After spending the entire day pulling and
pushing me I wouldn’t blame him!!!
With the team of four
being right behind us, we couldn’t slack off now, so we pushed it and got onto
the water before them.
The canoe section was
only 2 or 3 kms but it was awful conditions with some waves reaching about a
meter high. I don’t know how we managed it but we went through without tipping
and after lots of cursing from my end we made it to the finish line J
We ended up 1st Co-ed team and 4th overall (3 solo males ahead of us) in 6h27, only 7min from 2nd place overall.
I had a great race and
felt powerful thanks to James’ power pulling and pushing me J And for us non- navigators, I think we did
pretty well! Thanks Storm the Trent for a great adventure!
Next week will be
another challenge at Raid Pulse since we are both racing solo. That will be the
real test for me I guess J
Nathalie
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