K2O 2015-200km paddle race Kingston to Ottawa-Nat DNF after 115.4km of hard paddling

James, John (his team mate) and I left on Friday afternoon to Kingston to participate in the 200km paddle K2O from Kingston to Ottawa. The boys were going to paddle a canoe and I had borrowed a light and fast surfski from a friend (a think surfski).

I had a lot of troubles last year with another think boat because of weeds getting caught in the rudder and the race had been cancelled last year half way due to the rough weather.

I had made it to the 72-75km mark and was nervous for this year although I had this year a weed deflector…so I thought I would be off the weeds.

My super awesome support crew, Joel Perrella from Breathe Magazine, met me on Friday night and we went through gears and food etc..

On Saturday morning we started the race at 6am.

From the start on I was stuck in a massive patch of weeds. To the point that I saw even the SUP going away at the distance while I was still fighting with the weeds. I begged ahead for help since there were no more boats ahead and luckily Rick, another racer, waited and took the weeds off for me. The first leg was hard as the weeds seemed to be everywhere.

As I was going along another surfski was struggling so we were de-weeding each other’s as we went.

Matt (that helped me out last year) did also a way with me taking the weeds every so often so we could keep a good pace.

We finally made some ground and went back ahead of the SUPs and other kayaks.

At the first lock I saw just ahead of me James canoe and Brad Jenning’s canoe from get out there.

 I caught up to James’ boat during that second leg and as I past them the weeds got me again. I asked if he could grab the weeds as I was next to the boat and James did but his team mate wasn’t happy and let me know that they would not spend their time helping me out…So I left them and went ahead.

I then caught up to Brad’s canoe on the next leg and they nicely helped me out as I was passing them.

The next few legs went ok but the weeds started to be more abundant again and after a little while I got caught back up by the two canoes (Brad and James). I did half that leg next to Brad’s boat chit chatting along until we reached the 69.7km lock.

That was the last lock I saw last year, being rescued a few kms later.

I made it through the lock and went on for the 30km+ leg. As I left I grabbed 3 gels, thinking it would be enough for 30km…big mistake. I think I was already really hungry by that point (despite the multiple sandwiches that Joel had prepared for me) and dehydrated a bit.

I had my first gel early on and by the time I got ti the 20kmm or so I was out of food. Just when I realise that I wouldn’t see my support crew until the 34km mark because they couldn’t reach the poonamalie lockstation at 30km. Hunger settled in. I had caught back to James’s boat by that point but didn’t dare asking for food after the reaction of his team mate earlier.

A few kms before Poonamalie I hit a patch of weeds and I was exhausted. I hit the wall big time. By the time I reached Poonamalie (101km mark of the race) James’s boat was 30min ahead (I was with them 2km before) and I was in a really bad shape. My stomach was burning from what I thought was a little bit of chaffing and the inside of my stomach was hurting by hunger. I am so lucky and thankful the volunteer in place gave me something to drink (an ensure) and I was off to Smith Falls.

The weeds were even worse than before and the 4km seemed to never end.

When I got to Smith Falls at 8h30pm after 14h30 I was tired.

 Most of the field would stop the race there (doing the ½ course). I showed to someone my belly and they patched it up and they made me stop for a bit before going again. My entire belly was red and some places more burnt than others.

The cut off was at midnight at Smith so I was way ahead of schedule and i was actually very decently placed in the 100km race if i had stopped there.

I left soon after (around 9pm) in the dark alone. By that point my friend Augusto had met up with Joel to give him a hand.

The next couple of locks went ok although very weedy. 

I didn’t see my support crew at one of the lock but saw the race director. I was then only 5-7km away from the next lock (Killarnock I think it is). That’s when things went wrong. I had nobody ahead or behind me. I was following my map which said to stay on the left shore but after a while I got in a massive swamp with lily pads all around and no room to even put a paddle in the middle….Just imagine what was going on in the back of my boat with my pretty long rudder getting literally stuck there. I couldn’t move much (less than a km per hour), the fog settled and I couldn’t see any buoys. Thanks to the headlamp the thousand bugs around me had decided to crawl through my face in my ear and nose. I couldn’t turn off the light as I really needed to find the navigational channel.

I then took my gps that I had tested before and that was working but I had to change the map for the second half of the race and for some reason the gps was telling me to go left. There was no left!!! It was lily pads and the shore. After what felt like a really long panick moment I decided to call the race director. I asked him if he could see me on his map explaining that I couldn’t see the navigational channel because of the fog and whether I was still in the right lake?? He told me I was in the right direction. “Keep left” he said. After telling him that left was NOT an option I started wandering on the right more and more and finally spotted a buoy far in the distance…on the other side of the lake on the Right-hand side.

I followed the buoys going all around the bloody lake to finally find the lockstation…It was now 11:30pm and I was at 115.4km. I had done the last 11.4km in 2h30…BRUTAL!!!

I knew the weeds wouldn’t get much better but I also knew there was only 10,5km left in open lakes before getting into the narrow canal where you can’t get lost anymore.

I asked the guys for some arm warmers and was going to continue when the race director came to ask me to stop the race. He was worried about my safety. He said all the other boats behind me (and there were many according to him at smith falls) had quit and he was concerned letting me continue alone.

That is the first time I get stopped from a race without missing any cut offs, being ahead of my schedule.

I had done 115.4km in 17h30 and I had 18h left to do the remaining 87…I could totally do it. But Hey he was the race director. He left and we started packing up my stuff. 45min later I was changed and ready to go when I saw a canoe at the lock, it was a team..and they let them keep on going…WTF???

The next morning when I woke up early I saw that two other teams had kept on going hours after I had been asked to stop. I wasn’t and I am still not happy about it. The race director sent me an email to apologies and told me that afterthought he should have asked me to just stop for a while…After all I had time…but all the apologies in the world won’t unfortunately make the failure feeling to go away.

James, strong as always, kept on going and finished a little after 30h of paddling.

I would never do this race again with a fixed rudder…maybe with a kick up rudder….If I can get over this year’s race.

I want to say that my support crew, Joel Perrella was the best in the world and that you all should check out his awesome magazine breathemag J

I also want to thank my sponsors for supporting me through this gruelling event, Nuun hydration, PacificHealthlab and strongbar nutrition. NRS and 2XU for the awesome gears to keep me moving and warm.

Nat

Cowboy Tough 3,5 days Expedition race 2015-7th overall (1st of the Adventure class)

Jason, James and I decided to do Cowboy Tough a few months ago but we didn't have a 4th.
We needed a 4th but most of all we needed a navigator so Jason wouldn't be on his own for the entire race.
That's when the race director put us in touch with Fritz (racer of Rev3).
We didn't know Fritz before and Unfortunately didn't have time to do a race all together prior the expedition.
We all flew to Wyoming on the Tuesday, Jason, James and I meeting up in Denver and then driving up to Casper while Fritz was supposed to meet us up there at about the same time.
After taking possession of what must be the pick up with the roughest suspension on earth, we started our drive and stopped on the way to do our groceries.
Fritz got delayed and delayed again and finally made it to the hotel past midnight...without one of his bags (that he got the next day on time for the race).
Wednesday was the check in and gear check, then race briefing and packing the boxes.
We managed to have a decent night of sleep before the race which is always a bonus in those races.
On Thursday morning we took the bus up to Buffalo where the race started.

 

Day1:
The race started with a small Orienteering course in town with different challenges: a shot of whiskey, punching a CP at the bottom of a 10-12 feet deep pool, collecting a telegram and a bullet casing. The orienteering was on foot and as soon as we were done we ran back to the TA (start), took our bikes and left for a couple of hours on the bike.
The first CP on the bike was a challenge. We got to a corral and were told that one of us needed to get in there and pick up a ribbon from a cow's tail (they were babies).
I heard a start of conversation in the team to know who was going and decided we didnt have time for that, so I jumped in...and then realized that I'm scared of cows :S but hey, I was in there, so I did my best and ended up getting one without getting hurt :)

Jumped back on bikes to get to the paddle.

There were two kind of canoes laying there and we picked the first one we saw that looked ok...big mistake. We ended up being passed by everybody who had the other kind of canoes. We thought they were about the same but there was actually 15 and 17 feet long canoes (if i'm correct).
Anyway the paddle was kind of painful because of the CPs not being exactly where they were supposed to be and one was not in place at all, which made us turn around for a while.
We saw the Yogas, Nuun, and Swiss Army turning around but we decided to try a little more to find it...without success.
By the time we came back, those teams were gone on the bike and we met them back up at the next challenge. In that one we had to guess a 3 letter word by flag signals. One or two persons were running to a far away field and were doing flag signals to make us guess a word.

We did relatively ok at it and were back on the bike quickly.
A couple of hours more and we were in TA ready to tackle the first big Trek that would take us up to 10 000 feet.
We started the trek with the Yoga and left them behind as we were climbing (one of their team mate wasn't feeling great). We had a great climb, passing a few teams on the way. Jason's navigation was awesome and we got all the CPs without any troubles up to CP 18. On the way down from CP16 we met Dart Nuun going up, which meant we had passed them somewhere on the way. We were moving well. On the way to CP18 Fritz started to have feet problems so we stopped for him to fix them. As we kept on going he started not feeling very well with GI issues that went on for the whole night. CP19 ended up being the race breaker for us.
The trail disappeared and we turned around and around for 4 to 5 hours. We were by then at 10 000 feet or close. I was feeling sicky from the altitude and just wanted to get back down. I really wanted to find that CP quickly. Fritz wasn't feeling any better at this point, so he couldn't help Jason which didn't simplify the situation.
After finally finding the CP we made another mistake going to CP20 that cost us another 2h+...the race was kind of over...we had missed a cut off.
The morale of the team went down and by the time we got to transition we didn't know if we would be allowed to keep on racing or not.

Day2:
They decided to put us on an "adventure class" course, which only meant that you had missed a cut off and were not forced to get mandatory points from there on but could get any CPs (mandatory or optional).
We decided to go for it and get as many CPs as we could, like if we were still on course.
After a sluggish 1h45 transition, we left on the bikes. We reached the rappel CP pretty quickly and decided to go for more CPs instead of just riding to the End of day transition. So we kept on going on the regular route and picking up CPs. One of the CP was on the top of a mountain. It was so windy.
We decided to go to the end of day after CP32 (I didnt want to but got outvoted). That ride was ssssooooo long and boring. We did it all at night and it was just a repetitive gravel road with not much to keep you awake. That was our second night awake and we rode all night until early morning (we actually stopped for a 15min nap on the side of the road).
Day3:
We got to TA and decided to go for some Optional CPs since we still had a bit of time. We hit two of them pretty quickly and messed up one in a creek that cost us a bit of time.
We got back to TA just on time to leave for Day3..on the bike again.
We rode a part of that bike ride with the Yoga. I guess we were kind of just following but we had to stop after a while and then we didn't know where we were. After turning around for a while we finally made it back on track...for 10 minutes before my first flat.
My tire was pretty new but had so many little cuts it was unbelievable.
The rocks were sharp I guess. We changed the tube just to get a second flat 2 min later.
James decided to cut open a punctured tube to make a protective layer for the new tube inside the tire...it worked.
We got to a CP at the canyon that was really pretty and even got burgers thanks to NYARA :)

Leaving there was again pretty hard (as every transition or stops we did) but we managed to get back on the road and picked up more optional CPs.

 

We struggled for a while and ended up not finding a CP at a well and decided to go to TA.
We got to TA end of day 3 after 63 hours of racing or so...and no sleep. We agreed on having a 2h stop which would include getting changed eating and sleeping. Alarm was set for 2am and we were supposed to leave for the orienteering course at 2:15am sharp....After barely 1h15 of sleep I was awake, looking at the map to see which CPs we would have time to get. By 2am I had a plan and was ready to wake the guys up.
That last TA was a nightmare to leave, and we ended up not getting out of the transition until 2:45am. But Hey at least we went...We picked up the first 3 Cps easily and decided to go for a couple more...problem is we went way too far and ended up picking up a CP we didn't plan to pick and missed the two others that we wanted to take closer to us...it was a bit of a rush to get back in the TA right on time to not be cut off and jump on our bikes.
Day4:
The bike was a 70 mile bike ride back to Casper with some elevation, especially at the start. We managed a good pace and within half the bike ride we had passed many teams.

The second half of the ride was my favorite.
We rode in an echelon formation with Nordic adventure racing team for a while and that was very cool. After a while we decided to go just our team and we took off. It felt fast and great.
By the time we reached town we had reached and passed a lot of teams. We got to the last TA where we took our packrafts and ran to the put in 3 miles upstream. We picked up our last CP and went down river in no time thanks to the current.

Arriving at the finish line, Jason and Fritz decided to race James and I to cross the line first :)

In summary a lot of fun but very disappointed to not have stayed on the full course. We were fit and fast and I am more than sure that we could have done great if only we could have helped Jason with the nav a little more when he needed it. This is the second race that Jason, James and I have done together and once again I loved racing with them and would do it all over again anytime.
I didn't mention it too much but I did spend my time freezing my butt (I really thought it would be a warm race) and when i wasn't freezing I sunburnt real good :/
On a super positive side I loved my Altra Lonepeaks to bits. I didn't have any feet pain which is really rare for me and my 2XU and Pearl Izumi clothing and equipment worked really well. We rode 392km in 3,5 days and I didn't get a rash. First time ever and I only used cream once prior to the race...I am stoked!!!

Frenchie

Photo credits: Michael Sero and Randy Eriksen, two kick ass photographers

Untamed New England Expedition race-10th overall

Back at another Untamed with James (Relentless) and John (threeputt) with new addition to the team Natalie (Frenchie). Check in, maps, all went fast with minimal checks, pre-plotted maps. A++ for Grant and team making this part of the race lead-up pain free. 

 

Race start was using some iffy maps for a prologue rogaine foot section. Kept a good pace with the lead teams and got off around 7th onto the boats. With Nat being a strong paddler we were able to get ahead of a few teams catching up to Columbia tied for 3rd into the run to Little Kineo. This was key as getting to the ropes was crucial since the backlog kept teams waiting hours. Even though we were fourth team in, we still waited near 20mins as only a few ropes were being used. Not sure why RD’s still put these things in races?!?!? 

 

Of the rappel we navigated to the closest road and ran back down to the canoes, paddled to Kineo Island obtaining two more CP’s, the last of which was a little tricky. Raidlight passed us during the run but then missed the last CP, asking us if we found it after we already had nabbed it… ughhh… uncomfortable… I played the ‘I don’t speak French’ card but unfortunately on this team that card doesn’t play well since Nat had already spoken French with them at the ropes and we eventually told them we found it back where it was. They shouldn’t have asked us but what can you do when asked… 

 

Back in the boats we paddled to the first TA which we reached in good time and were given some nice chili by Good To-Go sponsors. Transition out and onto the bikes where eventually Sweco catches and passes us through the night. The nav goes well but our pace isn’t very fast; perhaps we are still recovering from hammering the run/paddle for the first 8 hours. We hit the bike bushwhack and aren’t one of the fortunate ones who find a trail; we just whack for an hour or some; pretty miserable going. 

Eventually we pop out to see Clinique has also passed us as they found a good trail. We continue to move on the bike, albeit fairly slow and by the time we get near the Orienteering section at Gorman Chairback lodge John’s feeling rough. We re-strategize our order slightly so John can get some rest while Nat does the short/hard, James the long/easy, me the long/hard and pass over to John for short/easy at which point he’s feeling tip top again. We try to get some sleep but no one gets anything more than a few mins – we are still only 24 hours into the race. Pancakes and Kool-Aid are awesome. After we all finish our o-sections we make short order of the wood stacking and are off on the ‘monster’ bike again. 

 

We continue to ride along without any nav issues and make it to the (dreaded) Abenaki Lost World. We inflate our packrafts and immediately it’s apparent that John and I have not practiced our layout in our newly purchased $800US Alpacka. While we’re stumbling along the shore, we’re passed by Clinique and MadAthlete teams who blaze along with their $1500 Alpackas that have about twice the hull speed of ours. Eventually we settle into our uncomfortable positions while trying to manage the high winds on Third Roach Pond. The winds are brutal and we have to paddle straight into them at maybe 2km/hr. It’s painfully slow and sucks. We deflate and bushwhack after looking with no avail for the stream connecting Second and Third Roach Ponds. Back on water at Second Roach Pond and even more headwind. By the time we hit the CP on the lake Nat is near hypothermic and we make the decision to abandon the packrafts as we don’t feel safe in the high winds, cold water and no signs of a safety boat. We make for the south shore where we deflate and pack up while hiking the trail around the lake. It’s nice to be warm and hiking again but the time it takes transition isn’t pretty and we soon realize we probably should have just sucked it up and paddled the lake. We lose a lot of time here I suspect and we even flub the peninsula CP on Second Roach Pond as I assumed it was on the very end instead of the middle. O-store.ca passes us here and told us they just decided to run most of it vs packraft. 

We trek on and arrive at the final CP before the First Roach Pond crossing. It’s night and the wind is back up, it feels extremely unsafe again with no safety boats and us crashing into high waves. We eventually make the crossing and are happy to be done with the packrafting (for now). 

After taking a little while to change and eat we head out to start the big trek. It’s night number two so we decide we should take our first rest of the race. The temperature is cold, we can see our breath, feels like 5C or so. We cram into the ‘cozy’ tent, set the alarm for 1:45 time of sleep and roll around cold and uncomfortable. I think we all maybe got 20 minutes? Maybe an hour? Who knows but it wasn’t quality sleep. 

We are now on the big trek and hike up the first mountain taking all roads/trails to play it safe and manage the first one without any issues. Had a terrible route to the next CP taking the ridegeline instead of descending to the parallel trail, I have no idea why I marked that; stupid. It’s now daylight of Day 3 and we take the ridgeline to the trail and make our way to the second mountain top which ends up OK. One final mountain and we’re done, right? We are thinking about our free sleep at the rafting already, however, the last trek CP is ABSOLUTE SHIT, the worst I’ve experienced. About 4? 5? 6? Hours of painfully slow whacking through tightly packed spruce trees, ripping away at our skin, packs and clothing. We lose an hour trying to make sense of a flagged trail near the saddle near the summit praying to the Abenaki gods that this trail will take us to our CP but it just meanders around. When we finally are near the summit we run into a cameraman who was about to turn around to his car, frustrated and beaten by the bushwhack but he follows us up to the mountain CP (see us on the Untamed Youtube at 5mins into the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-yWb0lrLYM&list=U...) with John highlighting how lovely the last CP was. Like most teams we were without water for all of this section from the last mountain (maybe 8 hours). 

Thankfully there was a trail leading down out of the CP (it was glorious not to have to bushwhack down) and we slowly made our way back to the TA. We moved slow on this easy (but buggy) road trek, a section we probably should have ran but were feeling pretty beat down by the trek and very dehydrated and hungry. My feet were starting to blister as per usual even though I felt like I took good care of them. On the plus side we actually didn’t think many other teams would have fought that hard for the last CP; alas we underestimated our AR colleagues and learned we just maintained our position near 10th spot. Was demoralizing to hear how fast Benoit on o-store.ca did the trek in, less than half our time although we did sleep. 

When we got to the TA we learned the paddle was cancelled. Even though it seemed to be our strongest discipline I was happy to hear we’d be biking to the next CP. My chafed butt wasn’t enjoying though. Perhaps I should mtn bike a few times before doing an expedition race to get my ‘body’ adapted... Regardless it was much quicker and we arrived at the urban o-section in Greenville quickly. We did a run/walk for most of the section and were able to order a delicious meat-lovers pizza just before the shop closed. We washed it down with coke and ice-cream sandwiches are were off again to start the ascent up Moose Mountain range. We took a 5 minute nap on good trail then found a nice buggy marsh to do another 20-min nap; not very well executed. The climb up went well for us and eventually we made it down the other side to the ski area where the long descent was painful on our sore feet. 

At the ski lodge TA we plotted a few more CPs. I knew one these would not be as easy as it seemed because the last Untamed we did in 2010 Grant threw a knuckleball in for the last bike where the trails weren’t on the map or were not matching. After our best nap of the race - 20 mins on the side of the road in the glorious hot sun - we got the first CP on Indian Pond with ease so I figured the next one would be the tricky one, which it was. However, we played it relatively safe and didn’t try to force any routes, stuck to our bearings and make sure I knew exactly where we were on the map. It proved successful as we nailed the CP with relative ease and finally picked up our bike speed pacelining to the rafting put-in. 

 

The rafting was fun, a lot of big water and eventually some lesser class rapids which we guided on our own. At The Forks we transitioned to the final trek/packraft section. Like many others have reported, this section was a slog; the bugs were bad and the little trek just seemed to go on and on. Eventually we made it to the area where the CP was, descended down to the river and inflated our packrafts. Earlier we made the decision John and I would packraft on our own because fitting the both of us in the Alpacka just didn’t work well so John braved his $80 Canadian Tire Sevylor while I took the pimped Alpacka. Nat and James stayed in their NRS. We pushed off and were thrown into the rapids immediately. It was a white knuckle ride and we were trying to navigate while staying afloat. John was a rockstar in the Sevylor where he had to pull over after each rapid and dump his boat but was having a lot of fun. Meanwhile on the river it was carnage with hypothermic teams littered along the shoreline. We pulled over with MadAthlete to help ActiveSteve get warm at one point but had to leave (him with his able team) as fear of our teammates getting hypothermic was also a concern. As for the checkpoints - for some reason the CPs were hidden in the forest; personally not sure why as this was a packraft section and along the water would have been more appropriate. Each CP took several times getting out checking, etc as there wasn’t any distinguishable features to go off on the map. 
There was a portage featured along the map which we planned to take but no sign and apparently we went down the rapids of concern. No safety guides along the river either pointing out appropriate lines or helping stranded packrafters. Maybe I’m not as comfortable in whitewater as many but it just didn’t seem very safe and I was very happy to get out luckily just before sunset. I couldn’t believe while taking out I saw teams trekking up to the packraft put-in – at night!!?!? We took out a few kms from the take-out as we hoped to get warm running it in to the TA, however, I just got eaten alive by bugs by the side of the road while trying to change into warm clothes and fend off yet another bout of shivering and hyperthermia in the race. 

The last TA featured us biking up to a mountain top CP before going to the finish line. I set up a conservative route using a ‘black-line’ which at this point of the race could have been a trail, doubletrack or road; it didn’t seem consistent. But this one had a road name so I thought it was a safe bet for us. It wasn’t too bad although I think it was slower than the obvious recommended route on a brown line but I didn’t want to take any chances. Once at the final CP we descended down the brown trail line directly to the finish line which thankfully went the way marked on the map. We made it after 4 long tough days! 

It was just before midnight, I was praying the kitchen was still open – it was – apparently all night!!! BEST FINISH LINE SPOT EVER. We immediately ordered chili nachos, 4 lbs of wings and burger/fries for everyone while drinking awesome free beer and chatting with our fellow competitors. Eventually our eyes wouldn’t stay open any longer and we crashed to our cabin. 

Final results have us marked as 10th which is fair given the level of competition. We could have done a bit better had we managed the packrafting/big trek a bit better but also could have fared worse had we made any big nav mistakes. The team worked well together although the dynamic and usual strengths of our team changed; racing with a ‘couple’ (Nat and James) and not being as fast on our feet as usual (but being better paddlers was nice). 

Next up is Wilderness Traverse - can’t wait for such a short race!

Harper