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.         

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