For the first time in a couple of years I learnt that there were 3 girls racing solo so we would have a category of our own (I was racing against the guys up to then).
I was excited and nervous at the same time.
The race was a bike start on the road and up to Mont Ste Marie to ride pretty much all the single tracks there.
The rain started as we lined up at the start line. My stress level increased a little knowing that we were going on single tracks with roots and wooden platform that would become very slippery quickly.
I felt good and stayed with the front pack leading to the trails. I decided to climb up to the advanced CP first and make my way back from there. On the way down I missed a turn which forced me to go and do an extra loop. I wasn’t super happy with that but pushed to the TA to the trek where I arrived after 3h of biking (and pushing the bike up that monstrous gravely and sandy road).
When I got to transition I noticed that another solo girl was there. I had kept her behind me on the bike and blamed the fact she passed me on my extra loop. I did a pretty quick transition and left with her to the first CP. After that I decided to take a different route so we wouldn’t be racing together and maybe I would make some time. Orienteering when it’s pure bushwacking is not my strength. After a few CPs I lost my passport so I waited at a CP to see someone and punched my map. My moral went down a lot at that point. Nicky (firend and other solo female) showed up at that CP and we went to the next one together. After that CP she decided to go and do some of the CPs I had done before whilst I had to go and pick up two advanced CPs a bit further away.
I left transition a little too quickly and forgot my map case on my bike. By the time I reached the advanced CP my map was crumbling apart and I couldn’t see much. The transition dot had disappeared and I couldn’t tell the numbers of a few CPs. At that time I was racing along with a coed team and decided to stock with them since I didn’t know how to get back.
When we finally reached the TA the volunteers told me the other girl had left an hour prior. The cut off to do an advanced bike was supposed to be at 2:30pm but they decided to extend it so she was able to go, even if she got there at 2:35pm.. I wasn’t happy but I learnt that she didn’t do all the advanced CPs on foot so maybe I had a chance to catch up. The way It worked is that each CP regular and advanced worth 25 points so if she didn’t get the two CPs on foot but got the two CPs advanced on bike I could still maybe catch up on the paddle and still finish ahead. So without hesitation I took my bike and went away.
That’s when it got better…I left so quickly that I didn’t put my map in my map board on the bike but on top. Going down the massive hill pushing the bike I didn’t realised but I lost my map. Once at the bottom I tried to look where to go and Oh surprise..no more map. So once again I tagged along with some guys until the paddling section where a volunteer gave me his map so I could navigate on the water.
I am ready to go in the boat and I am decided to have a good paddle to compensate all those mistakes.
Where is my boat??? I am looking around, my boat isn’t there! Then I realise that James’s boat was there. James being shorter than me I had to do the paddle section with my knees in my face (didn’t have a screw driver to move the pedals) not very stable with power boats round.
I met James on the water and wasn’t happy…he didn’t realised until I told him what happened even if our boats are two distinctive colors (he did apologize and cleaned my bike at the ned of the race so we are all good :D).
I saw the other girl just a little after seeing James and I knew it would be hard to catch up. She was maybe 10min ahead. At the end of the paddle I jumped on the bike and tried to hammer it to the finish but didn’t catch her. I passed the line not super happy with how my race went and the many mistakes I had done during the day slowing me down so much. To my surprise I finished first solo female. What I didn’t know is that she had missed another CP on the first bike. I had then 25 more points woot woot.
Pretty happy with the result at the end of the day despite all the mistakes I made. I t was a tough course with lots of up and downs…literally…Can’t wait to see the overall results. Thank you Raid Pulse for once again a great and well organised event.
I will be back in August, a little less distracted this time.
Thanks to Nuun and Pacific Health Labs products for keeping us fueled and hydrated throughout the day. I also tested out my new Osprey pack REV6 and I loved it to bits. Perfect AR pack for short races (4-12h).
Nat
Sunday, 17 May 2015
Saturday, 2 May 2015
James takes on the North Face Endurance Challenge - Bear Mountain 50km again
On May 2nd, James returned to the North Face
Endurance Challenge at Bear Mountain, New York to run the 50km race for a
second year in a row. After a strong 3rd place overall finish last
year, his expectations were not quite as high, owing to being a little less
well trained compared to last year. However, anything can happen in a race like
this and no matter what they are always a great challenge and a lot of fun. As
with the previous year, the race was extremely well organized and it was an
easy time getting to the start line with plenty of time to get warmed up and
ready to go. The race conditions were favorable, with a cool morning leading
into a fairly hot afternoon for early May. Also the trails were much drier than
last year.
The race started out fast as usual and people settled quite
quickly into their rhythms and positions in the race. Not many people sped up
or slowed down much in the front end of the pack leading up to the first feed
station. From there onward, there was a
little bit of back and forth between James and his competitors as the kilometers
passed by. James struggled a bit through the middle portion of the race but
managed to get his legs back for the last 3rd of the race. As he
approached the final feed station he could hear the volunteers yelling “only
2.8 to go!” So he opted to blow through the feed zone and hammer out the last
2.8km of the race… only to figure out a short while later that the volunteers
meant that there were 2.8 MILES left. So James’ sprint to the finish was a very
long one! The hills kept on coming and James kept on thinking “this HAS to be
the last one!” The good news is that he passed a couple people in those last
2.8 miles to finish in 7th place overall with a time of 4:45. A
tough and technical race, but very happy with the result. Thanks to Nuun Hydration for getting me through this one!
Saturday, 28 February 2015
Nat at the Pentathlon des neiges 2015
After last year's pentathlon I was more than nervous to go back to do this race.
I think it's important to state that for a start I only started skiing and skating a couple of years ago and quite frankly I am not a massive fan of training in big big cold like we had for the last two years.
James had bought for me some heated soles so that made training outside more bareable.
However for the race I didn't take it because they didn't expect temperature too cold and also because it's pretty long to put on and off and with transition every 30 to 45 min I shouldn't spend too much time with that.
That was my first mistake. I decided to go with my MTB shoes and only a goretex liner inside. I tested it quickly and it seemed fine. After 37min of racing on the bike i was pretty satisfied with my bike leg but disappointed i didn't take my clyclocross and went for the MTB. The previous year there was a part of the course that was in snow hence i decided to go with the stability but this year it was all clear :( !!! Anyway by the end of the bike I realised my toes were frozen.
In TA I struggle to put my shoes on and after a couple of steps I realise that something is wrong....so wrong!
I couldn't run properly my toes were too painful. I stopped 3-4 times during my first lap and tried to take off my shoes twice to warm my toes up. I can't describe this pain but it's not the kind i can take for long.
The medics came to see me a few times asking if I wanted to quit but I didn't want to.
The run was supposed to be my strength for this rae and i was wasting time...so much time. I was upset but continued on and eventually during the second lap my toes were warm, painful, but warm.
The medics ran to me in TA and patched my feet if toe warmers before I put on my ski boots and off i went. I knew the ski would be long for me (not a good skier) but what i wasn't expecting was to be stiff and sore from an alpine touring i did 2 days prior the race :/
I skied slowly but surely and went on the skate, my second weakness. I am pretty happy to say I shaved off 9 min from my time from last year on skates from 37 to 28min for 7.4km. Ok the first girl did it in 18min but hey i wasn't born with skates on my feet :)
By the time i got on snowshoes a lot of people had finished. I was cramping and dehydrated even if i spent my day drinking hot gatorade from the aid station and I must say it made me a little sick. I went through the 3 laps of snowshoe running and was happy to cross the finish line in 3h10.
I am not sure I will do it again however it is super well organised and it's a great event. I want to thanks a lot the volunteers and medics who supported me during the entire race :)
Nathalie
I think it's important to state that for a start I only started skiing and skating a couple of years ago and quite frankly I am not a massive fan of training in big big cold like we had for the last two years.
James had bought for me some heated soles so that made training outside more bareable.
However for the race I didn't take it because they didn't expect temperature too cold and also because it's pretty long to put on and off and with transition every 30 to 45 min I shouldn't spend too much time with that.
That was my first mistake. I decided to go with my MTB shoes and only a goretex liner inside. I tested it quickly and it seemed fine. After 37min of racing on the bike i was pretty satisfied with my bike leg but disappointed i didn't take my clyclocross and went for the MTB. The previous year there was a part of the course that was in snow hence i decided to go with the stability but this year it was all clear :( !!! Anyway by the end of the bike I realised my toes were frozen.
In TA I struggle to put my shoes on and after a couple of steps I realise that something is wrong....so wrong!
I couldn't run properly my toes were too painful. I stopped 3-4 times during my first lap and tried to take off my shoes twice to warm my toes up. I can't describe this pain but it's not the kind i can take for long.
The medics came to see me a few times asking if I wanted to quit but I didn't want to.
The run was supposed to be my strength for this rae and i was wasting time...so much time. I was upset but continued on and eventually during the second lap my toes were warm, painful, but warm.
The medics ran to me in TA and patched my feet if toe warmers before I put on my ski boots and off i went. I knew the ski would be long for me (not a good skier) but what i wasn't expecting was to be stiff and sore from an alpine touring i did 2 days prior the race :/
I skied slowly but surely and went on the skate, my second weakness. I am pretty happy to say I shaved off 9 min from my time from last year on skates from 37 to 28min for 7.4km. Ok the first girl did it in 18min but hey i wasn't born with skates on my feet :)
By the time i got on snowshoes a lot of people had finished. I was cramping and dehydrated even if i spent my day drinking hot gatorade from the aid station and I must say it made me a little sick. I went through the 3 laps of snowshoe running and was happy to cross the finish line in 3h10.
I am not sure I will do it again however it is super well organised and it's a great event. I want to thanks a lot the volunteers and medics who supported me during the entire race :)
Nathalie
Saturday, 21 February 2015
Mad Trapper race 2014 20km Snowshoe Race
I decided a bit at the last minute to register to what would be my first Mad Trapper race.
I took our puppy with me, I had asked prior to the event and since there wasn't many people running the 20km and that she is very good in the trails off leash, Mike, the race director,said yes.
There was a 10km starting at 10am and a 5km starting at the same time. Us doing the 20km the start was at 8am.
The course consisted on two wicked loops of approximately 10km.
A few "stompers" had gone through but all the fresh snow that had fallen the night before made the first loop pretty hard.
I decided from the start that I wouldn't be pushing hard on the first loop since people had warned me it was a very tough course.
One girl went ahead of me at the start but I passed her in the first hill. Towards the end of loop1 I passed one of the guy too.
With the fresh snow the first loop took me 1h40 to go around :/
At the end of the first loop I stopped for about 5min to try to find some water for the puppy and gave her a bit of food too. She followed me on the second loop. The second loop went a lot faster and was much easier now that a dozainr people had gone through.
My aim was to not get passed by a 10km runner since i had left 15min before they started. In the last 100m of the race one 10km runner passed me...dammit!!! However I managed to pass another guy in the middle of the second loop. I guess the two bites brownies I had in between both loops gave me a boost of energy :)
I finished the race in 3h10min47s in first place female and 4th overall. Puppy was awesome. She will be a great running partner this summer :)
Nathalie
I took our puppy with me, I had asked prior to the event and since there wasn't many people running the 20km and that she is very good in the trails off leash, Mike, the race director,said yes.
There was a 10km starting at 10am and a 5km starting at the same time. Us doing the 20km the start was at 8am.
The course consisted on two wicked loops of approximately 10km.
A few "stompers" had gone through but all the fresh snow that had fallen the night before made the first loop pretty hard.
I decided from the start that I wouldn't be pushing hard on the first loop since people had warned me it was a very tough course.
One girl went ahead of me at the start but I passed her in the first hill. Towards the end of loop1 I passed one of the guy too.
With the fresh snow the first loop took me 1h40 to go around :/
At the end of the first loop I stopped for about 5min to try to find some water for the puppy and gave her a bit of food too. She followed me on the second loop. The second loop went a lot faster and was much easier now that a dozainr people had gone through.
My aim was to not get passed by a 10km runner since i had left 15min before they started. In the last 100m of the race one 10km runner passed me...dammit!!! However I managed to pass another guy in the middle of the second loop. I guess the two bites brownies I had in between both loops gave me a boost of energy :)
I finished the race in 3h10min47s in first place female and 4th overall. Puppy was awesome. She will be a great running partner this summer :)
Nathalie
Sunday, 30 November 2014
Pete's Race Report from the 2014 Adventure Racing World Championships in Ecuador
This is a re-print of a race report posted elsewhere by Pete Cameron in late 2014 detailing our exploits at the 2014 ARWC. Enjoy!
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Ecuador. Rumour has it that Quito is the highest capital in the world. Lee raced there in 2010. Liza and Bob raced there a couple of years ago. The 411? Friendly people, beautiful country, outgoing race organizers…altitude is a bloody killer.
ARWC 2014. An expedition adventure race skirting along the 0° equatorial line, featuring the Andes highlands, Amazon basin, and Pacific coast. 700+km. 7+days. James, Harper, and Nathalie need a teammate and have asked me to join. What am I doing?...Yup, I’m in.
How does one living in Annecy get ready for a race at altitude? How does one fit in the requisite training amongst being a Dad, a husband to a pregnant wife, and a very involved Product Manager at work? This adventure racing addiction of mine is getting harder and harder to manage. Thankfully, I continue to have the fire in my belly to make it happen each year…and a supportive wife who is just as addicted as I am.
Knowing that Ecuador isn’t known for its paddling, I gambled and spent the majority of my training time on a road bike, climbing thousands of vertical metres in the French and Italian Alps. Forclaz, Semnoz, Aravis, Colombier, Giau, d’Huez, Galibier…I continually added to my collection of Cols achieved, did a few road cycling races, developed a sixth sense of % grade, and gained a sick enjoyment of cranking out challenging climbs on my small chain ring.
Of course, I hit the trails on foot, too. I came up with all sorts of little tours that showed off a particularly cool part of the landscape near our apartment. I was regularly up at the crack and went out late at night for a trail run after putting Mari to bed. We spent a long weekend in Briançon, a town to our south where it’s relatively easy to get up to 2,700m along jagged yet runnable ridgelines. My climbing legs got stronger and I have grown fond of technical downhills.
We received a Competitor Newsletter and it confirmed that this year’s ARWC would be won and lost on the bike and on foot. Paddling was only 16% so the nighttime solo paddles in Lac Annecy in my 17’ fiberglass tripping boat a couple times a week would likely be sufficient preparation. It also confirmed that we would be above 2,700m for quite a bit of the race. Shit. This is going to get interesting.
* * *
We were into thin air right from the start – a 29k trek within the Antisana Ecological Reserve starting at 3,900m alongside the Antisana volcano (5,758m). Quite honestly, I feared the worst and hoped for the best. Both Nat and I have troubles with asthma and we’d soon be climbing up to a pass that topped out at 4,400m. Given the suffering I had had in Costa Rica last December at altitude, I was humble about my expectations for speed off the start line.
‘Tranquile’, I nattered en francais to Nat about what our pace should be. I was telling it to myself, too. While a few teams blasted away off the start line, most had a conservative tempo. Go too fast and your heart felt like it was going to beat out of your chest. Stop for even just a minute and all was back to normal. We trotted along conservatively, made the pass, and navigated our decent to Laguna Tumiguino at 3,660m.
The going got technical as we continued to descend – we skirted very steep lake shores with minimal bank, ducked through thick foliage, negotiated stream beds, and eventually made our way out onto the volcanic rock we were warned about. While easy to gain purchase on, you really, really don’t want to fall onto this stuff; it was sharp. I don’t know if we took the best route or not but I felt it was easy to stay high and skip along from rock to rock, leading to a road that CP1 was on. Most others dropped down through the thick vegetation, across a flat and then climbed back up. ‘What ev’, we bagged the 1st CP with no botched up navigation…first objective met!
We subsequently trotted 5k along the dirt roads to the TA with a few other teams. Foursome after foursome whizzed by us on their bikes as we neared the transition and we soon learned that we were in 25th place, exactly halfway through the 50-team field…sweet mediocrity.
* * *
Getting onto the first bike section typically takes a little bit of extra time. It’s the first time into your bike box and you haven’t yet established a slick rhythm of assembling your bike. Given the paltry 25kg weight limit on our bike boxes, mine was mostly empty as my bike weighs the most amongst our team – we even had to carry one of my bike shoes on the first trek so as not to exceed the weight limit! I found a way to get my XL-sized 29er into my bike box with only the pedals, seat, and wheels to put on so it made me decently quick in TAs to and from the bike.
This next ride was 67km and would be very much a net downhill; 1,800m to be exact. Most of the ride was on roads but nearing the end, it was hike-a-bike time. While I’m a pussy riding downhills on my road bike, I’m significantly more confident on my MTB. I opened up the speed as we got onto the asphalt and almost immediately met with (idiocy and) disaster. As I was clipping along at 60+kph, I mistook the angle I’d need for the left turn and starting careening for the curb, guard rail, and whatever lay beyond. Feathering the brakes, so as not to get into a skid, and unlocking my left foot from its pedal, I somehow managed to stop the speed wobbles, ground only lightly against the curb with my rear wheel skewer, and escaped with no more than a heavily beating heart. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I looked behind and luckily my teammates hadn’t rounded the corner yet to see my recklessness. That little blunder remained my secret for a few days.
While the scenes were beautiful and easily enjoyed as we cycled along the paved road, there were too many cars for my liking; this was an adventure race after all. Before long, we were alongside a feeder river to the Amazon and hauling our bikes along unridable, mucky trail…that’s more like it! We each fell a lot, took some sticks to sensitive parts, swore, and tried to get this done before darkness fell. In hindsight, this took a bit too long and that was the reason I couldn’t believe how far we’d only traveled in the ~3km hike-a-bike. Onward we went into the next TA in the multi-sport centre at El Chaco, where we were gawked at by myriads of sporty locals.
* * *
We trekked north out of El Chaco on a road that would lead us to the more rugged part of the historic El Chaco – Oyacachi Trail; a route that links the western and eastern sides of the Andes mountains. Apparently, Ecuadorians have used this route for decades. These traders were a lot harder core than us, as we complained for much of the next 44km and 1,500m of ascent. This was hard going. I struggled for a bit with the nav while trying to locate the first bridge across the raging river (although I feel better now that I have seen that Team UK adidas TERREX made a similar bobble as I did). We lost about 15 minutes or so, negotiating the fog, barbed wire fences, and darkness but we poked through the bush eventually, right at the bridge’s beginning. The bridge was in rough shape. How rough exactly? Well, it was a hanging, wooden-planked bridge with not so many planks left. Exposed nails were everywhere and the river raged below. Thankfully, there was a rope system set up for us to be able to clip into as we traversed it. I later heard that a few unlucky racers stepped into the abyss, only to be saved by the rope. Luckily, we got through unscathed.
I really, really wish that we had had more of the next 15km in sunlight. It would have made our first real introduction to Ecuadorian mud trails more palatable. The route itself was actually quite simple – trek west and stay north of the incredibly violent sounding Rio Oyacachi. Moving along the route, however, was anything but that. The trail had a way of braiding from time to time (with the incorrect braids ending abruptly in a mess of jungly muck and thick vegetation), disappearing altogether, getting deeper in mud, and overgrowing with substantial Amazonian foliage. Nat and Harper were getting pretty frustrated in there, we were all stumbling along, and I stressed from time to time with trying to find the best route. Our pace slowed, other teams went by us, but we plodded along and exited a short time after the sun rose on Day 2.
I don’t remember much of the next 14km trek along the dirt road to the TA. I do remember telling my teammates that the road would cross the Rio Oyacachi twice before we reached the TA. Sadly, that didn’t jerk my memory to a note I had seen somewhere in the litany of paper work we were shown or received. We were to “never cross the river” as we traveled west to the TA. Only Teams NZ Seagate, SWEDEN Silva, and POLAND Polska respected this note and avoided a 4-hour penalty. Fair enough, I say. However, I am convinced that this was an oversight on behalf of the race organizers. All previous out-of-bounds sections were carefully marked in with RED Xs on the provided maps; this one was not. This ‘set back’ took us all of about 4 seconds to overcome as it meant nothing to us, we would need the sleep anyway.
* * *
We were back over 3,000m again, the start of a 144km bike leg which would see us climb to ~3,800m. I was still worried about the prospects of altitude sickness even though it hadn’t seemed to affect us so far. So once again, we were in conservative mode as we made the initial 800m ascent. I felt strong and was able to tow Nathalie on the climb. Unfortunately, as we moved forward, we saw Liza and the rest of Team USA Bones coming back toward us. “Jason’s sick…we’re out!”, Liza yelled as they flew by. I had pegged them for another top 10 finish this year but as with most adventure races, anything can happen to any team.
When Harper and I put the maps together, I took forever plotting a route through what was a maze of roads, trails, and whatever else looked rideable on the topo maps for this long ride. What made it more complex was the colour scheme of the maps themselves – there just wasn’t that much difference between contour lines, roads, and other political boundaries. It’s no wonder that after analyzing our route versus other teams’ on the race website, the whole GPS tracking page looks like some of my daughter’s early artwork. It must have been comical to watch online; kind of like Monty Python’s 100m dash for the directionally challenged.
Our journey was only 25km old when darkness began to fall. Surrounded by a couple of other teams in the twilight as we all tried to make sense of the maps versus what we were seeing, I tried to soak as much of the landscape in as I could. In the end, I had us turn tail and take a different route than originally planned. I didn’t relish riding on a broken trail in the pitch black and opted for roads instead. A good decision in hindsight but even these roads weren’t easy going. Ecuador has a lot of mud. So, instead of building dirt roads, they often fill these in with 5-pin bowling-ball-sized rocks. It must have been back breaking work. Riding on these roads made me appreciate my full-suspension bike.
Thankfully, my eyesight is pretty good so when I squinted to follow our progress through village after village and left turn after right on bumpy roads, we didn’t have to stop too much. Before long, we were atop the last high point of the ride and had to make a fast descent to what was indicated as a railroad. It was a navigationally tricky section as one wrong turn at speed and you’d face the wrath of teammates who were forced to climb back up to a correct turn. We got down OK and into the village I wanted. I took a gamble on a small trail that was going in the correct direction and it turned out to be the right one; the abandoned rail line should be 2km away. It was time to sleep. It was also time for the dogs to bark non-stop as we tried to rest on someone’s porch at 2h00. They didn’t stop for the whole hour and decided to silence themselves as we got up to move onward. WTF?
None of us knew exactly what to expect from the rail line and it took a bit to find. It was to be a 10km section where we simply had to nail the exit point. Lose track of your progress through the twists and turns and you’d never really know where to get off to get to the next CP. Needless to say, I was a little nervous. We made it about 100m on the rail line before it ended. Confused, we looked around and slowly realized that what we were on wasn’t the rail line, the concrete bed 3m below us was; with full on tunnels to go through. Unfortunately, drainage of the concreted bed was non-existent and it was a constant puddle of up to 50cm of water. This wasn’t going to be the quick and smooth ride I had hoped for. It never is in adventure racing somehow. Some tunnels were under construction (gawd knows why) and a latticework of wooden beams had to be climbed through with bikes in tow…in the dark, of course. Harper and I got wise about 2km down the track when we could climb back up and out of the concrete bed…there had to be an access road beside this thing like there was at the beginning. And as luck would have it, there was. We later nailed the rail line exit to the CP and started the next maze.
On the night before the race, I spent the better part of 45 minutes using Google Earth to figure out our nav plan for the next 5-10km. Where has the purity gone?!? Don’t judge me, everyone does it now. Anyway, we had to get off of an elevated head of land and descend to the west. I couldn’t find an easy way down. I zoomed in really closely and saw two different switchbacks. Sweet. I plotted a route on the maps through the labyrinth of roads and looked forward to making it happen during the race. Well, now it was the race, and while I made all of the correct turns, it wasn’t happening. We hit a dead end where I wanted to turn north. There was less than 200m of fenced-in private plantation property between us and the switchback I wanted. Sh!t. We did find a VERY rugged-looking trailhead but after speaking to some locals (at 4h00!), they were clear in that we really shouldn’t try to descend there. We talked to a few more folks (I say ‘we’ but what I really mean is ‘James and Nat used their impressively sufficient Spanish skills’) and ended up on a single-track down the elevation and to the west. Like the post-race analysis addict I am, I dug into other teams’ routes on that section. It looks like the top few teams DID take the crazy steep single-track at the dead end that we reached while a whack of others did as we did, or worse, biking left and right in search of the way off the plateau.
The last 70km of the ride was a roller coaster of ups and downs. We were steady, didn’t make any wrong turns, ate, drank, and rolled into the TA in around 21st place with a comfortable amount of time before the cut-off of having to leave onto the next trek. Comfort turned into a bit of extra drama when organizers extended the cut-off and teams arrived, gasping for air from riding so hard to beat it, only to find out that they could still continue on the full course. I took the time to fix my feet as blood blisters had formed underneath a few of my toenails and needed the requisite relief only a lighter and sharp needle can provide. Nat, however, was in a more serious situation. She had fallen off her bike earlier and according to the medics, had dislocated a bone in her wrist / hand. They could put it back into place. I’m sure it bloody well hurt but Nat wasn’t about to have that stand in her way. She took the painkillers, had the medics do their thing, and that was that. At least we wouldn’t have to ride again for a while. It was time for another rest and after scoffing back some local fare from an entrepreneurial local, we attempted to sleep for a couple more hours, now well into Day 3.
* * *
We had escaped the wrath of altitude sickness. We had avoided any cataclysmic navigation issues. No race-ending mechanicals on the bike had stopped our progress. No one was sick. We were in a good place given our goal of finishing the entire racecourse and ranking in the top 20. And then came hypothermia.
I’ve since seen pictures of the next 45km trek, featuring an 1,800m climb to a CP, high above the TA amongst beautiful ridgelines and steep canyons. During the race, I saw nothing. Night had fallen, there’s no light pollution in the Ecuadorian backcountry, and the fog is bloody thick. We got onto the correct ridgeline climb no worries but when the trail disappeared from time to time, it became really difficult to get onto it again. There were barbed wire fences everywhere and even with modern, high-powered lighting, we could only see 10-25m ahead of us at times. It was slow going after doing so well to get up to 3,000m again. A road lay somewhere down below us but even though it eventually went where we wanted to get to, it went far out of the way and would be a lot of extra distance on our sore feet. Backtracking a little, we gained the rhythm of the trail and fence line – they crossed each other again and again and ducked into and out of thick vegetation. An even higher ridgeline began to appear through the fog (when I asked that all turn off our headlamps to see ‘better’ by the moonlight!?!) that would get us to the attack point for the next CP. And then the sh!t hit the fan.
The maps were a little tough to follow at times with entire villages being omitted. James and Nat’s Spanish helped us out again and again, however, and we avoided any nav bobbles. We hit the ropes section for a bit of contrived challenge – a tyrolean traverse and high-wire crossing over a raging river. Nat’s a bit timid when it comes to heights but she did just fine. Two teams had arrived when we were back to our bikes which I think was a good thing, as it put a bit of fire into us for the remaining 28km along bumpy and rutted out gravel roads. We had a bit of a scare when Harper got a flat. His spare tube had a hole in it and the patch kit just wouldn’t fix the problem. As a last resort, we jammed a 29er tube in there and it worked perfectly for the rest of the race.
Darkness fell once again and Nat seemed to speed up. She admits to being a bit hesitant on technical sections while riding. However, with no sunlight to see how technical this road really was, she attacked it and we rode alongside each other for much of the rest of the ride. Passing by a very injured Team ITALY Freemind, we were reminded of how tenuous a hold on finishing the whole racecourse can be. Their female teammate had a horrible infection in her hand, couldn’t ride, and so two of her teammates worked together to push her on her bike on either side of her so she didn’t have to walk.
* * *
I don’t profess to be a talented white-water paddler. Angus Doughty often joked about me needing to work on some ‘basic skills’ before attacking rapid sections in races. Harper is about as talented and cautious in white water as I am but James and Nat, however, enjoy the rapids and I think looked forward to this 60km paddle on the Rio Grande. While it started out decently tame, with a few class I sections, it got increasingly angry as more and more water joined the fun from the river’s tributaries. Class II and even a couple of class III were marked on the map. A guide warned us beforehand that we’d be swimming for sure. I figured as much when I laid my eyes on the sit-on-top kiddy-esque boats we’d be paddling. I’m too heavy for that sh!t.
Harper and I were doomed from the start. I took the first rapid like Angus would – cautiously and controlled. Harper didn’t like my rear-angled entry into the rapid and I didn’t like his failure to actually put his paddle in the water. Some heated exchanges were had but we didn’t dunk…yet.
We got smart when we hit the first class III. We lined the boats down. Not one team had gotten down without a yard sale or a broken paddle so we elected to be conservative. On the down side, Harper and I got dummied shortly thereafter on some of the next sections. We both bailed on one rapid, he got back in pretty quickly, but I was left hanging on to the boat with my left hand and my right hand on my paddle. ‘Luckily’ for me, the rocks that smashed into my legs over and over again as I cascaded down the set were remarkably smooth, leaving no bruises. Lovely.
Then we lost our confidence. After swimming for the third time, we were ready for a partner change. I don’t think either James or Nat had fallen out yet but now they were with the dead weights. James and Harps subsequently swam two or three times while Nat and I dunked twice. I’ll mostly blame my predicament on a lack on syntheses between my 90kg frame and that child’s toy of a boat. It was time to get off that %^&’n river...and to sign me up for some proper white water skills courses. On the bright side, we had broken no paddles during the onslaught.
* * *
Heading off on the last 42km bike section of the race, I was hungry to get to the BIG trek. There was a decent amount of light left on Day 5 and despite having most of my bones scraped along a myriad of underwater rocks during the last paddle and surviving what ever the heck we just ate from the locals in the previous TA, I felt OK. There was a 400m climb near the end of this section but there was almost no navigation and everything looked to be on hard-packed roads. I set an uptempo pace for the team, as I wanted to get this done. “Pete, dial it back a bit. I don’t feel so hot”, Harper called to me.
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ARWC 2014. An expedition adventure race skirting along the 0° equatorial line, featuring the Andes highlands, Amazon basin, and Pacific coast. 700+km. 7+days. James, Harper, and Nathalie need a teammate and have asked me to join. What am I doing?...Yup, I’m in.
How does one living in Annecy get ready for a race at altitude? How does one fit in the requisite training amongst being a Dad, a husband to a pregnant wife, and a very involved Product Manager at work? This adventure racing addiction of mine is getting harder and harder to manage. Thankfully, I continue to have the fire in my belly to make it happen each year…and a supportive wife who is just as addicted as I am.
Knowing that Ecuador isn’t known for its paddling, I gambled and spent the majority of my training time on a road bike, climbing thousands of vertical metres in the French and Italian Alps. Forclaz, Semnoz, Aravis, Colombier, Giau, d’Huez, Galibier…I continually added to my collection of Cols achieved, did a few road cycling races, developed a sixth sense of % grade, and gained a sick enjoyment of cranking out challenging climbs on my small chain ring.
Of course, I hit the trails on foot, too. I came up with all sorts of little tours that showed off a particularly cool part of the landscape near our apartment. I was regularly up at the crack and went out late at night for a trail run after putting Mari to bed. We spent a long weekend in Briançon, a town to our south where it’s relatively easy to get up to 2,700m along jagged yet runnable ridgelines. My climbing legs got stronger and I have grown fond of technical downhills.
We received a Competitor Newsletter and it confirmed that this year’s ARWC would be won and lost on the bike and on foot. Paddling was only 16% so the nighttime solo paddles in Lac Annecy in my 17’ fiberglass tripping boat a couple times a week would likely be sufficient preparation. It also confirmed that we would be above 2,700m for quite a bit of the race. Shit. This is going to get interesting.
* * *
‘Tranquile’, I nattered en francais to Nat about what our pace should be. I was telling it to myself, too. While a few teams blasted away off the start line, most had a conservative tempo. Go too fast and your heart felt like it was going to beat out of your chest. Stop for even just a minute and all was back to normal. We trotted along conservatively, made the pass, and navigated our decent to Laguna Tumiguino at 3,660m.
There was a definite congo line of sorts using various trails and given that we could see for kms in every direction, navigation was decently straight forward. The tricky bits had to do with the fact that the contour interval was 40m. A lot can happen in 40m of vertical distance – entire hills, valleys, and spurs simply didn’t make it onto the map as they weren’t ‘significant’ enough. I’ve gotten used to this over the years but it doesn’t make it any less problematic from time to time. The other tricky bit was that lakes and ponds weren’t filled in blue on the map; there was just a blue outline.
The going got technical as we continued to descend – we skirted very steep lake shores with minimal bank, ducked through thick foliage, negotiated stream beds, and eventually made our way out onto the volcanic rock we were warned about. While easy to gain purchase on, you really, really don’t want to fall onto this stuff; it was sharp. I don’t know if we took the best route or not but I felt it was easy to stay high and skip along from rock to rock, leading to a road that CP1 was on. Most others dropped down through the thick vegetation, across a flat and then climbed back up. ‘What ev’, we bagged the 1st CP with no botched up navigation…first objective met!
We subsequently trotted 5k along the dirt roads to the TA with a few other teams. Foursome after foursome whizzed by us on their bikes as we neared the transition and we soon learned that we were in 25th place, exactly halfway through the 50-team field…sweet mediocrity.
* * *
Getting onto the first bike section typically takes a little bit of extra time. It’s the first time into your bike box and you haven’t yet established a slick rhythm of assembling your bike. Given the paltry 25kg weight limit on our bike boxes, mine was mostly empty as my bike weighs the most amongst our team – we even had to carry one of my bike shoes on the first trek so as not to exceed the weight limit! I found a way to get my XL-sized 29er into my bike box with only the pedals, seat, and wheels to put on so it made me decently quick in TAs to and from the bike.
While the scenes were beautiful and easily enjoyed as we cycled along the paved road, there were too many cars for my liking; this was an adventure race after all. Before long, we were alongside a feeder river to the Amazon and hauling our bikes along unridable, mucky trail…that’s more like it! We each fell a lot, took some sticks to sensitive parts, swore, and tried to get this done before darkness fell. In hindsight, this took a bit too long and that was the reason I couldn’t believe how far we’d only traveled in the ~3km hike-a-bike. Onward we went into the next TA in the multi-sport centre at El Chaco, where we were gawked at by myriads of sporty locals.
* * *
We trekked north out of El Chaco on a road that would lead us to the more rugged part of the historic El Chaco – Oyacachi Trail; a route that links the western and eastern sides of the Andes mountains. Apparently, Ecuadorians have used this route for decades. These traders were a lot harder core than us, as we complained for much of the next 44km and 1,500m of ascent. This was hard going. I struggled for a bit with the nav while trying to locate the first bridge across the raging river (although I feel better now that I have seen that Team UK adidas TERREX made a similar bobble as I did). We lost about 15 minutes or so, negotiating the fog, barbed wire fences, and darkness but we poked through the bush eventually, right at the bridge’s beginning. The bridge was in rough shape. How rough exactly? Well, it was a hanging, wooden-planked bridge with not so many planks left. Exposed nails were everywhere and the river raged below. Thankfully, there was a rope system set up for us to be able to clip into as we traversed it. I later heard that a few unlucky racers stepped into the abyss, only to be saved by the rope. Luckily, we got through unscathed.
I really, really wish that we had had more of the next 15km in sunlight. It would have made our first real introduction to Ecuadorian mud trails more palatable. The route itself was actually quite simple – trek west and stay north of the incredibly violent sounding Rio Oyacachi. Moving along the route, however, was anything but that. The trail had a way of braiding from time to time (with the incorrect braids ending abruptly in a mess of jungly muck and thick vegetation), disappearing altogether, getting deeper in mud, and overgrowing with substantial Amazonian foliage. Nat and Harper were getting pretty frustrated in there, we were all stumbling along, and I stressed from time to time with trying to find the best route. Our pace slowed, other teams went by us, but we plodded along and exited a short time after the sun rose on Day 2. I don’t remember much of the next 14km trek along the dirt road to the TA. I do remember telling my teammates that the road would cross the Rio Oyacachi twice before we reached the TA. Sadly, that didn’t jerk my memory to a note I had seen somewhere in the litany of paper work we were shown or received. We were to “never cross the river” as we traveled west to the TA. Only Teams NZ Seagate, SWEDEN Silva, and POLAND Polska respected this note and avoided a 4-hour penalty. Fair enough, I say. However, I am convinced that this was an oversight on behalf of the race organizers. All previous out-of-bounds sections were carefully marked in with RED Xs on the provided maps; this one was not. This ‘set back’ took us all of about 4 seconds to overcome as it meant nothing to us, we would need the sleep anyway.
* * *
We were back over 3,000m again, the start of a 144km bike leg which would see us climb to ~3,800m. I was still worried about the prospects of altitude sickness even though it hadn’t seemed to affect us so far. So once again, we were in conservative mode as we made the initial 800m ascent. I felt strong and was able to tow Nathalie on the climb. Unfortunately, as we moved forward, we saw Liza and the rest of Team USA Bones coming back toward us. “Jason’s sick…we’re out!”, Liza yelled as they flew by. I had pegged them for another top 10 finish this year but as with most adventure races, anything can happen to any team.
Our journey was only 25km old when darkness began to fall. Surrounded by a couple of other teams in the twilight as we all tried to make sense of the maps versus what we were seeing, I tried to soak as much of the landscape in as I could. In the end, I had us turn tail and take a different route than originally planned. I didn’t relish riding on a broken trail in the pitch black and opted for roads instead. A good decision in hindsight but even these roads weren’t easy going. Ecuador has a lot of mud. So, instead of building dirt roads, they often fill these in with 5-pin bowling-ball-sized rocks. It must have been back breaking work. Riding on these roads made me appreciate my full-suspension bike.
Thankfully, my eyesight is pretty good so when I squinted to follow our progress through village after village and left turn after right on bumpy roads, we didn’t have to stop too much. Before long, we were atop the last high point of the ride and had to make a fast descent to what was indicated as a railroad. It was a navigationally tricky section as one wrong turn at speed and you’d face the wrath of teammates who were forced to climb back up to a correct turn. We got down OK and into the village I wanted. I took a gamble on a small trail that was going in the correct direction and it turned out to be the right one; the abandoned rail line should be 2km away. It was time to sleep. It was also time for the dogs to bark non-stop as we tried to rest on someone’s porch at 2h00. They didn’t stop for the whole hour and decided to silence themselves as we got up to move onward. WTF?
None of us knew exactly what to expect from the rail line and it took a bit to find. It was to be a 10km section where we simply had to nail the exit point. Lose track of your progress through the twists and turns and you’d never really know where to get off to get to the next CP. Needless to say, I was a little nervous. We made it about 100m on the rail line before it ended. Confused, we looked around and slowly realized that what we were on wasn’t the rail line, the concrete bed 3m below us was; with full on tunnels to go through. Unfortunately, drainage of the concreted bed was non-existent and it was a constant puddle of up to 50cm of water. This wasn’t going to be the quick and smooth ride I had hoped for. It never is in adventure racing somehow. Some tunnels were under construction (gawd knows why) and a latticework of wooden beams had to be climbed through with bikes in tow…in the dark, of course. Harper and I got wise about 2km down the track when we could climb back up and out of the concrete bed…there had to be an access road beside this thing like there was at the beginning. And as luck would have it, there was. We later nailed the rail line exit to the CP and started the next maze.
On the night before the race, I spent the better part of 45 minutes using Google Earth to figure out our nav plan for the next 5-10km. Where has the purity gone?!? Don’t judge me, everyone does it now. Anyway, we had to get off of an elevated head of land and descend to the west. I couldn’t find an easy way down. I zoomed in really closely and saw two different switchbacks. Sweet. I plotted a route on the maps through the labyrinth of roads and looked forward to making it happen during the race. Well, now it was the race, and while I made all of the correct turns, it wasn’t happening. We hit a dead end where I wanted to turn north. There was less than 200m of fenced-in private plantation property between us and the switchback I wanted. Sh!t. We did find a VERY rugged-looking trailhead but after speaking to some locals (at 4h00!), they were clear in that we really shouldn’t try to descend there. We talked to a few more folks (I say ‘we’ but what I really mean is ‘James and Nat used their impressively sufficient Spanish skills’) and ended up on a single-track down the elevation and to the west. Like the post-race analysis addict I am, I dug into other teams’ routes on that section. It looks like the top few teams DID take the crazy steep single-track at the dead end that we reached while a whack of others did as we did, or worse, biking left and right in search of the way off the plateau.
The last 70km of the ride was a roller coaster of ups and downs. We were steady, didn’t make any wrong turns, ate, drank, and rolled into the TA in around 21st place with a comfortable amount of time before the cut-off of having to leave onto the next trek. Comfort turned into a bit of extra drama when organizers extended the cut-off and teams arrived, gasping for air from riding so hard to beat it, only to find out that they could still continue on the full course. I took the time to fix my feet as blood blisters had formed underneath a few of my toenails and needed the requisite relief only a lighter and sharp needle can provide. Nat, however, was in a more serious situation. She had fallen off her bike earlier and according to the medics, had dislocated a bone in her wrist / hand. They could put it back into place. I’m sure it bloody well hurt but Nat wasn’t about to have that stand in her way. She took the painkillers, had the medics do their thing, and that was that. At least we wouldn’t have to ride again for a while. It was time for another rest and after scoffing back some local fare from an entrepreneurial local, we attempted to sleep for a couple more hours, now well into Day 3.
* * *
We had escaped the wrath of altitude sickness. We had avoided any cataclysmic navigation issues. No race-ending mechanicals on the bike had stopped our progress. No one was sick. We were in a good place given our goal of finishing the entire racecourse and ranking in the top 20. And then came hypothermia.
I’ve since seen pictures of the next 45km trek, featuring an 1,800m climb to a CP, high above the TA amongst beautiful ridgelines and steep canyons. During the race, I saw nothing. Night had fallen, there’s no light pollution in the Ecuadorian backcountry, and the fog is bloody thick. We got onto the correct ridgeline climb no worries but when the trail disappeared from time to time, it became really difficult to get onto it again. There were barbed wire fences everywhere and even with modern, high-powered lighting, we could only see 10-25m ahead of us at times. It was slow going after doing so well to get up to 3,000m again. A road lay somewhere down below us but even though it eventually went where we wanted to get to, it went far out of the way and would be a lot of extra distance on our sore feet. Backtracking a little, we gained the rhythm of the trail and fence line – they crossed each other again and again and ducked into and out of thick vegetation. An even higher ridgeline began to appear through the fog (when I asked that all turn off our headlamps to see ‘better’ by the moonlight!?!) that would get us to the attack point for the next CP. And then the sh!t hit the fan.
Now soaking wet from all of the fog and tall grasses, we gained the high ridgeline and started over the other side…but, too early by about 400m! Only one loop around the track. It can make the difference between success and failure at times, even in races of this length and duration. Damn. Hindsight truly is 20/20. The little out and back on the online tracking seems so innocuous but in reality it was anything but. It was increasingly steep and very thick with seemingly impenetrable vegetation. James cut us a path. He grunted, ripped away the bush, snapped branches, and on we plodded. I didn’t like it. It didn’t feel right. I’ve learned to listen to those navigational ‘spidey senses’. “Guys, I’m sorry but we’ve got to turn around and go back up”. A call from James below, “Pete, get down here, we’ve got a problem”.
Harper and Nat were freezing and shaking more than normal. Again, James buried his head and cut us a route back up. It was tough work. “Pete, I’ll get them warm…you get up there and figure us a route out of this place”. I still couldn’t see anything but the objective was clear – get to somewhere less exposed and get these guys warm. This is race-ending type of stuff. Some sort of karma reward kicked in shortly thereafter and the sun began to rise. I realized my 400m error and bushed it back to my teammates. Harper and Nat seemed much calmer about the situation than James or I did. The tent was out, sleeping bags were on, and everyone’s clothes were dedicated to our two, near-hypothermic teammates.
We dodged a bullet overnight on that ridge. Now that the sun was up, everything seemed better. Getting on track was easy and we were on our way forward. Amazingly, Harps and Nat were back to normal very quickly. Heading for the next CP, we learned that this area played havoc with a collection of other teams, too. The built infrastructure was quite different than the maps indicated and even the next CP seemed in the wrong location. Teams had lost a lot of time in here. Without our hypothermic ‘break’, we too may have succumbed to a navigational vortex but after a short while and a bit of reckoning, we hit the mystical CP14 and were on our way…into a part of the race that I really cannot remember too much of.
Why? Because I slept for most of it. We descended 1,500m on a truly heinous ‘trail’ for who-knows-how-long and I only recall bits of pieces of it. The stress of the previous night’s navigation challenges as well as dealing with Harper’s and Nat’s personal safety had stretched me and now I was cooked. I stumbled along this ‘ancient smuggler’s route’ (once a transport path for alcohol and sugar cane) and couldn’t understand what I was walking in the midst of. The trail carved 2-3m into the rock at times. Other times, vegetation grew overtop so it was like walking through a tunnel. I remember waking up from my sleep walk, seeing no one, and not being sure of which direction to go. Salomon SpeedCross 3 tracks in the deep mud helped me out again and again. Give that Product Manager a raise!
Even at the bottom and after taking time to fix my feet (again), I was still phuct up. I couldn’t make sense of the map. The lines on it were a mystery. It was too complex. We walked right by the CP15 landmark that we were supposed to take a picture of to prove that we were there. I felt badly on the 3km out-and-back afterward but I was honestly so mentally tired and needed a break. We stumbled into the TA in around 23rd place and it was definitely sleep time.
* * *
We happily ‘served’ our 4-hour penalty at the TA, just over halfway through Day 4, copping Zzzzzs for much of it. I needed it. Our original plan was to try to hit the white-water paddle that followed this next bike ride just before daybreak so as to minimize stop time due to the dark zone (eg. we weren’t allowed to paddle outside the hours of 5h30 and 18h30). This was out the window now and we’d have to roll with it. A very challenging 159km bike section lay ahead of us and anything could happen.
Now at much lower altitude, the vegetation continued to change and become more and more lush. We biked all day through beautiful scenery with sporadic grinding climbs and quick descents thrown in. Ice cream, Coke, cooked eggs, chips, and anything else we could get our hands on from the local shops was greatly appreciated. I felt good after an extended sleep (imagine that!) and was able to tow. It was hot out and while we were moving well, we needed a catnap in a school field about halfway through. Dump truck after dump truck rolled by, as they are building a massive hydroelectric damn in the area, but we didn’t hear a thing.
The maps were a little tough to follow at times with entire villages being omitted. James and Nat’s Spanish helped us out again and again, however, and we avoided any nav bobbles. We hit the ropes section for a bit of contrived challenge – a tyrolean traverse and high-wire crossing over a raging river. Nat’s a bit timid when it comes to heights but she did just fine. Two teams had arrived when we were back to our bikes which I think was a good thing, as it put a bit of fire into us for the remaining 28km along bumpy and rutted out gravel roads. We had a bit of a scare when Harper got a flat. His spare tube had a hole in it and the patch kit just wouldn’t fix the problem. As a last resort, we jammed a 29er tube in there and it worked perfectly for the rest of the race.
Darkness fell once again and Nat seemed to speed up. She admits to being a bit hesitant on technical sections while riding. However, with no sunlight to see how technical this road really was, she attacked it and we rode alongside each other for much of the rest of the ride. Passing by a very injured Team ITALY Freemind, we were reminded of how tenuous a hold on finishing the whole racecourse can be. Their female teammate had a horrible infection in her hand, couldn’t ride, and so two of her teammates worked together to push her on her bike on either side of her so she didn’t have to walk.
* * *
I don’t profess to be a talented white-water paddler. Angus Doughty often joked about me needing to work on some ‘basic skills’ before attacking rapid sections in races. Harper is about as talented and cautious in white water as I am but James and Nat, however, enjoy the rapids and I think looked forward to this 60km paddle on the Rio Grande. While it started out decently tame, with a few class I sections, it got increasingly angry as more and more water joined the fun from the river’s tributaries. Class II and even a couple of class III were marked on the map. A guide warned us beforehand that we’d be swimming for sure. I figured as much when I laid my eyes on the sit-on-top kiddy-esque boats we’d be paddling. I’m too heavy for that sh!t.
Harper and I were doomed from the start. I took the first rapid like Angus would – cautiously and controlled. Harper didn’t like my rear-angled entry into the rapid and I didn’t like his failure to actually put his paddle in the water. Some heated exchanges were had but we didn’t dunk…yet.
We got smart when we hit the first class III. We lined the boats down. Not one team had gotten down without a yard sale or a broken paddle so we elected to be conservative. On the down side, Harper and I got dummied shortly thereafter on some of the next sections. We both bailed on one rapid, he got back in pretty quickly, but I was left hanging on to the boat with my left hand and my right hand on my paddle. ‘Luckily’ for me, the rocks that smashed into my legs over and over again as I cascaded down the set were remarkably smooth, leaving no bruises. Lovely.
Then we lost our confidence. After swimming for the third time, we were ready for a partner change. I don’t think either James or Nat had fallen out yet but now they were with the dead weights. James and Harps subsequently swam two or three times while Nat and I dunked twice. I’ll mostly blame my predicament on a lack on syntheses between my 90kg frame and that child’s toy of a boat. It was time to get off that %^&’n river...and to sign me up for some proper white water skills courses. On the bright side, we had broken no paddles during the onslaught.
* * *
Heading off on the last 42km bike section of the race, I was hungry to get to the BIG trek. There was a decent amount of light left on Day 5 and despite having most of my bones scraped along a myriad of underwater rocks during the last paddle and surviving what ever the heck we just ate from the locals in the previous TA, I felt OK. There was a 400m climb near the end of this section but there was almost no navigation and everything looked to be on hard-packed roads. I set an uptempo pace for the team, as I wanted to get this done. “Pete, dial it back a bit. I don’t feel so hot”, Harper called to me.
Unbeknownst to us at the time, that moment was the start of something that held our race in the balance. At a point in the past couple of days, something crept into Harper’s body and decided to take hold. Quite honestly, it’s a miracle that it didn’t happen to all of us as we raced through knee-deep mud, drank treated (hopefully) water in dirty CamelBak bladders, got cut up, grabbed onto spikey plants, ate with dirt-covered gloves, and mistakenly ingested gulps of river water. Add in the fact that every racer on the course was malnourished and sleep deprived and it’s unreal that getting really sick is a rarity in AR.
Harper’s pace slowly degraded but he pressed on with purpose. A brief stop for frozen yogurt (in the middle of nowhere for $0.25 per popsicle!) was a nice respite but we could feel the reality of Harper’s condition. I towed him up the hills and we made it to the TA. He went to lie down immediately and was out for about 3 straight hours. The rest of us followed shortly thereafter and I crossed my fingers that this was merely a situation of getting over-extended in that brutal paddle.
* * *
It wasn’t. Harper still felt like sh!t. We had only two sections left in the race but this next one was a killer. At face value, a 40km trek should be no worries. However, we were headed toward the Mache Chindul Ecological Reserve - a mud infested, low-lying jungle that ruggedly connected the village we were in with the Pacific coastline. On the bright side, we were to use GPS in this next section because there’s a large swath of land that has yet to be mapped. On the downside, none of us really knew how to use a GPS as a main navigation tool. We were as anxious about Harper’s condition as the race staff seemed to be at our lack of expertise with a GPS. Insert nervous laughter here…
We trekked out of the TA and into the night not really knowing what was going to happen next. The first CP in this section was only 10km away via hard-packed road. Harper could try to make it there and hopefully improve, having slept and eaten properly. I’m sure Harper hated me for it at the time, but I was on him as we walked. I urged him to eat. I reminded him to drink. I kept him on the road as he wandered toward the ditch. We walked painfully slowly, but after 3 hours, we reached CP29; a research centre called Bilsa. Also known as “A very rustic building deep in the Ecuadorian jungle with all sorts of creepy crawlies skittering around the ground”.
The CP staff originally didn’t want us to sleep there but I had a quiet word with him and he came around to our way of thinking. In fact, he leant us his sleeping mat for Harper to crash on. In my mind at the time, we would stay there as long as it took for Harper to either recover, or decide that it wasn’t safe to venture into the jungle for 30 more km. My teammates slept. I worried, my mind spinning about what would happen when we awoke. And then I slept, too.
I awoke to very loud sounding metallic sounding shutters being opened. It turned out to be the generous operators of the research centre. They insisted we come and sleep on the beds inside. It was heaven after so many sleeps on hard floors. We slept for a while longer and then it was time to decide – are we still in this thing or not?
Harper was good to go. We discussed it as a team and we set off with purpose. It was 9h30 on Day 6. We were going for it. 30km of jungle trekking followed by 60km of paddling to the finish line in Mompiche. Just one foot in front of the other, stave off bad luck, and we can do it.
Again, I’m sure Harper felt like punching me but I was on him. I over-zealously set my alarm for every 40 minutes and asked him to eat when my watch beeped. We fed him 1,000 mg of vitamin C to boost his immune system. I gave him a hard time when I felt his backpack to reveal that he hadn’t drunk enough from his water bladder. Most importantly, however, he dug in and his resolve was strong. Before too long, he was out front, setting the pace for us all. He was back.
That said, we all struggled in the mud. When I say ‘mud’, I don’t mean ‘wet dirt’. I mean ‘up to knee-deep somewhere-between-liquid-and-solid eat-your-shoes-from-your-feet-each-time-you-step as-far-as-you-can-see-in-front-of-you type of mud’. There’s a difference. We were tired, frustrated, and beaten up after not a long time. A family with their donkey passed by us, headed in the same direction. Them in rubber boots, purses slung over their shoulders as if on a Sunday stroll, laughing, giggling, and carrying on as though this wasn’t the worst sh!t they’ve ever had the misfortune of trekking in. Us, in contrast, were swearing, clad in high-tech gear, and crawling along at a pace that was just slower than the 7 year-old who had her sister slung onto her back with a wrap. We were a sorry looking foursome, but we were moving forward.
Nat was a trooper with the GPS. We weren't informed before the race that it would be a primary navigation tool and we just assumed it was for safety as per many other races we've all done. That was the limit of our GPS savvy. During this trek, the waypoints often seemed to direct us in a very different direction than I could see on the map. It wasn’t easy to use and the batteries kept running out. It was frustrating to say the least. Luckily, we reached a village, met some gracious Danish people, and traded for some batteries. We also scored a meal, courtesy of the village that was in full festival mode and wouldn’t accept any money for the food. Each of them was so friendly and had big smiles on their faces when they approached us or joked with each other. Maybe they hadn’t seen the mud on the way in like we had?
We set off westbound once again on the only trail that left the village. I could have cared less what the GPS said. Until I did care not that long thereafter. We couldn’t make out where we were supposed to go as per the GPS but the heavily trodden trail was clear. Until it wasn’t. We had been told to look for a ‘pool of water’ and that’s when you leave the river and climb. Even though it was daylight, we saw no ‘pool of water’. We stayed in the river bed and on trodden trails but something about our direction didn’t seem right to Harper and I. A local directed us up a steep and thickly vegetated ascent. Looking at my watch, we had 45 minutes of daylight left to sort this out. I didn’t relish the prospect of wandering around in the very thick jungle without clear purpose at night. We turned around and continued on in our original direction. We found a ‘pool of water’. We climbed. It got dark…very fast. We continued climbing. I saw nowhere near the amount of people tracks I had seen before – I saw more of the donkey variety. The bugs dropped in to check out our lights and got into our faces, noses, mouths, and ears. The grass got taller and wetter. Fog rolled in, making visibility extremely short and difficult. The mud was unrelenting but we kept climbing.
I couldn’t place us on the map but Nat was confident that the GPS waypoint route was corresponding to what we were doing. It did feel right, even though our course somewhat resembled a purposeful wander, and that was a good thing to have in my back pocket at that stage. Confidence. I had a private, emotional moment while walking along behind my three teammates. It’s never happened in a race before and went on a few beats to long for my liking. It dawned on me all of a sudden that we were going to get through this. All of the training and commitment over the past months were going to pay off. We had had to dig so deeply over the past few days, both physically and mentally, to make it back from the brink of DNF and were bloody well going to finish the World Champs. $*&*’n right on! But, perhaps we could have ridden to the coast for the final paddle instead?
Through the fog, Harper saw something flashing ahead. It was a duo of race staff – along the intended route! They were all but set to come and find us as we had turned off the GPS suggested route down low but in the end, our (and Team SPAIN Columbia Vidaraid’s) route saved us an hour versus other recently passing teams. That didn’t mean, however, that the race staff had confidence in us as they strongly suggested that ‘we wait for the next team given that our GPS wasn’t working’. We set off never the less, our recent stroke of good fortune in tow. But it was hardly solace for what came next.
It wasn’t as bad as the trek from hell in the ARWC in Costa Rica last year (where we had to descend 2,000m on slippery, slimy mud for 8km, taking 8 hours) but it wasn’t far off. For the next 6km, we moved downhill at a paltry 500m to 1.5km per hour through calf/knee deep mud. In hearing from other teams after the race, people lost their sh!t in there. We approached and quietly passed one team, who had left the research centre at CP29 almost 6 hours before us, and were now flat on their backs, sound asleep in the mud. Apparently, one of their teammates had completely lost their mind. They tried to wrestle the GPS tracker from their teammates to call for help and eventually had to be subdued and told to sleep it off. Crazy.
* * *
As sleepy paddling sections go, the final 60km jaunt in a tidal and windy river, and ultimately onto a sheltered section of the Pacific Ocean, ranked up there for all four of us. I urged us to get onto the water immediately as the tide was going out. Fail! We should have taken an hour or two’s rest before heading off. After a failed sleep attempt in the windy river along a mucky bank, populated with barking dogs, we head-bobbed our way along, poor Nat freezing her butt off, and one of us sleeping most of the time. Harper and I ate caffeine and sporadically felt the energy rush it brought. We were in very open waters and without being able to see a clear objective ahead, it was so hard to keep focused and awake. Harper yelled at me. I sang, made goofy faces, and sleep paddled for way too long. We did find one little cove to curl up in alongside the mangroves and nabbed a whopping 25 minutes of quality sleep. Pure luxury on Day 7.
Like all monotonous sections in AR, they come to an end if you just keep at them. It was a scant 4km to the village of Mompiche when we beached our boats. We had done it. There was no ceremonial ‘run to the finish line’ in any of us. Walking suited just fine. For me, I soaked it in. We walked along a beach with Randy Ericksen and into the village proper. It was so cool. At 16h30 in the afternoon, people were out and about, cheering us on. The finish chute was long and had a gaggle of photographers and race staff waiting for us, the 19th place team in the 2014 Adventure Racing World Championships. It was a moment of relief as always but for me it felt so good to get the whole thing done given how close we had come to not achieving our goal on a couple of occasions.
Nat battled a strained thigh, what turned out to be a cracked bone in her wrist, and took an important leadership position to keep us on track with the various cut-offs, gear movements, and TA idiosyncrasies. James kept us all together, took weight, did the lion’s share of the grunt work, supported each of us when we needed it, and remained a voice of reason throughout the race. Harper gave me critical reality checks on the navigation, set the pace, and never gave into the sickness that racked his body. Thanks guys for supporting me when I needed it and for digging so deep over the course of 7.5 days. And thanks to my wife and daughter who supported me so much to get ready for this race.
Harper’s pace slowly degraded but he pressed on with purpose. A brief stop for frozen yogurt (in the middle of nowhere for $0.25 per popsicle!) was a nice respite but we could feel the reality of Harper’s condition. I towed him up the hills and we made it to the TA. He went to lie down immediately and was out for about 3 straight hours. The rest of us followed shortly thereafter and I crossed my fingers that this was merely a situation of getting over-extended in that brutal paddle.
* * *
It wasn’t. Harper still felt like sh!t. We had only two sections left in the race but this next one was a killer. At face value, a 40km trek should be no worries. However, we were headed toward the Mache Chindul Ecological Reserve - a mud infested, low-lying jungle that ruggedly connected the village we were in with the Pacific coastline. On the bright side, we were to use GPS in this next section because there’s a large swath of land that has yet to be mapped. On the downside, none of us really knew how to use a GPS as a main navigation tool. We were as anxious about Harper’s condition as the race staff seemed to be at our lack of expertise with a GPS. Insert nervous laughter here…
We trekked out of the TA and into the night not really knowing what was going to happen next. The first CP in this section was only 10km away via hard-packed road. Harper could try to make it there and hopefully improve, having slept and eaten properly. I’m sure Harper hated me for it at the time, but I was on him as we walked. I urged him to eat. I reminded him to drink. I kept him on the road as he wandered toward the ditch. We walked painfully slowly, but after 3 hours, we reached CP29; a research centre called Bilsa. Also known as “A very rustic building deep in the Ecuadorian jungle with all sorts of creepy crawlies skittering around the ground”.
The CP staff originally didn’t want us to sleep there but I had a quiet word with him and he came around to our way of thinking. In fact, he leant us his sleeping mat for Harper to crash on. In my mind at the time, we would stay there as long as it took for Harper to either recover, or decide that it wasn’t safe to venture into the jungle for 30 more km. My teammates slept. I worried, my mind spinning about what would happen when we awoke. And then I slept, too.
I awoke to very loud sounding metallic sounding shutters being opened. It turned out to be the generous operators of the research centre. They insisted we come and sleep on the beds inside. It was heaven after so many sleeps on hard floors. We slept for a while longer and then it was time to decide – are we still in this thing or not?
Harper was good to go. We discussed it as a team and we set off with purpose. It was 9h30 on Day 6. We were going for it. 30km of jungle trekking followed by 60km of paddling to the finish line in Mompiche. Just one foot in front of the other, stave off bad luck, and we can do it.
Again, I’m sure Harper felt like punching me but I was on him. I over-zealously set my alarm for every 40 minutes and asked him to eat when my watch beeped. We fed him 1,000 mg of vitamin C to boost his immune system. I gave him a hard time when I felt his backpack to reveal that he hadn’t drunk enough from his water bladder. Most importantly, however, he dug in and his resolve was strong. Before too long, he was out front, setting the pace for us all. He was back.
That said, we all struggled in the mud. When I say ‘mud’, I don’t mean ‘wet dirt’. I mean ‘up to knee-deep somewhere-between-liquid-and-solid eat-your-shoes-from-your-feet-each-time-you-step as-far-as-you-can-see-in-front-of-you type of mud’. There’s a difference. We were tired, frustrated, and beaten up after not a long time. A family with their donkey passed by us, headed in the same direction. Them in rubber boots, purses slung over their shoulders as if on a Sunday stroll, laughing, giggling, and carrying on as though this wasn’t the worst sh!t they’ve ever had the misfortune of trekking in. Us, in contrast, were swearing, clad in high-tech gear, and crawling along at a pace that was just slower than the 7 year-old who had her sister slung onto her back with a wrap. We were a sorry looking foursome, but we were moving forward.
Nat was a trooper with the GPS. We weren't informed before the race that it would be a primary navigation tool and we just assumed it was for safety as per many other races we've all done. That was the limit of our GPS savvy. During this trek, the waypoints often seemed to direct us in a very different direction than I could see on the map. It wasn’t easy to use and the batteries kept running out. It was frustrating to say the least. Luckily, we reached a village, met some gracious Danish people, and traded for some batteries. We also scored a meal, courtesy of the village that was in full festival mode and wouldn’t accept any money for the food. Each of them was so friendly and had big smiles on their faces when they approached us or joked with each other. Maybe they hadn’t seen the mud on the way in like we had?
We set off westbound once again on the only trail that left the village. I could have cared less what the GPS said. Until I did care not that long thereafter. We couldn’t make out where we were supposed to go as per the GPS but the heavily trodden trail was clear. Until it wasn’t. We had been told to look for a ‘pool of water’ and that’s when you leave the river and climb. Even though it was daylight, we saw no ‘pool of water’. We stayed in the river bed and on trodden trails but something about our direction didn’t seem right to Harper and I. A local directed us up a steep and thickly vegetated ascent. Looking at my watch, we had 45 minutes of daylight left to sort this out. I didn’t relish the prospect of wandering around in the very thick jungle without clear purpose at night. We turned around and continued on in our original direction. We found a ‘pool of water’. We climbed. It got dark…very fast. We continued climbing. I saw nowhere near the amount of people tracks I had seen before – I saw more of the donkey variety. The bugs dropped in to check out our lights and got into our faces, noses, mouths, and ears. The grass got taller and wetter. Fog rolled in, making visibility extremely short and difficult. The mud was unrelenting but we kept climbing.
I couldn’t place us on the map but Nat was confident that the GPS waypoint route was corresponding to what we were doing. It did feel right, even though our course somewhat resembled a purposeful wander, and that was a good thing to have in my back pocket at that stage. Confidence. I had a private, emotional moment while walking along behind my three teammates. It’s never happened in a race before and went on a few beats to long for my liking. It dawned on me all of a sudden that we were going to get through this. All of the training and commitment over the past months were going to pay off. We had had to dig so deeply over the past few days, both physically and mentally, to make it back from the brink of DNF and were bloody well going to finish the World Champs. $*&*’n right on! But, perhaps we could have ridden to the coast for the final paddle instead?
Through the fog, Harper saw something flashing ahead. It was a duo of race staff – along the intended route! They were all but set to come and find us as we had turned off the GPS suggested route down low but in the end, our (and Team SPAIN Columbia Vidaraid’s) route saved us an hour versus other recently passing teams. That didn’t mean, however, that the race staff had confidence in us as they strongly suggested that ‘we wait for the next team given that our GPS wasn’t working’. We set off never the less, our recent stroke of good fortune in tow. But it was hardly solace for what came next.
It wasn’t as bad as the trek from hell in the ARWC in Costa Rica last year (where we had to descend 2,000m on slippery, slimy mud for 8km, taking 8 hours) but it wasn’t far off. For the next 6km, we moved downhill at a paltry 500m to 1.5km per hour through calf/knee deep mud. In hearing from other teams after the race, people lost their sh!t in there. We approached and quietly passed one team, who had left the research centre at CP29 almost 6 hours before us, and were now flat on their backs, sound asleep in the mud. Apparently, one of their teammates had completely lost their mind. They tried to wrestle the GPS tracker from their teammates to call for help and eventually had to be subdued and told to sleep it off. Crazy.
* * *
As sleepy paddling sections go, the final 60km jaunt in a tidal and windy river, and ultimately onto a sheltered section of the Pacific Ocean, ranked up there for all four of us. I urged us to get onto the water immediately as the tide was going out. Fail! We should have taken an hour or two’s rest before heading off. After a failed sleep attempt in the windy river along a mucky bank, populated with barking dogs, we head-bobbed our way along, poor Nat freezing her butt off, and one of us sleeping most of the time. Harper and I ate caffeine and sporadically felt the energy rush it brought. We were in very open waters and without being able to see a clear objective ahead, it was so hard to keep focused and awake. Harper yelled at me. I sang, made goofy faces, and sleep paddled for way too long. We did find one little cove to curl up in alongside the mangroves and nabbed a whopping 25 minutes of quality sleep. Pure luxury on Day 7.
Like all monotonous sections in AR, they come to an end if you just keep at them. It was a scant 4km to the village of Mompiche when we beached our boats. We had done it. There was no ceremonial ‘run to the finish line’ in any of us. Walking suited just fine. For me, I soaked it in. We walked along a beach with Randy Ericksen and into the village proper. It was so cool. At 16h30 in the afternoon, people were out and about, cheering us on. The finish chute was long and had a gaggle of photographers and race staff waiting for us, the 19th place team in the 2014 Adventure Racing World Championships. It was a moment of relief as always but for me it felt so good to get the whole thing done given how close we had come to not achieving our goal on a couple of occasions.
Nat battled a strained thigh, what turned out to be a cracked bone in her wrist, and took an important leadership position to keep us on track with the various cut-offs, gear movements, and TA idiosyncrasies. James kept us all together, took weight, did the lion’s share of the grunt work, supported each of us when we needed it, and remained a voice of reason throughout the race. Harper gave me critical reality checks on the navigation, set the pace, and never gave into the sickness that racked his body. Thanks guys for supporting me when I needed it and for digging so deep over the course of 7.5 days. And thanks to my wife and daughter who supported me so much to get ready for this race.
Saturday, 4 October 2014
Nat and the Endurance challenge 50km Ultra - 11th women (/42), 2nd in my age cat (/9) and 44th overall (/123)
As I was supposed to do my first 50km trail back in May but had to cancel for family reasons at the last second, I really really wanted to be able to run a 50km this year.
With all our races it was hard to find one that fit in our schedule but we managed to find one....and a good one!
James and I left on Friday and got to Salt lake city in the evening where we rented a car. We arrived at Park City at around 11pm and the race was starting at 7am the next day.
If you know where we live and know where Park city is you will probably say WHATTT?
Indeed I don't think that was the smartest decision after all when I think about it. We live at almost sea level and the race started at 7000 feet to top at 10 000 feet. Last year in Costa Rica I had been affected by altitude. My fingers and body in general had swelled up and I was feeling very heavy and breathing was slower. I thought that maybe this time would be different.
We woke up on Saturday morning and got ready to race. It was cold, soooo cold (3 degrees max) and it was pitch dark.
When we got to registration you could still not see anything around. I asked if we were supposed to have headlamp and they reassured me saying we should be fine without it.
I was stressed out. It was my first 50km, at altitude, and for those who know me I tend to put a little too much pressure on myself. That's why I decided that this race was going to be fun. I wouldn't go crazy I would pace myself and FINISH it, in whatever time it would take me.
Just the time to kiss good luck James and we were off.
The first 20 to 25km of the race was pretty much up hill going to the 10 000 feet elevation.
I had a good start and even without pushing too hard I didn't have more than 3 girls in front of me for the whole climb. I remember thinking "oh woah I have been running for 6km and I feel like if I just started" which is an awesome feeling. And then reality check at km 7 "oh yeah ok I'm running".
I stuck with a bunch of guys for the whole climb, it was a good pace for me trying to keep up to them but also it meant I wouldn't be alone in case of a bear encounter :)
Half way through the climb I realized I was loosing my voice (my team mates for Ecuador should be happy about that, it means you won't hear me complain for most of the race). So I just listened to the stories one of the guy was telling as were climbing.
As we were still climbing I saw snow on the ground (thought of harps at that point).
At km 25, 3rd aid station, I asked the medic what I could do to make the swelling go down in my fingers. At that stage I had swelled up and my fingers were like sumo fingers...not pretty!!
They told me it was probably a lack of salt and made me eat potatoes with lots of salt. He told me to not worry, it would come down eventually.
We were at the top of the mountains and they were only two "little" climbs left on the course.
I started running down and as I was trying to take some speed in the single tracks, took a fall and landed flat on the ground. I assessed quickly the damaged, a little pain in the ankle, a little pain in the opposite knee and superficial scratches on my hand..Nothing major so I started running again.
As I caught up with a guy and passed him on his right, I didn't notice that our track was actually going left. We ran a good 600m or more down the hill before realizing we were off course.
That hurt for multiple reasons. First being that we had to climb back up, second being that I saw at least 3 to 4 girls passing me up there on the mountain, and 3rd and not the least, I was running without water, relying on feed station and it was getting hot and I was thirsty.
I let myself be frustrated for a few minutes and then forgot about it to keep racing.
I was in a bad shape when I reached aid station number 4. There was an October theme there with music. The volunteers were super helpful giving me food as I was drinking a liter of electrolyte. they gave me more potatoes and I even licked some salt. From there it was an 8km loop back to the same aid station before heading to the end.
I felt a little better in that loop and I was feeling a lot better when I reached the aid station again. I'm sure it helped a lot that the volunteers were cheering me like crazy :)
I had been doing a jog/walk for the last two station and the start of that leg wasn't any different. It was mostly downhill from there on and I don't know what happened but 3-4km before the end my legs came back and I was able to run again.
I had set for myself three goals: 1st:to finish, 2nd: I would be happy to finish under 7 hours, 3rd: I would be super happy to finish under 6 and half hours.
After a glance at my watch and many calculations I thought "man if I hadn't lost ten minutes with my wrong turn I could have finished under 6,5 hours".
As I was coming down I started realizing I could maybe still make it under 6,5 hours.
Weird thing ever, a volunteer gave me a high five 1.5 miles from the end and as I run with a massive grind on my face, I start crying then it stops and I laugh. I was on a roller coaster of emotions.
I saw the finish line and started sprinting to the finish. I passed the line in 6h28min with the most massive smile in history.
I tried to look for James and saw him 5-10min later. When he saw me he said "what are you doing here???" I guess he was expecting me a little later :D.
The course was beautiful and the trails were the most fun trails I have ever been on in a race. The staff and volunteers were great making it an unforgettable race for me.
I will be back and this time with proper altitude acclimatization. The swelling was all gone half hour after the race.
Pictures can be seen at http://www.racephotonetwork.com/QPPlus/Proofs.aspx
Nat
With all our races it was hard to find one that fit in our schedule but we managed to find one....and a good one!
James and I left on Friday and got to Salt lake city in the evening where we rented a car. We arrived at Park City at around 11pm and the race was starting at 7am the next day.
If you know where we live and know where Park city is you will probably say WHATTT?
Indeed I don't think that was the smartest decision after all when I think about it. We live at almost sea level and the race started at 7000 feet to top at 10 000 feet. Last year in Costa Rica I had been affected by altitude. My fingers and body in general had swelled up and I was feeling very heavy and breathing was slower. I thought that maybe this time would be different.
We woke up on Saturday morning and got ready to race. It was cold, soooo cold (3 degrees max) and it was pitch dark.
When we got to registration you could still not see anything around. I asked if we were supposed to have headlamp and they reassured me saying we should be fine without it.
I was stressed out. It was my first 50km, at altitude, and for those who know me I tend to put a little too much pressure on myself. That's why I decided that this race was going to be fun. I wouldn't go crazy I would pace myself and FINISH it, in whatever time it would take me.
Just the time to kiss good luck James and we were off.
The first 20 to 25km of the race was pretty much up hill going to the 10 000 feet elevation.
I had a good start and even without pushing too hard I didn't have more than 3 girls in front of me for the whole climb. I remember thinking "oh woah I have been running for 6km and I feel like if I just started" which is an awesome feeling. And then reality check at km 7 "oh yeah ok I'm running".
I stuck with a bunch of guys for the whole climb, it was a good pace for me trying to keep up to them but also it meant I wouldn't be alone in case of a bear encounter :)
Half way through the climb I realized I was loosing my voice (my team mates for Ecuador should be happy about that, it means you won't hear me complain for most of the race). So I just listened to the stories one of the guy was telling as were climbing.
As we were still climbing I saw snow on the ground (thought of harps at that point).
At km 25, 3rd aid station, I asked the medic what I could do to make the swelling go down in my fingers. At that stage I had swelled up and my fingers were like sumo fingers...not pretty!!
They told me it was probably a lack of salt and made me eat potatoes with lots of salt. He told me to not worry, it would come down eventually.
We were at the top of the mountains and they were only two "little" climbs left on the course.
I started running down and as I was trying to take some speed in the single tracks, took a fall and landed flat on the ground. I assessed quickly the damaged, a little pain in the ankle, a little pain in the opposite knee and superficial scratches on my hand..Nothing major so I started running again.
As I caught up with a guy and passed him on his right, I didn't notice that our track was actually going left. We ran a good 600m or more down the hill before realizing we were off course.
That hurt for multiple reasons. First being that we had to climb back up, second being that I saw at least 3 to 4 girls passing me up there on the mountain, and 3rd and not the least, I was running without water, relying on feed station and it was getting hot and I was thirsty.
I let myself be frustrated for a few minutes and then forgot about it to keep racing.
I was in a bad shape when I reached aid station number 4. There was an October theme there with music. The volunteers were super helpful giving me food as I was drinking a liter of electrolyte. they gave me more potatoes and I even licked some salt. From there it was an 8km loop back to the same aid station before heading to the end.
I felt a little better in that loop and I was feeling a lot better when I reached the aid station again. I'm sure it helped a lot that the volunteers were cheering me like crazy :)
I had been doing a jog/walk for the last two station and the start of that leg wasn't any different. It was mostly downhill from there on and I don't know what happened but 3-4km before the end my legs came back and I was able to run again.
I had set for myself three goals: 1st:to finish, 2nd: I would be happy to finish under 7 hours, 3rd: I would be super happy to finish under 6 and half hours.
After a glance at my watch and many calculations I thought "man if I hadn't lost ten minutes with my wrong turn I could have finished under 6,5 hours".
As I was coming down I started realizing I could maybe still make it under 6,5 hours.
Weird thing ever, a volunteer gave me a high five 1.5 miles from the end and as I run with a massive grind on my face, I start crying then it stops and I laugh. I was on a roller coaster of emotions.
I saw the finish line and started sprinting to the finish. I passed the line in 6h28min with the most massive smile in history.
I tried to look for James and saw him 5-10min later. When he saw me he said "what are you doing here???" I guess he was expecting me a little later :D.
The course was beautiful and the trails were the most fun trails I have ever been on in a race. The staff and volunteers were great making it an unforgettable race for me.
I will be back and this time with proper altitude acclimatization. The swelling was all gone half hour after the race.
Pictures can be seen at http://www.racephotonetwork.com/QPPlus/Proofs.aspx
Nat
James' 50 km Race in Pain City... uh, I mean Park City, Utah
When Nathalie and I decided a few months ago to do a 50km Ultra trail race in Utah, we thought it would be a great last race leading up to the Adventure Racing World Championships in Ecuador. First, the race is about a month before the World Champs, and second, the race takes place from 7,000ft to 10,000ft of elevation. I have never raced at elevation, so I thought this would be a great way to test myself out and see what it feels like. I figured if things didn't go well, at least I was racing on my own and could slow down or stop if necessary. We knew we were really going to be pushing the envelope for the race, flying into Utah less than 12 hours before the race (although one school of thought is that coming in right before a race at altitude is better than a few days before), but neither one of us could afford to take any time off for this race with the 2 weeks of vacation needed for the World Champs.
The morning of the race was chilly, about 3 degrees, and it was still dark at the start of the race. As the start got closer, we got a little worried that maybe we should have brought a headlamp, but it turned out to be just bright enough to run at a comfortable speed at the start and still see the terrain fairly well. The other most immediate worry was that the first 20km+ of the race were pretty much straight uphill! We started at 7,000ft and climbed 3,000ft right off the start to the highest point in the race. So we knew that the first part of the race would be the most crucial.
I started out in about 10th spot, not wanting to lose touch with the leaders right off the start but also not wanting to blow up either. Quite quickly the field spread out, with the first 5 runners sticking together in one pack and the next 5 (including me) forming another pack. On a few switchbacks, I could see that about halfway up the big first climb, we were about 1 minute behind the lead pack and I couldn't see any runners for quite a ways behind us. I had been running at the back of the second pack up to this point, but was starting to feel quite good as my body warmed up and I got a better sense of the pitch of the climb. I decided to pull ahead of the pack I was running in and try to climb at my own pace. Three of the four other runners came with me for a while and that eventually whittled itself down to only one other runner following my pace. He gave me a few words of encouragement, signalling that he was happy that we were able to pull away from the others. I could see the back of the pack in front of us, telling me that we were making up some ground. I was still feeling good despite pushing a little harder... and then disaster struck.
I felt a little tightness in my calves as I pushed a little harder, but figured that they would eventually stretch themselves out. They didn't. Well, I should say, the left calf didn't. In fact, it got way worse, to the point that I had to fully stop as I felt an intense sharp pain with every step on that leg. Unfortunately, and maybe a little bit fortunately as well, I immediately recognized this pain. I had experienced it twice before in long adventure races when we had to do a very long section of sustained climbing. I don't know exactly what it is, but basically it's a very sharp pain at the insertion point between the bottom of the calf muscle and the top of the Achilles tendon. It causes a sharp pain every time my calf stretches, which is basically every step when you are climbing!
I found myself in a very difficult spot at this point - not dangerous but difficult. I could still walk and could manage the pain by basically pretending that my left foot was in a cast so that I couldn't/wouldn't let it stretch when I would take a step. But it was the question of what to do next that was the most difficult one. So I did all of the things I could think of to try and lessen the pain. I tried to stretch the calf, to stretch my IT band, to completely stop for a bit, and to just try to adapt my gait. Nothing really made it better. But I noticed that by adapting my gait (using the "broken foot" technique mentioned above) it stopped the really realy sharp pain from occurring. Also, it seemed to really be the climbing that was the most painful and when I got to a relatively flat piece of trail I could hobble along without the really sharp pains occurring. I decided that I would make my way to the next aid station and then see from there what to do.
As the aid station got closer, the decision I knew I would have to make got tougher and tougher. On the one hand I knew that it's definitely not good to continue to race when experiencing this type of sharp, injury-type pain. It was definitely clear that something was not quite right in my lower leg and I know first-hand the dangers of trying to push through and injury. On the other hand, I was still able to move forward (albeit a fair bit slower than normal) without making the pain worse and I knew that once I got to the top of the climb that it would be a very long downhill afterward before climbing again. Also (and this was probably one of the most important factors in my decision) I had had this exact thing happen twice before, and continued to race (at a hiking pace) with a lot of pain, but no lasting effects after a few days of rest and some stretching. When I finally got to the aid station about 2/3 up the massive first climb, I decided I would take my time but that I would continue in the race, even if only at a walking pace. So I chatted with the volunteers and took my time having some snacks and taking in some electrolytes. To add insult to injury (literally), despite stopping a few times and only walking the rest of the time, only 5 or 6 runners had passed me, meaning the leaders (including me) had managed to gain a considerable lead on most of the field.
I eventually set off again after trying (unsuccessfully) to do a little more stretching. I wasn't in race mode at this point, but I still felt like I wanted to keep trying to move forward. After all, I could walk, so I decided I would at least walk myself off the course at the point where I decided it was too much. So I just focused on moving forward trying to manage the pain and not make it worse. At the risk of sounding like I'm exaggerating, I would say that every step on my left foot was about a 7 out of 10 on a pain scale with any uphills being closer to an 8. I had many many things running through my head, including not wanting to quit the race, being worried about causing more damage, being worried about long-term effects that could impact the World Championships in a month's time, and plenty of other such thoughts. As all of these thoughts filled my head, I was also doing a little bit of "experimenting" with my pain. As an adventure racer, pain is a very common part of most races, so you always have to try and find ways to try and manage the pain, both mentally and physically. So I treated this as an opportunity to practice my pain management techniques. I noticed that as long as I protected my calf from stretching too far, the pain would not get worse. This amounted to running somewhat stiff-legged on my left side. But I was able to jog at an ok pace on the flats and downhills and struggled a bit more on anything that was uphill. So I just tried to pick up the pace a little with the concession that I would focus on not doing anything that would make the pain worse. I'm sure I looked very awkward waddling and hobbling along, but I was happy to be able to keep moving at more that a walking pace.
The next part of the course was mainly downhill, so I really just had to deal with the steady 7/10 pain with each step, which was not easy, but I was fine with it as long as it didn't get worse. I knew there were really only 2 climbs left in the race after the long descent, so I figured I would re-assess again once it was time to start climbing the next uphill section. The toughest part at this point was that I had to stay very focused on every step on my left - any wrong step that would strain my calf would have literally put me to the ground in pain, so I had to really concentrate on protecting the calf on every step. I was quite frustrated at this point, simple because I really felt great other than the calf pain. I was limited by my pain threshold, not by my physical fitness so the race became much more of a mental one than a physical one - but that's not to diminish in any way how difficult the course actually was as well.
I can't remember exactly where on the middle section of the course it happened, but I encountered a mountain biker coming the opposite way on the trail who gave me a big cheer and said "you're doing great - you're in 13th spot!". I really hadn't been thinking about placements or racing since the pain had started on the climb up, but hearing the biker say I was still in 13th spot - despite all of the walking and the stopping - was somewhat perplexing and yet somewhat motivating. If I was about half way through the race, with presumably the toughest section (the first climb) already done and I wasn't losing that many spot even though I was going slower than I wanted to, then maybe I could still finish the race in a respectable time and placing. I really don't know if this line of thinking was a good thing or bad thing, but it's what made me keep going. I stayed with the logic that my hurting calf was "fine" as long as I didn't do anything to make it worse - which would be signaled by worse pain. I know this isn't entirely accurate (you can do more damage even though the pain is not worse), but in cognitively-reduced race mode, that was the logic I went with. I really don't remember much about the second climb - I think I was just in a bubble staying as focused as I could on each step. The second descent was spent anticipating the final climb. I had it in my head that if I can just get up that final climb, I would be able to just "coast" to the finish line.
Around this time, I took a look at my GPS watch, trying to anticipate when I would be starting the final climb. To my dismay, I had only logged just over 30km, meaning I was still a ways away from the last climb. So I just put my head down and plugged away at the trail in front of me. I finally got to the point in the trail where we started to climb again - what a relief... sort of. I was happy to be starting my last uphill, but I was also at the bottom of the uphill and I knew it would not be easy or short or pleasant. The majority of it was an access road leading up the ski hill. Mentally, for me it's much easier to be in single track trails when climbing because I can't see what's very far ahead, so I'm forced to take things bit by bit. But on this access road, I could see it climb and climb and climb, and I could even see a few runners now and then - WAY higher up the mountain than where I was at. So I knew it was just going to be pretty much straight and steady all the way up to the top of the mountain. I moved forward with a recurring pattern of 10-15 metres of awkward jogging, followed by the same distance of hobbling/walking (and repeat!). Wherever the trail got a little steeper I was forced to hike, this time equally from the pain and the physical fatigue. It was around this point that my speed began to once again be dictated by my physical fitness as much as my pain threshold - so I was going about as "fast" as I wanted to go at that point in the race, which in some twisted, weird way was satisfying. To my complete surprise, I actually began to pass people. I could see by the color of people's race bibs that the majority of them were from the 50 mile race, but I also recognized a few of the 50km runners that had passed me earlier in the race after my calf began to hurt.
When I finally got to the top of the last climb there was the final aid station of the race, which was an Octoberfest celebration! There was German music playing and people dressed in traditional "Octoberfest" type clothing. This was actually the same aid station at the top of the second climb as well, but we reached it from a different side of the mountain. I took in the same things that I had at every other station up to that point - a half of a banana, 3 glasses full of electrolyte drink, and a half package of Cliff Shot Blocks electrolyte chews - and off I went. A jolly man dressed in his Octoberfest garb cheered me on, saying "it's all downhill from here to the finish line!". I already knew that, but it still felt good to hear him say it. For some reason, in my mind I was thinking that going about 7 or 8 km downhill to the finish line would be relatively quick and relatively easy compared to the rest of the race... WRONG! It seemed to take forever to get down that mountain and it didn't really feel any easier, despite the fact that I was going downhill. I think I was just getting physically tired of straining to protect my calf on every other step and mentally I was getting worn down as well. The trail was an endless series of switchbacks slowly making its way down the mountain. At one point I lost focus and kicked a rock and did a Superman dive onto the trail in front of me - thankfully I escaped with dirty hands, shorts, and t-shirt as well as a bruise on my thigh, but no major damage. I got up, dusted myself off and continued to make my way down to the finish. Finally I started to hear the music and the announcer at the finish line, which gave me a little more energy to get this race done. I could see far ahead and behind me for most of the last downhill, so I knew there was nobody I could catch, nor anyone that could catch me, so I tried to maintain my pace, with the relief of not having to push too hard.
When I finally crossed the finish line, I experienced a bunch of emotions simultaneously - relief (both mental and physical), satisfaction (that I managed to finish the race when I really didn't think I would be able to), frustration (at feeling so good fitness-wise, but not being able to push), and worry (that maybe I shouldn't have continued in the race). After chugging a few water bottles full of chocolate recovery drink, I immediately made my way to the massage therapy tent to talk to the people there about my calf. He had me lay face down on the table and started to check things out... You know that something's not good when the massage therapist working on you says "holy shit!". He followed up by saying that he couldn't believe the size of the knot in my sore calf. As he checked around further, he basically told me that everything is very tight from my hip flexor downward, and it's what was causing the huge knot/tightness in my lower calf area. He then proceeded to make me laugh/scream (that sound you make when something hurts so much you just want to kick the person who is pressing on the sore spot!) while he tried to work out some of the crap in there. After my pain session, I made my way to the results tent to learn that I had finished 10th overall. How could I not be pleased with that result considering everything that had happened. I was very happy to have just been able to finish the race, let alone to still place fairly well. But the competitor in me immediately started to wonder how well I could have placed had I been able to push all the way through the race...
The race itself and the location are fabulous. I certainly hope to be able to return to this race again to race it properly and to once again take in the amazing landscape.
2 days after the race, my calf is feeling much better - I have been vigilantly icing and stretching, and it seems to be paying off. I feel extremely fortunate to have escaped any serious fallout (at least it appears that way so far) from the race (altitude-wise or injury-wise) and I am happy that the choices I made during the race paid off - I know that I may not always be that lucky...
Some race photos here.
The morning of the race was chilly, about 3 degrees, and it was still dark at the start of the race. As the start got closer, we got a little worried that maybe we should have brought a headlamp, but it turned out to be just bright enough to run at a comfortable speed at the start and still see the terrain fairly well. The other most immediate worry was that the first 20km+ of the race were pretty much straight uphill! We started at 7,000ft and climbed 3,000ft right off the start to the highest point in the race. So we knew that the first part of the race would be the most crucial.
I started out in about 10th spot, not wanting to lose touch with the leaders right off the start but also not wanting to blow up either. Quite quickly the field spread out, with the first 5 runners sticking together in one pack and the next 5 (including me) forming another pack. On a few switchbacks, I could see that about halfway up the big first climb, we were about 1 minute behind the lead pack and I couldn't see any runners for quite a ways behind us. I had been running at the back of the second pack up to this point, but was starting to feel quite good as my body warmed up and I got a better sense of the pitch of the climb. I decided to pull ahead of the pack I was running in and try to climb at my own pace. Three of the four other runners came with me for a while and that eventually whittled itself down to only one other runner following my pace. He gave me a few words of encouragement, signalling that he was happy that we were able to pull away from the others. I could see the back of the pack in front of us, telling me that we were making up some ground. I was still feeling good despite pushing a little harder... and then disaster struck.
I felt a little tightness in my calves as I pushed a little harder, but figured that they would eventually stretch themselves out. They didn't. Well, I should say, the left calf didn't. In fact, it got way worse, to the point that I had to fully stop as I felt an intense sharp pain with every step on that leg. Unfortunately, and maybe a little bit fortunately as well, I immediately recognized this pain. I had experienced it twice before in long adventure races when we had to do a very long section of sustained climbing. I don't know exactly what it is, but basically it's a very sharp pain at the insertion point between the bottom of the calf muscle and the top of the Achilles tendon. It causes a sharp pain every time my calf stretches, which is basically every step when you are climbing!
I found myself in a very difficult spot at this point - not dangerous but difficult. I could still walk and could manage the pain by basically pretending that my left foot was in a cast so that I couldn't/wouldn't let it stretch when I would take a step. But it was the question of what to do next that was the most difficult one. So I did all of the things I could think of to try and lessen the pain. I tried to stretch the calf, to stretch my IT band, to completely stop for a bit, and to just try to adapt my gait. Nothing really made it better. But I noticed that by adapting my gait (using the "broken foot" technique mentioned above) it stopped the really realy sharp pain from occurring. Also, it seemed to really be the climbing that was the most painful and when I got to a relatively flat piece of trail I could hobble along without the really sharp pains occurring. I decided that I would make my way to the next aid station and then see from there what to do.
As the aid station got closer, the decision I knew I would have to make got tougher and tougher. On the one hand I knew that it's definitely not good to continue to race when experiencing this type of sharp, injury-type pain. It was definitely clear that something was not quite right in my lower leg and I know first-hand the dangers of trying to push through and injury. On the other hand, I was still able to move forward (albeit a fair bit slower than normal) without making the pain worse and I knew that once I got to the top of the climb that it would be a very long downhill afterward before climbing again. Also (and this was probably one of the most important factors in my decision) I had had this exact thing happen twice before, and continued to race (at a hiking pace) with a lot of pain, but no lasting effects after a few days of rest and some stretching. When I finally got to the aid station about 2/3 up the massive first climb, I decided I would take my time but that I would continue in the race, even if only at a walking pace. So I chatted with the volunteers and took my time having some snacks and taking in some electrolytes. To add insult to injury (literally), despite stopping a few times and only walking the rest of the time, only 5 or 6 runners had passed me, meaning the leaders (including me) had managed to gain a considerable lead on most of the field.
I eventually set off again after trying (unsuccessfully) to do a little more stretching. I wasn't in race mode at this point, but I still felt like I wanted to keep trying to move forward. After all, I could walk, so I decided I would at least walk myself off the course at the point where I decided it was too much. So I just focused on moving forward trying to manage the pain and not make it worse. At the risk of sounding like I'm exaggerating, I would say that every step on my left foot was about a 7 out of 10 on a pain scale with any uphills being closer to an 8. I had many many things running through my head, including not wanting to quit the race, being worried about causing more damage, being worried about long-term effects that could impact the World Championships in a month's time, and plenty of other such thoughts. As all of these thoughts filled my head, I was also doing a little bit of "experimenting" with my pain. As an adventure racer, pain is a very common part of most races, so you always have to try and find ways to try and manage the pain, both mentally and physically. So I treated this as an opportunity to practice my pain management techniques. I noticed that as long as I protected my calf from stretching too far, the pain would not get worse. This amounted to running somewhat stiff-legged on my left side. But I was able to jog at an ok pace on the flats and downhills and struggled a bit more on anything that was uphill. So I just tried to pick up the pace a little with the concession that I would focus on not doing anything that would make the pain worse. I'm sure I looked very awkward waddling and hobbling along, but I was happy to be able to keep moving at more that a walking pace.
The next part of the course was mainly downhill, so I really just had to deal with the steady 7/10 pain with each step, which was not easy, but I was fine with it as long as it didn't get worse. I knew there were really only 2 climbs left in the race after the long descent, so I figured I would re-assess again once it was time to start climbing the next uphill section. The toughest part at this point was that I had to stay very focused on every step on my left - any wrong step that would strain my calf would have literally put me to the ground in pain, so I had to really concentrate on protecting the calf on every step. I was quite frustrated at this point, simple because I really felt great other than the calf pain. I was limited by my pain threshold, not by my physical fitness so the race became much more of a mental one than a physical one - but that's not to diminish in any way how difficult the course actually was as well.
I can't remember exactly where on the middle section of the course it happened, but I encountered a mountain biker coming the opposite way on the trail who gave me a big cheer and said "you're doing great - you're in 13th spot!". I really hadn't been thinking about placements or racing since the pain had started on the climb up, but hearing the biker say I was still in 13th spot - despite all of the walking and the stopping - was somewhat perplexing and yet somewhat motivating. If I was about half way through the race, with presumably the toughest section (the first climb) already done and I wasn't losing that many spot even though I was going slower than I wanted to, then maybe I could still finish the race in a respectable time and placing. I really don't know if this line of thinking was a good thing or bad thing, but it's what made me keep going. I stayed with the logic that my hurting calf was "fine" as long as I didn't do anything to make it worse - which would be signaled by worse pain. I know this isn't entirely accurate (you can do more damage even though the pain is not worse), but in cognitively-reduced race mode, that was the logic I went with. I really don't remember much about the second climb - I think I was just in a bubble staying as focused as I could on each step. The second descent was spent anticipating the final climb. I had it in my head that if I can just get up that final climb, I would be able to just "coast" to the finish line.
Around this time, I took a look at my GPS watch, trying to anticipate when I would be starting the final climb. To my dismay, I had only logged just over 30km, meaning I was still a ways away from the last climb. So I just put my head down and plugged away at the trail in front of me. I finally got to the point in the trail where we started to climb again - what a relief... sort of. I was happy to be starting my last uphill, but I was also at the bottom of the uphill and I knew it would not be easy or short or pleasant. The majority of it was an access road leading up the ski hill. Mentally, for me it's much easier to be in single track trails when climbing because I can't see what's very far ahead, so I'm forced to take things bit by bit. But on this access road, I could see it climb and climb and climb, and I could even see a few runners now and then - WAY higher up the mountain than where I was at. So I knew it was just going to be pretty much straight and steady all the way up to the top of the mountain. I moved forward with a recurring pattern of 10-15 metres of awkward jogging, followed by the same distance of hobbling/walking (and repeat!). Wherever the trail got a little steeper I was forced to hike, this time equally from the pain and the physical fatigue. It was around this point that my speed began to once again be dictated by my physical fitness as much as my pain threshold - so I was going about as "fast" as I wanted to go at that point in the race, which in some twisted, weird way was satisfying. To my complete surprise, I actually began to pass people. I could see by the color of people's race bibs that the majority of them were from the 50 mile race, but I also recognized a few of the 50km runners that had passed me earlier in the race after my calf began to hurt.
When I finally got to the top of the last climb there was the final aid station of the race, which was an Octoberfest celebration! There was German music playing and people dressed in traditional "Octoberfest" type clothing. This was actually the same aid station at the top of the second climb as well, but we reached it from a different side of the mountain. I took in the same things that I had at every other station up to that point - a half of a banana, 3 glasses full of electrolyte drink, and a half package of Cliff Shot Blocks electrolyte chews - and off I went. A jolly man dressed in his Octoberfest garb cheered me on, saying "it's all downhill from here to the finish line!". I already knew that, but it still felt good to hear him say it. For some reason, in my mind I was thinking that going about 7 or 8 km downhill to the finish line would be relatively quick and relatively easy compared to the rest of the race... WRONG! It seemed to take forever to get down that mountain and it didn't really feel any easier, despite the fact that I was going downhill. I think I was just getting physically tired of straining to protect my calf on every other step and mentally I was getting worn down as well. The trail was an endless series of switchbacks slowly making its way down the mountain. At one point I lost focus and kicked a rock and did a Superman dive onto the trail in front of me - thankfully I escaped with dirty hands, shorts, and t-shirt as well as a bruise on my thigh, but no major damage. I got up, dusted myself off and continued to make my way down to the finish. Finally I started to hear the music and the announcer at the finish line, which gave me a little more energy to get this race done. I could see far ahead and behind me for most of the last downhill, so I knew there was nobody I could catch, nor anyone that could catch me, so I tried to maintain my pace, with the relief of not having to push too hard.
When I finally crossed the finish line, I experienced a bunch of emotions simultaneously - relief (both mental and physical), satisfaction (that I managed to finish the race when I really didn't think I would be able to), frustration (at feeling so good fitness-wise, but not being able to push), and worry (that maybe I shouldn't have continued in the race). After chugging a few water bottles full of chocolate recovery drink, I immediately made my way to the massage therapy tent to talk to the people there about my calf. He had me lay face down on the table and started to check things out... You know that something's not good when the massage therapist working on you says "holy shit!". He followed up by saying that he couldn't believe the size of the knot in my sore calf. As he checked around further, he basically told me that everything is very tight from my hip flexor downward, and it's what was causing the huge knot/tightness in my lower calf area. He then proceeded to make me laugh/scream (that sound you make when something hurts so much you just want to kick the person who is pressing on the sore spot!) while he tried to work out some of the crap in there. After my pain session, I made my way to the results tent to learn that I had finished 10th overall. How could I not be pleased with that result considering everything that had happened. I was very happy to have just been able to finish the race, let alone to still place fairly well. But the competitor in me immediately started to wonder how well I could have placed had I been able to push all the way through the race...
The race itself and the location are fabulous. I certainly hope to be able to return to this race again to race it properly and to once again take in the amazing landscape.
2 days after the race, my calf is feeling much better - I have been vigilantly icing and stretching, and it seems to be paying off. I feel extremely fortunate to have escaped any serious fallout (at least it appears that way so far) from the race (altitude-wise or injury-wise) and I am happy that the choices I made during the race paid off - I know that I may not always be that lucky...
Some race photos here.
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