His bike kept getting flats. When we missed the paddle cut off, we had to bike 30 km to the finish. With no working bike, to avoid disqualification, he decided to run. So he ran 18 miles to the finish after a 20 odd mile trek!
The volunteer checked with the director and he was allowed to leave his bike.
After having to bike that last section too...I will second the nomination that Mark is a beast!!!!!
Mark is a beast. Its what we had to do though to stay as a ranked team. Our team rocked!! What is crazy though is we did the 12 hour trek then he busted out the run. He was doing 6.7-7.2 mph through most of it. He should get into ultras.
Finally getting in the habit of visiting this site!
PEDs are legal in amateur AR, rigth? JK. I am terrible at training but it must be the adrenaline in a race that gets me through. I am still having trouble staying awake at my computer as a result of the WT though - and it's Wednesday!
Double M: Too much of the same motion would crush me. I'll leave the ultras to you.
And in name-dropping news... I asked Kyle Peter for a reference at Tec Labs/Tecnu and they already offered to sponsor one of my adventure races! And Garret Bean of Tecnu AR asked to be my friend on Facebook! Such normal, nice guys that I forget they are #5 in the world.
I prefer the joy of finding 20-40 control markers during a race rather than 8, but everything else was so good about the race that it's pretty irresistible next year.
Does this mean we are going back!??!?!?!! Only if you promise to put tubes in your tires.
So glad you guys made it and I was *really* impressed at your team's gutsy finish! :)
Mark's comment about the controls is interesting and highlights one of the differences between Canadian and American AR. We think of wilderness AR as being like an expedition. Traditionally, Canadian adventure racers have frowned upon CPs that don't feel like part of the flow of the journey. The fewer CPs the better. Canadian wilderness races aren't about finding CPs, they're about making good route choices over long distances, preferably without many roads or trails. It's mentally tough when you have to stay focused for long distances between CPs. The more CPs on a race course, the more similar the teams' routes become.
For example, imagine if we'd put a CP on Bear Lake on the way to Upper Marsh Lake. There were 4 viable route choices on the paddle section that spread teams out over a large area as they headed down to CP7. It was very cool to watch live on the GPS tracker! But that CP would have knocked it down to one route choice.
Of course a few CPs and TAs are needed for practical reasons - safety, directing racers away from private land, changing disciplines, etc. But most of our crowd would be very happy to see only 8 CPs in 24 hours. On the other hand, the traditionalists would complain about our loop course! In old school wilderness AR, it was almost aways point to point with a bus ride to the start. For safety and practicality, we kept the course more compressed.
It's not that Canadians don't enjoy other types of races. We have less wilderness-y races in Ontario, we come down to the U.S. for different styles of AR, and we do rogaines, etc. As far as I'm concerned, all kinds of map and compass sports are good! :)
Hope to see you next year! (On a working bike...)
P.S. We decided that it was OK for him to leave his mandatory bike behind because he was gaining no advantage by doing so, and no other team was going to complain about it, and frankly we were cheering for him! :)
The minimal CP count was a large factor in WT's appeal for me. And having raced it, it felt perfect. Exactly as many as you needed!
Maybe for future races we could carry a spare flag and run ahead and stage it at our midroute key locations to give Mark satisfaction. Or I could set a 30 control 5 km orienteering pinball course in the month prior to burn it out of his system.
Haha! :) Personally, I did the CNYO Rogaine in July so I could have the fun of finding lots of CPs in 24 hours.
When I saw 8CPs for the race my jaw dropped. I loved it! I am glad you guys keep it minimal CPs; totally different from what we were used too. I also like it when there is an over load of CPs on the course like how the Summer Fury was this year. Had racers scrambling all over the place. It also kept every team on the course for the full time duration.
What if WT put an over load of CPs on the course and see how many each team could get within 30 hours? You would probably freak everyone out. That would be way intense. I would probably pass out a quarter of the way through.
Think about it..... 50 CPs in 30 hours! But make sure no one could get the full 50 of course just to mess with us; everyone will get their moneys worth being out on the course for the full 30 hours. :)
That sounds like a rogaine to me! And I love rogaines too. As you say, there are all *kinds* of ways to have fun with map and compass. I'm glad we have so many options!
We have MarkVT interested in joining the o club caravan to some Ohio and Western PA rogaines this winter. Woo hoo!
Maybe Michigan will have a short rogaine in the metro D this winter to test the waters for interest.
It seems a good fit for WT to have the low count, since they are more remote than the local ARs, which need extra CPs to keep people off the roads.
This is the lowest number we've ever had because we often need to introduce CPs to steer people away from private land, roads, etc. We were really fortunate in this area to have lots of Crown land.
I'm way late to the conversation (still not a habit to come here but starting to). The logic for the small number of CPs makes a lot of sense Bash. I LOVED all the options for getting from CP 3 to 6, and I can see how any other CPs in there would obviously cut out routes. We passed about 10 teams on the trek by picking solid routes (a little bogged down west of Wilson Lake; still pondering exactly where we picked up the 401/Sandy Rd south) so that was satisfying. I would keep the trek exactly as is.
For me (and I'll reiterate that I loved the race and overall course design and this is purely for the sake of good conversation), I would love to see some more CPs on the bike where there's one primary route over 50 miles, with really just one turn off (that messed up several teams so that added value to good route selection). Adding "bike-o" CPs off of terrain near the bike trail would keep navigators on their toes and allow teams more opportunities to stay close to the strong bikers by being smart and with everyone keeping an eye out for the next feature.
However, every CP added means more time added to the clock and in the end, fewer teams would make the paddle cut-off.
Like you all say, variety is the spice of AR/life and I will never argue with that!
My main complaint is: too many fun things to do, not enough time!
This discussion thread is closed.