Training Log Archive: HermesIn the 1 days ending Jul 12, 2014:
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Saturday Jul 12, 2014 #
Event: Wilderness Traverse
8 AM
Adventure Race (Wilderness Traverse) 24:00:00 [3]
Wilderness Traverse as the Wonderbroads (Nicky Cameron and Mrs. Tiny). Leanimal introduced me to Nicky in December and immediately I was like "where have you girls been my whole life?!" It didn't take long for us to decide to do WT together.
I have to say, Mrs. Tiny and Nicky are total gems. Strong chicks with tons of great experience and the best part is that they are ridiculously fun. I was so excited to race with these girls just based on the silly email and facebook communication leading up to WT.
The start of the paddle we were pretty excited and settled into a decent rhythm. The paddle was stunning, just slightly long (probably based on the fact that we didn't get much opportunity to get out of the boat other than to slog the boat through weeds/bullrush or dams). After the paddle, Nicky portaged the boat like a BOSS and into the TA we went for pizza, trekking gear and advil. We saw some teams trekking towards us while entering the TA which made us think about our trek choice but we quickly decided to stick to our plan and away we went...into what would be a 14 hour trek.
This would be the 'trek of endangered species' during which we saw a whip-poor-will and 2 rattlers (I only cried at the spotting of the first snake). I packed about 8 hours worth of food thinking it would be plenty but eventually I ran out followed shortly by Nicky running out too. Thankfully Kristen packed some extra food...as a team we still went about 4 hours without food which lead to some pretty good hunger bonks. More highlights on this trek: bog hopping (enough to warrant hip flexor pain similar to xc skiing), torrential rain like I have never experienced, swamp swim after swamp swim, freshly caught grilled TA bass, enough bugs to make you bat shit crazy, and giardia pretzels (if I get away without giardia I will be extremely surprised).
Arriving at TA2 we were already prepared for a short course and decided on a civilized transition (Thanks Eco!). Fast forward a 40km road ride to the finish and there we were.
What an amazing experience with these 2 ladies. Funny, Bob asked me "what was Kristen's reaction when she got confused on nav?" and I can honestly say that she was always calm, cool and collected. Super impressive. It was pretty cool to see what we were capable of and how we persevered through the gnarly Canadian Shield. Thanks ladies for the adventure and thanks to all the volunteers this year!
I have to say, Mrs. Tiny and Nicky are total gems. Strong chicks with tons of great experience and the best part is that they are ridiculously fun. I was so excited to race with these girls just based on the silly email and facebook communication leading up to WT.
The start of the paddle we were pretty excited and settled into a decent rhythm. The paddle was stunning, just slightly long (probably based on the fact that we didn't get much opportunity to get out of the boat other than to slog the boat through weeds/bullrush or dams). After the paddle, Nicky portaged the boat like a BOSS and into the TA we went for pizza, trekking gear and advil. We saw some teams trekking towards us while entering the TA which made us think about our trek choice but we quickly decided to stick to our plan and away we went...into what would be a 14 hour trek.
This would be the 'trek of endangered species' during which we saw a whip-poor-will and 2 rattlers (I only cried at the spotting of the first snake). I packed about 8 hours worth of food thinking it would be plenty but eventually I ran out followed shortly by Nicky running out too. Thankfully Kristen packed some extra food...as a team we still went about 4 hours without food which lead to some pretty good hunger bonks. More highlights on this trek: bog hopping (enough to warrant hip flexor pain similar to xc skiing), torrential rain like I have never experienced, swamp swim after swamp swim, freshly caught grilled TA bass, enough bugs to make you bat shit crazy, and giardia pretzels (if I get away without giardia I will be extremely surprised).
Arriving at TA2 we were already prepared for a short course and decided on a civilized transition (Thanks Eco!). Fast forward a 40km road ride to the finish and there we were.
What an amazing experience with these 2 ladies. Funny, Bob asked me "what was Kristen's reaction when she got confused on nav?" and I can honestly say that she was always calm, cool and collected. Super impressive. It was pretty cool to see what we were capable of and how we persevered through the gnarly Canadian Shield. Thanks ladies for the adventure and thanks to all the volunteers this year!