Training Log Archive: P-K

Event: Wilderness Traverse
 

WT take #2 for the Beer Barons. I mean how could we say no? We had such a blast last year walking our bikes for 8 hours down the hydrocut through monsoon flooding overnight that we thought we should come back and do it again, gotta make memories right? ... and add to that the fact that this year's race was in Oct which meant sub-zero temperatures and I was SOLD!

Started with a 4km run down the Seguin trail...and we jumped right onto our bikes and promptly pedalled past Adrenaline Rush for the first (and I'm sure last) time we will EVER be ahead of them in a race.

***FLASHBACK...at my first 24 hour race many years ago, as we were climbing out of the car after be driven to the finish by a volunteer...read DNF...my wife kindly pointed to Adrenaline Rush saying they had won the race in 17 hours and after crossing the finish line, they had jogged to the showers. I mean c'mon...who jogs to the showers?!***

We were off!

Quick bike to the drop for our first trek.

Biking in trail running shoes on clips...as easy as it is fun.

Two CPs off the Seguin trail to spread teams out a bit. A big lake to help us with the first and then not a ton to shoot at on the second one but we came out right on the creek where we planned and practically tripped over the flag. Quick jaunt back to the trail and 15 mins to get into shoes for the next bike and we're off again!

For those of you at home keeping score, we're off to a strong start and things are looking great for our full course finish!

We moved at a fairly good 'middle-of-the-pack' clip for the bike towards Massassauga provincial park, the only highlight being we got stopped by a train in Mactier where half the field caught up to us, and then thanks to a small mechanical right after, they passed us. But no matter.

The paddle was beautiful. We opted out of both canoe-whack options when we were picking routes so we settled in for a nice long paddle. We enjoyed a great tailwind for the first secion, feeling strong through portages and I felt great about the nav (I struggled a lot last year with the complicated paddle nav and took much more time on the prep this year than I did last year). But as we turned south and east we started to run into the same strong headwinds and crosswinds that everyone else did but I think we benefited from all being around 200lbs and things were as steady as could be expected. We pulled out around 5:10pm and although I was suffering quite a bit (clearly didn't eat/drink enough while trying to focus on nav and keep us upright) we were well ahead of our goal time so all was well!

So we headed off to the heart and soul of the race...the overnight.

OK...first go ahead and read the time. Yeah that's right, 14 hours and 36 minutes. I'll be you're all wondering "how did they do it?!?". Well, I'll tell you, as long as you combine poor route choice, with getting completely lost, with walking too far on trails that go the wrong direction, with thinking you know where you are (when you don't) then you too can take 15 hours to do a trek that even Bob thought could only take max 12 hours.

Things went great from CP8 to CP10 and we pulled in there just as darkness came down. Then when we started northeast from CP 10 our first two features came and went exactly as planned, but the next bit of water we hit was mistaken by our navigator (yours truly) to be Kenney Lake when it wasn't. That meant when we really did hit Kenney lake we thought it was Eagle lake and we proceeded to walk up and down it several times looking for CP11. And I mean SEVERAL times.

By this time we had gathered a group of other teams around us and thanks to quick thinking on their parts (not ours) we finally all figured out our mistakes and cruised into CP11 together (still before the 2am cutoff) but all of our buffer we had worked so hard on was gone.

From there things went (as they often do) from bad to worse. We started southeast towards Moon river but by now everyone was suffering and no one was thinking very clearly and we fell prey to the trail that turned north to the hydrocut. At the time I thought we were much closer to the TA so I thought we would hit the hydrocut quickly but after we had been walking for an hour I realized we were in big trouble...we finally arrived at 8:15 AM and DP was really beat up. Just 45 minutes before the cutoff...

At the TA we unfortunately had to leave DP behind - his knee was in really rough shape and he wasn't going to be able to get on the bike. So down one member we pushed on.

I remember being really happy to get on the bike and I felt great! Ok...I felt great for exactly 3 minutes because right as we left the TA, coming down a hill towards the ATV bridge I bailed HARD on some loose rocks. Took most of it on my knee and shoulder. Lovely way to start.

We chose roads up around and here we had our best split (6th) that we've ever had (this year or last). I know it comes with an asterisk as all the fast teams did that section at night, but I'll take it anyway!

We kept moving at a really good clip and pulled into CPs 14 and 15 in really good time (splits 9 and 9) and suddenly we started to wonder if we could actually squeeze in under the 2pm cutoff?

There ensued the most painful hour and ten minutes of the race for me and we left every last ounce of energy out on the trail fighting to get into Orrville before the cutoff. When I finally saw the community centre through the trees I suddenly realized we were about to pull it off and as the volunteers shouted "30 seconds left!!" as we pulled in I couldn't believe it. RB tapped the sportident and we actually made it in under the wire.

All in all, I was really happy with how we did. We started much stronger than I could ever have hoped and despite some terrible nav errors on the overnight the team pulled really hard on the last bike to save our race and get us in with no time to spare.

Congratulations to my whole team who trained hard and worked hard and congratulations to all the other racers who did the same.

As always, many thanks to Bob and Barb and the army of volunteers who make the event safe, challenging, and fun every year.