Training Log Archive: abiperkIn the 1 days ending Aug 15, 2017:
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Tuesday Aug 15, 2017 #
12 AM
Adventure Racing race 18:45:00 [3]
We got into Freemont around 3am and made it through the first few obstacles easily. It was actually more tedious than anything else, with water levels low and no choice but to scoot over rock fields. Then things began to get more interesting. The water was bigger, the shoots more technical, and the portages weren't as straightforward as they seemed. I never felt in danger, but I also wasn't entirely comfortable doing it in the dark. I ended up swimming twice (thank goodness for the Mysterioso gear that Mark recommended we order right before the race!), and somehow managed to save the boat, the packs, and my paddle when we flipped.
Finally, we exited the canyon and began the 12km trek to the Alcova Reservoir put-in. I walked ahead of the guys then, hauling the filled center beam from our boat, in part to warm up and in part to collect myself. It was my lowest point of the race, but relative to other expedition race low's, it really wasn't so bad, and I knew it even in the moment. I walked and cried and let the emotional release happen, and within 10-15 minutes, I had moved on. As we exited the canyon, a race medic drove up and offered us hot water to drink, which definitely helped, too. Later, I saw some footage of the section during the day, and it actually looked like a lot of fun. Wouldn't mind going back at some point and trying it in daylight!
We shuffled our way along the road to Alcova, the end of the race in sight. NV Journey rolled in as we were inflating, and we got on the water about 10 minutes ahead of them. We paddled across the reservoir, portaged over the dam, and then settled into the final stretch -- 20-ish miles down the North Platte, a relatively lazy moving river with few benchmarks along it to let us know where we were.
We all had moments of sleepiness on the water, and at one point we put down our paddles, laid back, and let the current carry us for half a mile or so. Otherwise, though, despite some failed sing-a-longs and stilted conversation, we were able to keep ourselves moving, and we whooped and hollered when we finally saw the bridge at the takeout.
We knew NV Journey probably wasn't too far behind us, and we made it our goal to get in and out of TA before they arrived. We frantically built our bikes and swapped mandatory gear from our paddle kit before taking off down the road for a 36-mile ride up and over Casper Mountain, our TA time just under 40 minutes. We never saw NV Journey come through. I wish they had splits of our TA times throughout the race -- we made a point to focus more on efficiency coming in and during our transitions (the moments we could control, during such a fast and furious race), and we all felt really good about how we moved through.
Brent and I were both pretty sleepy at the start of the ride, but once the big climb started -- 3000+ feet over ~15 kiometers -- we woke right up. We rode with 361 Adventures and Good 'Nuff, and it was really nice to chat with folks we hadn't seen yet on the course and hear about their adventures.
It began to drizzle as we neared the top of the climb, and then a steady rain started to fall just as we got to the paved road. We knew we'd gotten lucky with the weather -- we'd heard stories about teams getting stuck in cement-like mud on that road during a storm the night before.
Brent navigated us right to the CP on the mountain (which was actually a couple kilometers below the summit and had us fearing that we'd passed it and would have to climb back up), and then we coasted down the other side, flew through town to the final CP underneath a railroad bridge (talk about confident, precision nav from Brent!), and hit the finish line at 6:45pm, meeting our goal to be in Casper by dinner time... and good for 22nd place.
Overall, I'm so happy with this race -- we had a great team experience, we successfully raced a course (rather than focusing on other teams' performances) that offered a fantastic journey with stretches of far more interesting and complicated nav than we expected, and I felt stronger than I ever have before, expedition race or otherwise. It was the culmination of eight months of hard work and training, and it felt so so good to have it all come together.
Four days later, I'm nursing a few blisters and some tendonitis in my left ankle and right knee, but generally feeling good physically and mentally, and excited for the next challenge.
Finally, we exited the canyon and began the 12km trek to the Alcova Reservoir put-in. I walked ahead of the guys then, hauling the filled center beam from our boat, in part to warm up and in part to collect myself. It was my lowest point of the race, but relative to other expedition race low's, it really wasn't so bad, and I knew it even in the moment. I walked and cried and let the emotional release happen, and within 10-15 minutes, I had moved on. As we exited the canyon, a race medic drove up and offered us hot water to drink, which definitely helped, too. Later, I saw some footage of the section during the day, and it actually looked like a lot of fun. Wouldn't mind going back at some point and trying it in daylight!
We shuffled our way along the road to Alcova, the end of the race in sight. NV Journey rolled in as we were inflating, and we got on the water about 10 minutes ahead of them. We paddled across the reservoir, portaged over the dam, and then settled into the final stretch -- 20-ish miles down the North Platte, a relatively lazy moving river with few benchmarks along it to let us know where we were.
We all had moments of sleepiness on the water, and at one point we put down our paddles, laid back, and let the current carry us for half a mile or so. Otherwise, though, despite some failed sing-a-longs and stilted conversation, we were able to keep ourselves moving, and we whooped and hollered when we finally saw the bridge at the takeout.
We knew NV Journey probably wasn't too far behind us, and we made it our goal to get in and out of TA before they arrived. We frantically built our bikes and swapped mandatory gear from our paddle kit before taking off down the road for a 36-mile ride up and over Casper Mountain, our TA time just under 40 minutes. We never saw NV Journey come through. I wish they had splits of our TA times throughout the race -- we made a point to focus more on efficiency coming in and during our transitions (the moments we could control, during such a fast and furious race), and we all felt really good about how we moved through.
Brent and I were both pretty sleepy at the start of the ride, but once the big climb started -- 3000+ feet over ~15 kiometers -- we woke right up. We rode with 361 Adventures and Good 'Nuff, and it was really nice to chat with folks we hadn't seen yet on the course and hear about their adventures.
It began to drizzle as we neared the top of the climb, and then a steady rain started to fall just as we got to the paved road. We knew we'd gotten lucky with the weather -- we'd heard stories about teams getting stuck in cement-like mud on that road during a storm the night before.
Brent navigated us right to the CP on the mountain (which was actually a couple kilometers below the summit and had us fearing that we'd passed it and would have to climb back up), and then we coasted down the other side, flew through town to the final CP underneath a railroad bridge (talk about confident, precision nav from Brent!), and hit the finish line at 6:45pm, meeting our goal to be in Casper by dinner time... and good for 22nd place.
Overall, I'm so happy with this race -- we had a great team experience, we successfully raced a course (rather than focusing on other teams' performances) that offered a fantastic journey with stretches of far more interesting and complicated nav than we expected, and I felt stronger than I ever have before, expedition race or otherwise. It was the culmination of eight months of hard work and training, and it felt so so good to have it all come together.
Four days later, I'm nursing a few blisters and some tendonitis in my left ankle and right knee, but generally feeling good physically and mentally, and excited for the next challenge.