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Saturday Aug 21, 2021 #
9 AM
Adventure Race 20:00:00 [3]
I guess this is worth logging.
WT 2021
After Eco Challenge was released last year, I got a handful of people asking me to make a team and apply for season 2. My first question was, 'Did you actually watch the show?' What part really appealed to you, the hypothermia leg? Or the leg where they had to build those shitty boats from local wood and paddle for up to 24 hours straight on them?
Either way, I told everyone that if they did a 24 hour race first I'd consider it, and from that Team Alchemy was born.
Our team training in the lead up was a 1 hour bike ride on local trails, while minor, at least gave me the confidence that everyone could competently mountain bike (was my biggest concern)
Unfortunately we turned into a 3 man team when Jamie had a death in the family and had to stay home.
Not gonna lie, I was pretty nervous leading a team. It's been a number of years since my last race I was thankful that baloney had told Duncan there is a significant difference between orienteering and adventure race navigation/maps.
Luckily the trek was first and CP1 was straightforward and got my brain into the unfamiliar scale.
CP2 I gave my guys the option to go straight with a swim or to go longer north around Gun Lake. They preferred to stay dry, so we went the long way. I took a rough bearing from the bend in Gun Lake (where it widens) and was ecstatic when we came out right on the end of the portage into Ernest Lake.
CP3 I took another bearing NE and came out right on Black Lake as planned. Then it was just follow the edge of the lakes we'd be paddling on the next leg.
Was starting to feel mentally tired here, so glad most of the heavy lifting was done nav wise. Getting from CP4 to the finish I gave the team the ~8.5km trail+road vs 2km cross country/2.5km road and they quickly decided on the longer route - the off-trail trekking was tougher than they expected. You could feel all our spirits rising as we headed back, but we were still happy to reach TA and start the paddle.
I think we all really enjoyed the paddle. This was one thing we hadn't worked on at all. Duncan has done 2 portaging camping trips in his life, I haven't paddled since 2013 WT - but Emily has a lot of experience, but she HATED using kayak paddles!
We could definitely used some paddling practice/lessons beforehand, but this whole section was no problem. Portages were not an issue, it probably would have suited us if there were a few longer ones.
Probably the only section of note was paddling the windy Black River in the dark, we were fortunate there were some teams in front of us and just seeing the glow of their headlamps had us confident we were travelling in the right direction. The main thunderstorm kicked in as we hit Powederhorn Lake and headlamps became useless, finding the Hunt Camp trail was scary, but again, having teams in front made life a lot easier.
We got back with about 45 mins before the time cut off and our experience kicked in hard here - had done a terrible job of organising the equipment and to cap it off Emily's tail light died right as we were checking at the TA to leave and it was a frantic rush to find another flashing red tail light.
I didn't mention it, but was pretty sure we wouldn't be able to complete the full bike leg in the time available, so just said 'let's get to the first CP and decide from there'. I decided to be a bit risky and do some map memory from that point - the first part was pretty straight forward, just get to the end of the road, up the hill, then quick left, right after about 2k, left soon after and we'd be on the road that leads to the ATV trail.....
Everyone who was there can guess what happened.
We ended up at the famous sign at the end of the (wrong) road (with about 5 other teams!). We talked about it and decided even if we got to the next CP there was no chance at that point in finishing the course. I think we were all done at that stage, but no one wanted to say it (my headlamp also died which would have been an issue even if we went the right way). We rolled back slowly.
Seeing how many teams also not complete the first three legs gave us a bit of a morale boost.
Many thanks to Bob, Bash and their mega crew. There is definitely talk for doing it again next year and we might have another team along for the ride as well.
WT 2021
After Eco Challenge was released last year, I got a handful of people asking me to make a team and apply for season 2. My first question was, 'Did you actually watch the show?' What part really appealed to you, the hypothermia leg? Or the leg where they had to build those shitty boats from local wood and paddle for up to 24 hours straight on them?
Either way, I told everyone that if they did a 24 hour race first I'd consider it, and from that Team Alchemy was born.
Our team training in the lead up was a 1 hour bike ride on local trails, while minor, at least gave me the confidence that everyone could competently mountain bike (was my biggest concern)
Unfortunately we turned into a 3 man team when Jamie had a death in the family and had to stay home.
Not gonna lie, I was pretty nervous leading a team. It's been a number of years since my last race I was thankful that baloney had told Duncan there is a significant difference between orienteering and adventure race navigation/maps.
Luckily the trek was first and CP1 was straightforward and got my brain into the unfamiliar scale.
CP2 I gave my guys the option to go straight with a swim or to go longer north around Gun Lake. They preferred to stay dry, so we went the long way. I took a rough bearing from the bend in Gun Lake (where it widens) and was ecstatic when we came out right on the end of the portage into Ernest Lake.
CP3 I took another bearing NE and came out right on Black Lake as planned. Then it was just follow the edge of the lakes we'd be paddling on the next leg.
Was starting to feel mentally tired here, so glad most of the heavy lifting was done nav wise. Getting from CP4 to the finish I gave the team the ~8.5km trail+road vs 2km cross country/2.5km road and they quickly decided on the longer route - the off-trail trekking was tougher than they expected. You could feel all our spirits rising as we headed back, but we were still happy to reach TA and start the paddle.
I think we all really enjoyed the paddle. This was one thing we hadn't worked on at all. Duncan has done 2 portaging camping trips in his life, I haven't paddled since 2013 WT - but Emily has a lot of experience, but she HATED using kayak paddles!
We could definitely used some paddling practice/lessons beforehand, but this whole section was no problem. Portages were not an issue, it probably would have suited us if there were a few longer ones.
Probably the only section of note was paddling the windy Black River in the dark, we were fortunate there were some teams in front of us and just seeing the glow of their headlamps had us confident we were travelling in the right direction. The main thunderstorm kicked in as we hit Powederhorn Lake and headlamps became useless, finding the Hunt Camp trail was scary, but again, having teams in front made life a lot easier.
We got back with about 45 mins before the time cut off and our experience kicked in hard here - had done a terrible job of organising the equipment and to cap it off Emily's tail light died right as we were checking at the TA to leave and it was a frantic rush to find another flashing red tail light.
I didn't mention it, but was pretty sure we wouldn't be able to complete the full bike leg in the time available, so just said 'let's get to the first CP and decide from there'. I decided to be a bit risky and do some map memory from that point - the first part was pretty straight forward, just get to the end of the road, up the hill, then quick left, right after about 2k, left soon after and we'd be on the road that leads to the ATV trail.....
Everyone who was there can guess what happened.
We ended up at the famous sign at the end of the (wrong) road (with about 5 other teams!). We talked about it and decided even if we got to the next CP there was no chance at that point in finishing the course. I think we were all done at that stage, but no one wanted to say it (my headlamp also died which would have been an issue even if we went the right way). We rolled back slowly.
Seeing how many teams also not complete the first three legs gave us a bit of a morale boost.
Many thanks to Bob, Bash and their mega crew. There is definitely talk for doing it again next year and we might have another team along for the ride as well.