Adventure Racing race 7:47:00 [3]
Frontier Adventure Challenge with Meredythe and Shannon, the two girls that Geoff and I chose as winners of the Axis Gear Adventure Girls contest. Neither Meredythe or Shannon had raced before, so I was relieved that they had such a beautiful day for their first race.
I really enjoyed getting to know these girls via email in the weeks leading up to the race, and reassuring them that they could complete the event while not making any promises about not getting them lost in the woods. The girls were both my age but with two young kids apiece, neither of them have had the opportunity to put themselves first in awhile. One of the women has been watching her husband adventure race from the sidelines for a couple of years, while the other recently undertook a major lifestyle change (quitting smoking, taking up running) and is just starting to discover the positive benefits of fitness. Neither of them had any real running or biking background, so I was amazed at how well they did and the courage that it must have taken them to even try. I think it's very easy to forget what it felt like when we first started this sport, so one of the highlights for me yesterday was probably rediscovering adventure racing through these women's eyes.
Throughout the day, I tried my best to make sure I wasn't pushing the girls anymore than they wanted to by letting them set the pace and giving them any suggestions or pointers that I could. They were keen for the paddling so I sat in the middle. One had the SI card and the other the passport so they could experience the excitement of finding and punching a CP. Our paddle was leisurely and uneventful. We made the cutoff but had decided ahead of time just to stick to the regular course as both girls felt that would be enough for them. I'm glad that we stuck to this decision as it took us almost the full 8 hours to complete the regular course and I wanted to try my best to make sure that we finished ranked.
It became apparent from the first hill leading out of the resort that one of the girls was going to find the biking more challenging than the other. I partially cursed myself for not bringing a bike tow while at the same time recognizing that I wouldn't have put anyone on it without practicing beforehand. So we did our best to keep the pace workable for everyone and tried to establish a paceline where we could.
Both girls were very happy to get off their bikes for CPs 6 and 7, which we found fairly easily as there were lots of other teams milling about. I thought it only appropriate for the girls to experience some swamp swimming so we went chest high across the water from CP7. They both thought that was pretty cool (figuratively AND literally!). Bushwhacked up the hill and took the trail back to CP5.
The biking to CP8 was a bit slow for us but I tried to keep morale up by letting them know it would be short. The bike ride back to Hidden Valley was tough for the one girl and I tried all the positive techniques I could to help her through it. It's tough to know what someone will find helpful vs. condascending.
We started the final trek at 4:35 and I had estimated that it would take us about an hour. I knew we had enough time if everything went well, but not enough time to take things too casually. Like many teams, we found 10 to be a bit challenging but talking to some other teams and changing our attack point meant we didn't waste too much time there. 11 and 12 were relatively straightforward. We left 12 at 5:38 and headed down to the road so that we could run in. As we ran down the last hill into the resort the girls were so excited and I was for them. Lots of hugs and high fives, and pictures to celebrate.
Geoff had asked me to do this a few times in the past but I never had the courage before yesterday. I always said, go ask someone who knows what they are doing like Leanimal or Bash. But I was really glad that I put my fears of embarassment and failure aside and agreed this time. It was a really powerful experience for me to have played the role that I did for these women. It forced me to be the "ideal teammate" and reminded me of some teamwork practices that I'd neglectfully let slide.
I think that both of the girls are keen to try some more races and they were even talking about running a half-marathon together in the fall. What a great day.