Training Log Archive: Bash

Sunny morning after a sound post-race sleep... sitting on the deck drinking coffee with friends... enjoying the expansive view of the Ottawa River from Esprit Rafting... As some people have pointed out, it's not all bad when a race ends early.

We sought out the University of Waterloo students who were doing their first race - the ones who had been unaccounted for at the time we went to bed. It turns out that they were one of the teams who put their boats into the initial rapid by mistake, so they had a nasty beginning to their paddle. After 3 hours of paddling, they arrived at CP4. It was 6 p.m., and they hoped to get some help. One teammate was bleeding quite a bit from running into a rock, and one of the two pontoons of their boat was mostly deflated. I don't know about them, but we didn't get the boat patch kit that was supposed to be included. Well, there were no volunteers at CP4. They'd mentioned that they had no radio contact, but this was only Saturday at 6 p.m., and these guys were at the place that had been set as a dark zone. I would have expected them to be planning to camp, and I'd also expect them to have more first aid gear than most CPs, given their location. But they were gone, and so were the volunteers at the next rapid, who were supposed to help teams scout.

So the students had to overcome adversity on their own - dealing with the injury with their limited first aid kit, deciding how to handle the major rapids without scouting assistance, and sitting in their boat on an awkward angle for hours because they were relying on a single pontoon. They solved their problems and made it through all the whitewater - way to go, kids! And then at 9 p.m., when they were 21 hours into the race and only 2 hours from the finish line, paddling in flat water, their support crew was waiting for them at a bridge. They were told that they were lost and needed to be pulled off the course. They were stunned. They'd aimed to finish the race in 30 hrs, and they were well ahead of schedule. But they were told that the course was closed ahead of them, and so they got a good night's sleep like the rest of us. They were very disappointed, but I was relieved to hear that they plan to come back and do another race. I was afraid they might not give the sport another chance.

We also talked with the woman who got her foot caught under her backpack, which was attached to an upside-down Tomcat, and got dragged underwater through huge, rocky rapids. She really thought she was going to die. Her leg was heavily bandaged from bashing it on rocks.

So there were some epic stories from this race, and fortunately none of them belonged to our team! I'm just glad that everyone is OK and keen to race again.

This was a very different Raid The North from the ones we've done in the past. Traditionally, these races are 24-36 hrs long, and a significant percentage of teams don't finish. I haven't yet heard what the winning time was, but we were 6th of 14 teams with a time of 17 hrs 37 min, so this race was much shorter than usual. It was a fun race course in a beautiful area, but it had the feeling of an Adventure Challenge Long Course rather than a Raid The North.

Unfortunately, we approached the race with the expectation that we would be out for 30-36 hrs, so we spent considerable time packing food and gear in the days leading up to the race. At first, we carried larger packs than we needed, anticipating long sections with possible stops due to the heavy rain and thunderstorms that were in the forecast when we left home. Our early transitions were longer than they would have been if we had realized that we would be back to base camp for Saturday dinner. We kept assuming that unknown challenges lay ahead that would take more time than the distances on the map indicated. Maybe the logging roads were really nasty to bike on, or maybe the speed on the 60 km river paddle would be slow in the new inflatable kayaks. After all, there were a couple of dark zones specified on the paddle section, so there seemed to be the expectation that teams might spend the night out before racing to the finish by the Sunday noon deadline. However, the entire race course was closed by dark on Saturday night.

We began at midnight on mountain bikes. It was supposed to be a 38 km ride on logging roads west of the Noire River. ThreePin was navigating this section with a 1978 map. We got to a junction where the main trail clearly went left with lots of signage, and an overgrown-looking trail went right. Pete Dobos went right, and our team went left. We should have gone with Pete. Many teams made the same error - or worse. Because the map was so old, it took awhile before it was truly clear that this trail couldn't possibly go where we needed to go. We turned around after 7 km, with some long hill climbs. We started a trend, and a number of teams turned around after we did. We spent the last part of this section riding with the Milton Basement Racers, arriving at the TA with our odometers at 52 km instead of 38 km - sigh. Surprisingly, we were in 6th place! Team Running Free spent 7 hrs on the bike section, which took us 3.5 hrs even with our big detour, and they did some bushwhacking with their bikes, too. After that, they skipped the trek and went straight to the paddle, which would make for a fun day even though they were unranked. Note to self: NiteRider Storm light lasted 3:20 hrs, then failed suddenly.

We transitioned to the trek, where I was navigating. I'd planned to go 6 km on a road to a lake, then turn off on an ATV trail and do a fairly short bushwhack (just over 2 km) to another ATV trail, where we could either go 4 km around a big hill or just bushwhack 2 km over the top. Then it was about a 4 km road run to our bikes. We jog-walked faster on the road than I'd estimated, and the road hadn't been on our map, so I wasn't sure how accurate my distance estimations were. When we got to an ATV trail by a lake that headed the wrong direction and appeared to be a private driveway, I decided to continue on the road. It turned out that we'd been at the correct lake after all, and when we got to another lake 2 km later, I checked the shape carefully in the first light and headed off on a slightly different bearing to the same spot. It was only 2.5 km of bushwhacking, and we continued on roads as planned. However, we got passed by a couple of teams on the trek, so I was annoyed at myself. It probably only cost us about 25 minutes, but there wasn't time to make up for errors in this race.

We picked up our bikes at a bike drop and rode 12 km to meet our crew at the TA. Once we arrived, they could start pumping up the Tomcat inflatable kayaks that we'd heard so much about from the RTNX racers. That took them over half an hour with one pump while we had hot food and prepared to spend all day on the water. We carried extra layers in case we needed to stop due to thunderstorms. It was a 60 km paddle with lots of whitewater sections. We headed toward the water shortly before 10 a.m., realizing now that we would likely finish on Saturday evening.

The TA was by the Rapides Enrages, a very difficult rapid with many sections that shouldn't be run in open boats. The diagrams in our river guide showed a complex Class 3 route that required one short portage around a dangerous ledge. Since we were only doing Class 1 and 2 in this race, we were supposed to take the portage trail to the end, then put into the water at the bottom. Unfortunately, portage trails around rapids usually have many beginnings and many ends, and it wasn't clear where to go, so several teams put into the river well before the end of the portage trail. I'm sure that Tiny will provide a colourful explanation of how his boat folded in half lengthwise shortly before it expelled both paddlers! Some young first-time racers from the University of Waterloo went in by mistake, and another woman told us about how her boat flipped upside down, but her foot got caught under her backpack, and she was going down big rapids underwater banging off rocks, with rare gasps of air. She thought she was going to die, and was lucky to escape with bad cuts on her leg. Another team got into the water, then noticed the big chutes ahead, and managed to just make the far shore where they bushwhacked around. Not a good scene.

Oblivious to all this, we portaged the pigs - er boats - to the bottom of the rapid and headed out. There were several mandatory portages and a mandatory scout rapid, plus lots of Class 1 and 2 rapids that we could run. We aren't fans of the inflatable Tomcats for paddling on flat water, and 'Bent looked like he wanted to take an axe to our boat after the first portage crunched his neck. You don't expect an inflatable boat to have good performance, but you would at least expect it to be light - but you'd be wrong. It's big and awkward too, and the most surprising thing to me is that the darned things don't slide. You could be on a 45 degree angle on smooth rock, and you still would have to heave like crazy to get the barge into the river. However... having said all that, the Tomcats are very forgiving in whitewater, and they may even have saved some lives at Rapides Enrages. They certainly made it possible for teams who might otherwise have smashed or lost their canoes there to continue the race.

I'm not a big fan of whitewater in adventure racing, even though I've enjoyed paddling it with 'Bent occasionally in places like the Nahanni River. I worry that some people take risks beyond their abilities while racing that they wouldn't take on a recreational trip, and I doubt that some new racers would know what to do in the event of a foot-trap situation or whatever. At the RTN Champs in 2005, all teams had a mandatory session on whitewater safety before paddling in the same area. That would have been good, since there was no whitewater certification required. The Tomcats reduced the skill required, which was probably the thinking, but there are still some things to know about what to do if you end up outside your boat, which some racers did.

It was a gorgeous day - not a drop of rain in spite of the forecast - and for awhile, we got lulled into a feeling of being on vacation. We couldn't see a team ahead or behind, and it was easy to let the boat spin occasionally while we ate a chocolate bar or to admire the scenery while chatting to our teammates. Then we saw a team appear well behind us, and we leapt into action. For about 40 minutes, we paddled as hard as we could and hauled our boats down a lining section where we slipped on slimy rocks. No matter how hard we worked, it became clear that the other team were better paddlers, and eventually they caught up. It turned out to be Running Free. They were just out to enjoy the paddle, and they had seen us, so they had decided to catch up to chat. Phew! We talked with them for 10 minutes or so, then headed off again. It was lucky for us that they had lit a fire under us, because we caught a glimpse of the team ahead. GO!! They noticed us too and began to paddle hard to get away.

We got off the water around 4 p.m. and dashed to our TA, where we just threw on our climbing harnesses and ran to the zip line across Chutes Coulonges - a big waterfall. This is the same waterfall that we zipped across in the RTN Champs in 2005, but that was at night, so this was the first time that we'd seen it! Padre and Team Hunger were just getting their team across as we arrived, and we had to wait for them. We all went across, then scrambled up to an ATV trail. The instructions said to follow the ATV trail signs to Fort Coulonge, but there was no posted sign when we got to the intersection, although the team 45 minutes ahead of us saw one. We found the sign on the ground about 30 m past the turn-off, then went a couple of minutes further before deciding that the intersection must have been our turn. It felt all wrong, because it looked like only a few hundred meters on the map from the river gorge, but it was a much longer, very circuitous route along the edge of full-grown corn fields. When we emerged at the road, I was surprised and happy to see our support crew right there, since I figured that we'd need to run along the road a bit to the TA, given all the twists and turns in our trail. I spoke with several navigators, all of whom agreed that the last section was nothing like what we expected. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

We treated this TA like a bike pick-up, just hopping on and pedaling for the finish. We did the last section of road and rail trail in a pace line, with 'Bent leading, followed by ThreePin towing LoTox, and I just stuck to her wheel. We finished at 5:37 p.m., in plenty of time for dinner! We were 13 minutes behind the 5th place team, and maybe 40 minutes behind 4th place. So in spite of it not being a perfect race for us, it was a respectable finish.

ThreePin and LoTox are accustomed to racing together, and this was our first time racing as a 4-person team with them. I think we blended well. Our pace and skills are similar enough in all the disciplines, and while it wasn't fast enough to win, it was good enough for the 5-team podium if we had spent a bit less time detouring in the first two sections. The one big difference is that 'Bent and I have had some epic race experiences with cold rain and no support crew access for almost 24 hrs, so our backpacks are heavier with extra layers and safety gear, and we spend longer at transitions ensuring that we leave warm and well fed. LoTox and ThreePin are normally very speedy at transitions, although they haven't done an RTN before, so they kindly agreed to slow down for us. As it turned out, their style was the correct one for this race, and that's what we did for the final two TAs. If I'd known that I'd be out for less than 18 hrs, I would have dressed differently, eaten less, etc.

Kudos to Esprit Rafting for expertly and graciously changing their plans to feed dinner to almost 100 RTN racers, support crew and volunteers a full day earlier than expected - and at the same time as all the teams from the Frontier Adventure Challenge. Esprit seems like a very well-run company, and we were blown away to learn about all their environmental policies and involvement.

Big thanks to our support crew - Mrs. ThreePin, Skye (age 7) and New Guy Tom. They were incredibly organized and helpful.

As we hit our sleeping bags around 9:30 p.m., we heard that people were heading out to the river to look for the first-time racers from the University of Waterloo. I'd talked with them before the race and really hoped that they were OK!

Arrived at Esprit Rafting to check in for Raid The North. Our team this time was a new combination of ThreePin, LoTox, 'Bent and myself. We were accused of hogging all the females, since several teams had difficulty finding a woman to race with, as they are required to do - and we had two!

Because of the midnight start for RTN, I always make unrealistic plans to find time for a nap in the afternoon or evening. Of course, it rarely happens, since there are always friends to chat with, gear to fuss with and support crew to set up. The race briefing was at 4 p.m., which is when maps were to be handed out. We got race instructions then, but the maps didn't arrive until 8 p.m., and we had to leave for the start line at 10 p.m. A bit rough on us navigators - sigh. After awhile, they posted a couple of topo maps with the checkpoints drawn on. These maps were newer than the maps we eventually got, so it was actually helpful to see them, and it didn't take too long to plot the info on our maps when they arrived. On a positive note, we had a fantastic BBQ dinner on the patio overlooking the beautiful Ottawa River. Esprit Rafting is an incredible host site.

So... I was working on maps until much later than expected, and I was rushing a bit as I got ready for our mountain bike start. While I got dressed, my teammates and support crew worked to load all the gear boxes, food and bikes into the van, including two bikes on a rear bumper rack that blocked access to the vehicle. Around the time they tightened the final strap, I remembered that my race food was in my gear box - behind the bumper rack and underneath another couple of heavy gear boxes. Arggh... Everyone was very gracious about it.

The Race Director kindly drove us to the start line, since our van couldn't fit seven people and gear. It was a very warm night with thunderstorms in the forecast. Compared with my usual pre-race jitters, I felt surprisingly relaxed for much of the day. (Definitely not all. See "maps" above.) Not sure why, but I hope I can find that sense of calm before races more often.

Note to Meridian: It's a good thing you moved away, because you wouldn't want to come visit us. Crash saw a COUGAR in the Palgrave conservation area today, just behind both of our houses. Yikes!!! I think we might both be looking for running partners more often over the next while.

No matter how hard I try to convince myself to pack a few days earlier, it seems that I am always dashing around at the last minute before we leave for any adventure race. Today was no exception. We eventually made it to Kingston to pick up LoTox, then on to Smith's Falls for a good 7-hr sleep.

Leanimal was busy today, so I had to rely on my own will power to get out the door for a mid-day run. Yikes, that's never good. I was distracted by my to-do list, so I made this one short and fast. Lots of monarch butterflies and raspberries - really glad I got out to enjoy them! Earlier in the day, ThunderDog and I went hiking, and she's been cheerful all day.

See 'Bent's log. He had to run most of the way home dragging his bike with its broken derailleur. I swear that thing seems to be made of tissue paper sometimes! Luckily, he was able to scavenge a part from his old bike, because this could have been very time-consuming. Not very timely, since we leave for RTN in less than 48 hours. And then, when he went over to the BBQ to celebrate his success, he was attacked by hornets and got itchy and covered in hives all over his body. So now we should probably take an epi-pen to RTN, just in case he's become sensitive to stings. Phew, it was pretty scary when he first started reacting.

Later on, I dressed up in full rain gear including rubber boots, plus a bug hat, neoprene gloves and protective glasses, then I went out and knocked down the nests into a big bucket of water. Almost as exciting as the skunk with distemper we had here a few days ago. Life in the country - never a dull moment!

Vino, Vino, Vino... what a disappointment. I commented to 'Bent last night that his horrible/wonderful performances on Sunday/Monday reminded me of Floyd Landis' similar performances in 2006, but I was hoping it really was competitive spirit, not blood doping. Sigh.

Return trip to Crash's place for interview and photos for Sideroads magazine. Not much of a training session, but I'm afraid it's all I did today, given all the other stuff I need to get done this week before Raid The North. By the way, Crash makes great coffee. If you're invited over, say yes.