Training Log Archive: syd

Event: Fig XVI
 

FIG 12 h AR
Team Topo the Mountain with Kevin

Our first adventure race in over a year! I caught a cold a few days before and was not feeling great, so we decided to take it slow and just have fun. Maps were handed out at the race briefing the night before. After plotting the points, we made a plan, and headed to bed.

The race started at 7:00 a.m. with a road run to the paddle put in. The paddle was very unique. After punching each CP you had to find the ‘flagship’, which was moving around, and ring the bell. I was skeptical of the idea, but it made for a pretty fun paddle. There were boats everywhere! We finished pretty quickly and it was light by the time we got out of the canoe.

Next stage was a trek to the bike drop. I was really cold after the paddle, so I put on a bunch of layers. Putting in anything more than a low level effort wasn’t happening with my sickness, so we just trekked along and I enjoyed looking at the leaves. We were with a few other teams through here but lost most of them when they overshot the second CP. Made it to the TA right on our time estimate.

We hopped on our bikes and headed out for the longest section of the race. The entire N map was a bike section with 4 optional CPs. In our planning we thought it would be best if we just got 1 CP and moved on to the rest of the legs. We biked over to CP10 first. It was pavement followed by nice gravel most of the way, so we made good time. The last 1 km devolved into a muddy mess of an ATV trail and we slowed down considerably. We punched the flag and considered our next move. The original plan was to be done on this map and head back toward the junction, which we should hit right on our time schedule. But I was having so much fun riding on these trails! As the goal of the day was to have fun, we made the very non-strategical decision to continue on down the trail and pick up one more bike CP. I had a blast. The sun was out, I had finally warmed up, and there was so much mud. Kevin was awesome on this section, he just rode right into all the massive puddles and all I had to do was follow his line. By the time we made it back to the junction we were about an hour behind schedule, but it was worth it :) Hit the rest of the CPs no problem and finished up the bike section by climbing this massive hill to the TA. I am a very poor judge of elevation gain while biking…especially when the contour interval is 40 ft…sorry Kevin.

Dropped our bikes at the TA to head out on a foot section. I was finally starting to feel a little more energetic. We figured we had time for 3 out of the 6 CPs in this section, which was just an out and back. Found the first CP no problem. Had some trouble with the second CP, I decided we must have gone just a bit too far, and we opted to leave it and pick it up on the return trip. Stopped to discuss if we should go for another CP. We were a little tight on time, but we thought we could move a little faster and decided to go for it. This is where we started running for the first time all race. Made it out to the CP, saw Barbara and Angel exiting as we were headed in, and then booked it back. Picked up the second CP no problem from this direction and made it back to our bikes with a comfortable cushion for the ride back to the finish.
Put on all our lights and headed back out on our bikes. There were 2 CPs to hit on the way back to the finish, but neither of them really required any navigation. My bike was sounding a little rough from all the mud and when I went to shift my chain popped off. It took a minute to fix it because it had twisted funny and Barbara and Angel zoomed by as we were stopped. Hopped back on our bikes, made it a bit farther, and then my chain popped off again. I should carry some chain lube in the future. I had about 3 gears I could use, so I tried not to shift much and did a lot of coasting. Made for a leisurely bike to the finish!

It was nice to do a race with no expectations. We were just out to have fun and I would say we were quite successful! I was a little disappointed that the navigation wasn’t more difficult, but maybe I have a skewed view of how difficult it was the first year we did this race since it was so early in my navigation career. I’m sure we’ll be back again :)

Swapped out tires and pedals last night. One tire isn't seated properly so I need to fix that, but otherwise I should be good to go for this weekend.

Sprinkled for a bit when I started and then the sun came out! Legs felt pretty good. Still not ready for much speed, but that's to be expected.