Training Log Archive: glewis

The morning of day 2 was rather cold. We were happy to be bundled up in sleeping bags (I hadn't slept well but enjoyed the warmth) and were a bit sluggish to start. I grabbed the maps soon after 4, and we got ourselves moving and ready to go in time to leave Stockville just a few minutes after the 5AM start. Both Rebekah and I were feeling it a bit physically. Her feet were in pain from overuse and a blister or two which we had drained but were still flaring up. I had rolled my left ankle during the o-course the previous day, and woke up with it feeling rather sore. We meandered slowly but accurately down a reentrant to Q. My altimeter was off despite being reset moments prior, which led to a few minutes of confusion thinking that I had bottomed out in the reentrant. I adjusted well and hit the CP in the correct spot. From there, we took a bearing towards R but were thrown off by the moon, which kept pulling me west. We emerged from the woods at the quarry from the previous day - whoops. R was an easy find from there, and S was just a reentrant climb from there. We shot a bearing to M9, but took a few minutes to find it once we emerged on the bicycle trail. Turns out that we had hit it exactly, but the flag was hidden by a team surrounding it. We took off down the road and trails towards M10 just as the sun began to rise.

My foot was killing me, but I got some slight relief with our first jog of the day. It was short lived though, as Rebekah's foot pain kept her from moving that fast. Still, we were accurate and on target nailing M10, descending to U, and then taking a trail around to T, where we saw the o-stars moving in a non-traditional direction around the course. We trekked through the woods out towards the road and onward to EE. Brent gave us some encouragement as he drove by; I explained the reasons for our slow moving and strange gait. By this point, I had begun to have some pains in the top of my right foot from overcompensation (still hasn't gone away more than a week later). We had shed some layers too, as the day had begun in the 30s and we had every article of clothing on. Getting into the woods gave us a little spark of energy again, but we struggled with a bushwhack to EE. Retrospectively, I think we just missed it while dodging the brush around the creek. We hit it after some backtracking. Soon thereafter, we ran into the o-stars heading towards W with us. I chose a route by trail, and we lost them - I think we got there quicker and snuck out of the back of the CP.

X was a little finicky as I tried to line up the real life trails with the map. When we got it, we traveled down across the road again to Y, which was on a nice dried out pond. The ascent from there to V was thick, requiring a number of crawls just to make it through. We took another climatization break at the CP while about 4 teams arrived. We moved with 40/50 towards M11, but got pulled a bit off line and gained quite a bit extra elevation before readjusting. When we hit the CP, we did so smoothly, so the attack ended up working out well. I tried to follow a supplemental map trail to Z, but I must have missed a junction, because we dropped way too far north and had to bushwhack over to the main road/trail. Before we left the wrong trail, I again spotted the o-stars going in an opposite direction.

Getting to Z was simple, just through a stream and a steep ascent. The CP itself was my favorite of the race - a beautiful hilltop in the morning light, with a lovely saddle and a rocky spur behind. I wish I could have stayed up there for a bit longer. AA was close to the same road, and it was an easy find in a wet spring. From there we had a large bushwhack out to M12. The descent was simple, but I eventually chose to go over the ridge in front of us. It looked small on the map, but with 20' contours, tt was a real chore to climb up. My feet were holding up well (they preferred the uphills), but Rebekah was still in pain. In fact, she nearly tumbled over backwards because of the steepness. Thankfully, our feet were letting up slightly by the time we hit M12. Here we learned that we were the first full-course team in! We left quickly, and began our climb up the Blueberry trail.

The sun was hot, the hill was very steep, and Rebekah was exhausted. Still, I pushed the pace as much as possible - hearing that we might be in the overall lead was energizing. I took her pack for the end of the climb. Fortunately, she got a second wind at the top. I didn't think the trails lined up perfectly on the ridge. However, I had a good control on our location and was able to bushwhack through the blueberry plants towards the CP. We found the trail afterwards and began moving towards CC. I was only 400 meters from the trail, but I found it to be some of the toughest bushwhacking I've ever been through. Extremely dense mountain laurel and blueberry, with very little respite. I eventually found the flag, but it was an exhausting stretch, with both of us taking turns getting completely stuck in the brush. Remarkable considering that there were very few thorns. My planned attack to DD was again through the brush, but fortunately we found a trail along the creek below. After a false start on the wrong spur, we ascended the correct one but struggled to find the flag. After 10+ minutes of searching I suggested looking higher, where I found the CP. My altimeter had been off all day despite constant resets, and I had just forgotten about that in that moment. From DD, it was a small bushwhack and a push back on the road. We gave it our all, running into the finish line at exactly 1PM - the first team in for the day! Brent let us know that the o-stars left M12 about 45 minutes back from us, and that they may have taken a strange route home. Our excitement was short lived though - they came sprinting into the finish line at 1:11.

We finished only 36ish minutes behind them, which is a remarkable result considering our plans for the weekend. We had a wonderful time, but were truly exhausted, having done around 45 miles on foot in 2 days. We limped around for a while before heading home after the awards. Rebekah was extremely happy with the result, and was a wonderful partner for this (as she is with most things). No complaints, just happy to chug along.