Training Log Archive: glewis

Event: The Savage Adventure Race
 

Savage AR - First overall. Unbeknownst to me, the Driscoll family was hot on my heels, finishing 2 minutes back. They gained a huge advantage on the paddle by being able to split up, which they did impeccably, while I had to do everything as an out and back. My knowledge of the trail system paid off big time in getting the time back on the second half of the course.

Pre-race
Weirdly, I'd had this short sprint race on my radar for a long time. I've been in the mood for a solo sprint for a few years now, and having one at my local park was the perfect opportunity. Jake and Nate were each racing with friends; it would be nice to catch up pre- and post-race. My competition for the race seemed to be Nicki, Jim, and Diana.

Maps and instructions came quickly on race morning, and it was rather confusing. There were additional bike points that were marked on the map by ruins being highlighted in red, sometimes tiny, tiny spots of red. There was also a foot section at Springton Manor, but the majority of points would be revealed by a series of pictures once I arrived at the park. The paddle section also allowed teams to split up, but I wouldn't be able to take advantage of that feature of the course.

Leg 1 - Paddle/Foot
The race began with a quick prologue run back to the start, where I grabbed a passport that listed my first leg at paddle. I quickly grabbed my stuff and got on the water first. There were plenty of 3 hour teams already in front of me, so I had to battle them for the first flag. After that I did a quick out and back on foot for 2 more points before FIVE more of those loops where I'd drop the boat, run out for a point or two, then return. I passed the Driscolls at one of these, and the location of it made me believe that I was ahead of them. I ended up paddling with Brian Reiss (water safety) for most of this section, but kept running into his kayak as the wind swung me around repeatedly. I finished this section after ~1:50. I didn't see anyone else around, so I assumed that I was in the lead.

Leg 2 - Bike/Foot
A quick TA and I set out to the southern loop of bike points. I was really accurate with all of these, only with small errors of ~15 seconds on a few points. I think I could have had a better order with a few of the ruins, but I was really intentional about getting myself on the fastest routes possible. I pedaled as hard as I could, trying to put distance between me and the rest of the pack. I passed a few teams as I was nearing the end of this loop, and It seemed like they were trying to do this in the opposite order. I pedaled hard back to the start area towards the north of the park where I'd sweep up a bunch more points on the way to Springton Manor. I had just less than 3 hours left in the race and was finally feeling really confident that I would be comfortable to finish on time, as long as Springton Manor was reasonable. I had my biggest snafu of the race next, getting turned around for 2 minutes trying to find the correct ruin on the edge of the woods. I think I had come into the woods on a different trail than I thought that I did. I was again pretty smooth on the way out of the park, hitting things nicely before exiting the park, where fire police pointed the way to Springton Manor.

The ride was quick. Jon Neely greeted me with candy and a set of pictures showing the last 6 cp locations. I realized quickly that I needed to mark their locations on the map, but I had lost my marker. Nate was right there and let me borrow theirs. The points were easy to locate on the park map (unfortunately not the nice o-map) and I set off at a run. Everything was exactly where I thought it would be, but I ran out of water only a few minutes in. I also finished off my food here. My legs began cramping and spasming, but I ran nearly all of the 3 miles as quickly as I could. I finished in just over 30 minutes. The TA volunteers were impressed, not so much with my speed but with the accuracy of Jon's prediction of how long it would take me. I finished my last bike bottle here and sped back towards Marsh Creek.

When I reentered the park I realized that I made a bad route choice earlier and should have left two point until now. No big deal, but I had a long way to pedal to get to my last CP and I was going past 2 points that I got earlier. My legs had stopped cramping though. The last CP was in a location that I visited in the previous GOALS race at Marsh Creek, and it was my toughest. I spent 3 extra minutes poking around the woods to find it. From there, I hopped on my bike and headed back to the finish, arriving at 4:47 on the race clock and surprising the finish line staff.

The biggest surprise however was for me, when the Driscolls came flying in only 2 minutes later! I hadn't seen them since the middle of my paddle. Apparently we took very different routes for the last section and never crossed paths. I also learned of their strategy for the paddle, where they drew a new copy of the map so that they could effectively split up - genius. They actually finished the paddle 20+ minutes before me, but I had no idea. Happy I didn't know, I would have probably pushed too hard and made bad decisions on the bike.

Lots of fun at this race! Perfect weather, sold-out field, and lots of new racers to counter some of the more experienced. I was incredibly sore afterwards, more so than I've been for any race this year. That seems to be the price for racing that hard all day.

Trek to collect a few remote CPs.

Orienteering with Noah at Myrick Center. We did the orange course, he got his own map and had a ton of fun - got tired by the end. Extremely accurate nav - very simple at that speed.

Simple run at Cheslen on the proper 5k course. Way too hot (low 80s) for mid-October.

Nice paddle. Started too fast and tried to hold on.

Nice spin. No time to get outside today.

Run with some difficult efforts at Cheslen. Felt really good, apart from the asthma that has decided to reemerge over the last two weeks after 20+ years of dormancy. PR'd two segments, both nearly KOMs that I thought were impossible a few months ago. Feeling faster.