Adventure Race race 8:00:00 [5]
Storm the Trent - Trek Elite (Warsaw ON)
Time is a guess until results are posted. I wasn't using anything to track myself and I forgot to look at the clock when I finished.
My first solo attempt at an adventure race. I've done Logs, Rocks and Steel but really the thing which made me the most nervous was navigation so I decided I'd sign up for this as an opportunity to nav myself with out ruining anyone else race.
After dropping our boats at the transition and our bikes at the trucks all racers were bused to the start location outside of Warsaw. I'd had a chance to review and mark up some routes on my map before we left so I had something like a plan. The most critical element in my plan was to avoid talking to people and especially avoid following people. Both of which I failed at immediately. I stood at the start chatting away until someone started the 5-4-3- count down at which point I thought "Oh. I should see where I am on the map and which way I'm facing and which trail I should -" GO!
So I followed.
At the first junction where everyone split I had a vague notion of which route I was on. The crowd thinned some and I was entirely startled to hear "The zombies are coming!" from behind. Not that I was startled by zombies but that it was Bash. I can proudly say I was ahead of Bash for all of 2 mins. Woo hoo!
The crowd thinned out even more and I ended up following Amber which is exactly what I meant to avoid. Not that she doesn't know what she's doing. She's quite excellent at nav but I can't practice my own nav if I'm following. It was just the two of us which was a little odd but we were hugging the shoreline so we were on track. It's was probably just a rougher track than the trails which were higher up away from the water.
Amber, Bash and I had all hit CP22 at the same time. At that point I took a longer pause to figure out how I was going to get to CP21. There was a trail heading straight to it so I just needed to get on the trail. Rather than following the water around and back to the trail I thought I'd go straight using a barring which would put me on the trail pretty quickly. When I arrived at the top of a cliff it occurred to me that I probably should have paid attention to the contour lines. It explained why no one else ran that otherwise really clear easy route. I managed to slide down on my butt, kind of sliding/falling from tree to tree, so it wasn't a total waste of time. Still on barring I jumped on the trail and away I went. A team in from suddenly dodged off the trail into the bush. Second guessing myself I was tempted to follow and did for a few meters til I realized it couldn't be right and I returned to the trail. I kept to the trail and finally had some speedy looking racers coming towards me from the opposite direction - one of whom was Bash who yelled something about my going the right way - so I kept going. I did find CP21 pretty easily. For sure, I kept questioning myself because everything seemed so much further than I expected. That's the joy of the 1:50000 maps. I get so messed up with distances.
Going from 21 to 20 proved a much bigger challenge. Storm had said that the creek was an option, as opposed to taking the much longer trail option, but that using a barring would be key as the creek was tricky. So I set my barring and followed very carefully, only going as far as I could see then setting up for the next leg.
There was a lot of creek crossing back and forth. I passed over a beaver dam and was mid-thought about how much I love beavers (sarcastically) when one swam by right in front of me under water. The water was clear so I was able to see him really well. No more grumbling about beavers. He just made my day!
It felt like I had been stumbling through the bush for a really long time and that I was probably quite close to CP20. With all the trees it was super difficult to read the landscape. I was thinking (belatedly) I should have aimed off and set myself a catch. Then the will-o-the-wisps started yelling off to my right "Did you check up there?" "Hey! I'm over here!" "Do you see anything?" I could see a marsh to my right and figured I must have drifted from my barring so I headed for the voices. Sigh. No one knew where it was and I was now off of my barring. Amber was there as well and said she's just seen Simpy, BiT, Funderstorm and Mrs. Tiny. I thought she meant they had found it. I tried to go back to where I left my barring and parted ways with Amber again. I don't think I found my barring but instead wandered into another marshy area. I was trying to discern some features other than marsh when I heard someone shout "I see it!" Huzzah! I started to make my way towards the shout, and hopefully the CP. The voices were getting louder which didn't make sense. They were heading my direction. I looked around again. No. No CP... Oh no...
A group comes out of the bush and it turns out my red hat had been their check point. From off to the other side Bugs in Teeth come crashing of the bush as well asking where the CP was. Clearly I need to start wearing different colours. We all seemed to be equally lost. We mulled over where we all thought we were.
Eventually I decided I would head south because regardless of where I was I would hit the road. From there I'd be able to figure out where I was and I'd shoot a new barring. So I did exactly that. And I did find CP20. I didn't have anything to track my progress so I can't say how long the whole thing took. Only that I was one of the last people to leave that section.
The roads were pretty flat so I made it to CP2 quickly enough on bike. The hydro trails were pretty easy riding as well. I waded through the creek crossing and somehow missed the next right so I turned at the next obvious right which was right near CP31. No problem. I did a quick calculation of the distance checked my odometer and off I went. I ran into a team coming from the other direction asking if I'd seen CP31. We were then joined by another solo racer named Heidi who was also looking for CP31. The first team decided to head back where I had just come from while the other soloist and I reviewed the map. Eventually I asked what the description was. I had assumed the CP would be visible as it was RIGHT ON THE TRAIL but the description was "Old shed" and we both went "OH! I passed that!" So back we went and sure enough the CP was right on the trail but behind the shed so entirely not visible. From that point on I was reading everything! I had read things at the start but with my goldfish memory I really should be reviewing the descriptions along the way.
CP31 down we headed to CP32 and that wasn't too bad (since we knew to look and listen for rapids). Then it was time to hammer it back to CP2. Checking my watch I realized there was a good chance I was going to miss the cut off for the last trek section. I lost Heidi somewhere after that. I would have like to have said "thanks for the company" at least but I didn't see her again and the Storm races have so many people out that it's not always easy to find people you do know. The ride back was a bit wet and muddy at times but was easy enough. I made CP2 by about 2:15 (I think) which wasn't looking good for me.
Country road to a marked bike/ATV trail. The CPs were all pretty straight foward there but I just wasn't fast enough to cover the ~30 km road and trail, check-in at CP4, transition to boat and paddle to CP5 in time for the 4pm cutoff. I tried though. Boy I tried.
I passed a number of teams on the bike and on the water but I arrived at CP5 around 4:30 I think and just turned my boat around to hammer for the finish.
I had passed team Bugs in Teeth just before turning around so my goal was to try and catch them before the finish. I was right on their tail at the end but they were moving along really well so I definitely didn't catch them.
Many thanks to Double Down on 11 at the finish for helping me out of the boat. I hadn't paddled that hard in a while and frankly my boat's a little tricky to get in and an out of without a dock so I took up a ridiculous amount of the shoreline while trying to get myself out of the boat. SORRY OTHER RACERS TRYING TO GET IN!!
My lats were completely done by that point. I was also pretty wobbly on my legs. At least I know that I wasn't slacking. :) I'm definitely going back to holding my arms at shoulder height for 5 mins. Got to start building up those paddling muscles again!
Post race it was nice to mill about chatting with people for awhile. I was also SO happy that there was Coke as part of the post-race offerings. I usually bring some but had forgotten to.
In the end, I was granted 3rd place because there were only 3 people in my category. I would have preferred to have finished the full course and won a medal but until we get more masters women out there I'll take it.
My plan is to find a way to get more regular 1:50000 nav training and do this again next year. All of it.
I also have a goal to write a comprehensive but SHORT race report.
Way to go Storm! Another excellent, fun, well organized event in a gorgeous location! Can't wait for ESAR!