Adventure Racing 8:01:00 [4] **
Raced a very fun, long figure-eight course out of Deerhurst Resort on a perfect cool, sunny day, with 'Bent and Pate, our 19-year-old secret weapon. As the Tree Huggers get older, we're seeking out younger teammates to bring our average age down to, oh, about 35. Since Pate just learned that he will be a nationally carded XC skier next season, I guess we were racing with a professional athlete. Hope that's legal!
We started off on bikes with a wonderful hilly ride through some cottage country and ATV trails. I took more bike towing than I usually do, since the terrain lent itself to towing - and also, I wondered if I could tire Pate out. (I couldn't.) We were thrown off by a misplaced CP1. The last time I raced out of Deerhurst, we DNF'ed because we didn't find CP1, so I had a few demons haunting me there. I should have just kept going, but I couldn't help wondering if the CP staff were hiding just off the road, so we went back up the correct hill to look a 2nd time before continuing on and finding the misplaced CP. After that, we had a fun bike ride through a beautiful landscape.
Next we made good time bushwhacking to MacArthur Chute on the Big East River, followed by a slapstick crossing of the river, slipping on slimy rocks of all sizes. We headed off on a bearing to intersect a promised snowmobile trail. We found one so soon that I assumed it must be a different one from the one we were looking for, so we followed another trail that ended up turning south. At that point, I realized that the first trail was probably the one, but the easiest thing to do at that point was just take a bearing and go cross-country. We lost time doing it that way, since most teams had a road run for most of this trek. We had some road running at the end, but we dropped from 6th to 9th. Boo.
We headed out for an awesome 2-hour paddle, starting with a 3 km lake with a good tailwind, then paddling down the Big East River, with a few portages and fun rapids. We couldn't see anyone on the lake when we started, and we knew it was unlikely that we would pass anyone on a river, since teams tend to move the same speed. It turned out that we did pass two teams there, but one of them leapfrogged in front again when we unknowingly went around an extra oxbow shortly before the TA. One of our portages turned into a bushwhack when we got off the faint trail - sorry 'bout that, 'Bent! 'Bent and Pate were awesome paddling partners, and it was very efficient as 3-in-a-canoe experiences go. We had 3 kayak paddles and 2 canoe paddles that we passed around, depending on the rock and rapid situation. The only bad thing was that the splashing kayak paddles got me soaking wet, so I was mildly hypothermic when we hit the TA. I sealed the deal by getting out of the canoe into neck-deep water, having been fooled by the ease with which our bowsman hopped into shallow water just ahead of me.
Fortunately, we had missed the cut-off for the Advanced Section by almost an hour, so I knew we were close to the finish. Thus I didn't bother borrowing a dry shirt or doing anything else, since I figured that the bike ride would warm me up, and it wouldn't be that long anyway. But then the TA staff mentioned that a team had just headed out on the Advanced Section a few minutes ago. What?!? It turns out that the cut-off had been extended by an hour. Oh crap. So just as we were leaving the TA, we learned we were doing the Advanced Section. Yes, I suppose we SHOULD have been grateful, but I was so cold it was hard to tie my shoes.
It wasn't long before we caught the other team, then we all got sucked too far down a hill because I was riding behind the 5 boys and couldn't look at my map without stopping due to the rocky, rutted ATV trail. When we got to the bottom, I had to make the sad announcement that we were turning around and riding back up to a turn-off we'd blown by. (It had a big "Private - Hunting" sign, so I'd wanted to go a bit further to see if a more public trail appeared. But not THAT far.)
From there, it seemed that things should be fairly straightforward for the rest of the race - until 'Bent's handlebars snapped in half. The right side stayed attached to the stem, while the left side dangled uselessly. Over the next half hour, there were several repair attempts with sticks, duct tape and a zip tie as we rode gingerly along the muddy, rutted snowmobile trail. The more frequent stops meant that I had to change my top clothing to a warmer configuration, since I was really chilled. Finally we hit the paved roads and had a fun, energetic, hilly ride to the finish line. We didn't know if the race finish time had been extended by an hour when the cut-off was extended, so we made a desperate dash to finish in 8 hours. We missed by 1 minute, but luckily, the race deadline had been extended - phew.
A very fun day of playing in the Muskokas! Pate was an awesome teammate - very strong, skilled and positive. And 'Bent was strong as always, and very resourceful when his bike literally fell apart on tough trails. We finished 7th of about 34 teams, which was 4th Coed. Some very exciting news was that the overall winners were Phatty, Zoolander and Tyson! And the speedy female team of Leanimal, Slice and Trish were in 4th overall, just half an hour back. Awesome work, all of you!!