More adventure than I signed up for! A couple of weekends ago, I competed in an adventure race in Huntsville. I found some girls in Waterloo that were interested in giving an all-girls team a try (for one girl it was her first introduction to AR), and decided to go for it. Although we didn't have much time to train together, we managed to get a practice canoe session in the week before, and had some time to figure out the race logistics.
The race itself was a blast, and I will elaborate more on that shortly, but I can honestly say that the weekend brought WAY more "adventure" than I was expecting. Here is the sequence of events that led up to our departure that Friday afternoon:
- Thursday night: drove to Kacy's, picked up her bike, and drove home with it on
my brand new rack- Friday morning: drove to work with Kacy's and my bike on my rack
- Friday at lunch: packed BJ's stuff in my car but decided to wait and put her bike on later…thank goodness! (see below)
- Friday afternoon: drove home and napped cause I wasn't feeling well
- Friday at 4pm: left my house, got on the highway to go back to work, and my bike fell off my rack!
YES... that is right. My bike fell off my rack in the middle of Highway 85, right by the King Street exit! In total shock, I pulled over to the side of the road, and backed up to the spot my bike had landed. I got out of my car and stood at the edge of the highway (with my hands on my forehead in total disbelief at what had just happened) waiting for the cars to slow down as they were swerving around my bike so I could go pick it up off the road. There was a nice guy that happened to pull over at the same time I did to assist, but he wasn't able to do much for me. We just put my bike back on the rack, used an extra bungee cord that he had to secure it, and I drove (much slower) to the Northfield exit where I continued my way to work.
BJ was sitting outside waiting for me and it took all my strength to hold in the tears that I was ready to unload. I think a few dripped out, but I had to pull myself together and figure out what to do with the situation:
First thing: call Kacy and let her know I was gonna be "late"
Top priority: find a new bike for the race cause mine was *definitely* not going to be rideable
2nd priority: call Yakima to find out what the hell just happened
The bike replacement was easy. A few emails and phone calls and I was set! Andrea B's bike was my saving grace! (even better - it was still at Trina's place from our trip to Cobourg which meant I didn't have to drive downtown TO that afternoon to get it).
After speaking with Yakima, it was clear that they didn't see it as an issue and blamed it on "user error" and recommended I tighten the straps tighter. Realizing that it wasn't worth my time at that moment, I told them I would call them back to discuss more on Monday.
BJ and I then went back out to my car to examine the situation. We put her bike on the back of my rack (actually, a $2000 bike she had borrowed from another coworker of ours - thank goodness I decided to wait to load it on the rack!), and then loaded Kacy's on the front. We tightened all the straps very carefully, and reenacted how I had loaded my bike that morning. All seemed good. Could not understand how I could have screwed up the "tightness" of the straps. Since I was still concerned about the whole situation, I drove to Adventure Guide and asked for someone to come out and take a look at my rack. I was concerned about the amount of "play" in the hitch (where the tongue on the rack connected to it) but the guy said he had a similar feel with his Thule rack. We decided to add some security by tying some climbing rope around the bikes and securing them to my rack that way. Thank goodness!
After picking up Kacy at her place I got on the 401. About 10 minutes later I was driving about 120 (average 401 speed I might add) and noticed Kacy's bike suspended in the air, secured only by the safety rope we had used. I pulled over to the edge of the highway, we got out and investigated (saw nothing wrong), re-strapped the bikes, retied the rope, and set out again. 5 minutes later, the same thing! This time it was very clear that we would not be making it to Huntsville with our bikes if we were depending on my rack. We considered our vehicle options which were limited. It felt like signs were telling us to give up then. And feeling the brunt of the day (and the crappy week at work that I had had) I was ready to throw in the towel. But after taking a vote, the girls wanted to continue and with that positive feedback, I decided that I would too. We managed to convince Sandra (my wonderful sister-in-law :) to meet us in Guelph where we switched vehicles. We drove her Acura MDX the rest of the way with all 3 bikes safely inside the car.
For departing close to 3 hours later than expected, we made some great time (missing the Friday afternoon traffic rush isn't a bad thing at all!). We headed straight to our B&B (since we missed the early registration), unloaded, organized gear, and got right into bed. The next morning I was all gitters cause I knew there was lots I still had to do:
- get our bikes put together
- install my peddles on Andrea's bike
- reprogram my bike computer for Andrea's tires
- install my bike computer on Andrea's bike
- review the whole "navigation" thing
- map our route
- pull myself together enough to do a good race
I forced as much food down as I could cause I knew how disastrous the race would be on an empty stomach. Registration was smooth and it was nice to see so many familiar faces. We got some help with some bike issues, I got BJ to help with the bike computer, and we were ready just in time for the race briefing. We only got a few minutes to map the route, but I think I did ok. And after nearly an hour bus ride to the start line, we found ourselves lined up with 50 some-odd other teams on the water for a canoe start.
The paddling section was close to 2 hours. We came into the TA 2nd or 3rd last (not last though!) which I was very happy with given
A) I was steering
B) We were an all-girls team
C) We were one of very few teams using canoe paddles rather than kayak paddles
Oh yeah... we got a really random rainstorm in the middle of our paddle while we were in the middle of a fairly large lake. It was highly entertaining as we fought our way across this lake with an incredibly strong headwind, freezing cold rain pelting on our faces, and thunder and lightning around us (ok... that kind of freaked me out a bit). By the time we cleared the lake, the rain had settled down but I was so cold that I shivered the rest of the way down the river.
It was nice to switch gears (mind the pun) and get onto our bikes. It was really confusing starting off cause there were lots of roads funneling out of the TA area and it was hard to decipher which way to go. After a few minutes, we figured it out and set off in our mini peleton. I quickly realized that I was slowing us down and asked that we slow down enough so that I could draft and keep up. I think that worked well. The navigation went well and we continued along the way to the next checkpoint. From then on in, we were on fairly technical trails that alternated between hard-packed dirt, thick puddles of muck, and gravel. There were a lot of hills. The uphills were tough, but the downhills were fun! By this point, I wasn't the slowest one anymore since I was more comfortable on my mountain bike than BJ who is primarily a road cyclist. The bike was very long and took us close to 4 hours I think. By the end, I just kept encouraging our team to keep on moving cause peddling slowly was better than completely stopping to rest.
We finally reached the CP and had less than 2 hours to finish the race. I think I knew by that point that we weren't gonna finish on time, but we still hurried through the TA and set off on the trekking section. The trek started off ok as I set off on my bearing of 220. Managed to get around a dried up marsh and cut through the bush. When we came out of the bush, we stepped right into a wide open field of thick, tall grass. Since we were looking for a checkpoint on the edge of a small pond (and had been advised earlier that some wet spots had dried up) I wrongly assumed that we had found the "pond". After circumventing the dried up "pond" and hacking our legs to pieces as we walked through the razor-like grass, we ended up getting stuck in a swamp and it took us half an hour to get out.
By this point, things started getting ugly. My teammates started acting noticeably annoyed and aggravated that we were walking (and sometimes swimming) through the green, foul smelling water, and they really started to slow down. I tried to stay as positive as I could and hang back close enough so I wouldn't get out of site, encouraging them to do what they could to catch up. However painfully slow the swamp situation was, I had plenty enough time to figure out the maps and discover my mistake and knew exactly where we were and where we needed to go. Even though race cut-off was minutes away, I wanted to persevere and prove to myself (and my team) that I could find the next CP. But by this point, we had slowed to a crawl and time was not on our side. Since the race had started an hour late, darkness was looming sooner than it should have. Given our options of getting lost in the woods again or turning back, we decided to turn back and retrace our steps to the last CP.
The last half-hour was the worst because my team started to show signs of frustration and annoyance and kept hanging back behind me. I continued along anyways, trying to make the most light of the situation that I could, but when I jokingly asked for their ranking on a scale of 1 to 10 of how bad things felt, BJ responded with "Well, in all of the races I've done, we've never been this lost before” followed by “I think this is gonna be my last adventure race".
As we were nearing the CP we had left several hours prior, we had to cut back through the bush. But retracing one's steps through the bush is not an easy task. And by this point, my compass decided to stop working. I thought it was waterlogged or damaged from being banged around on the bike section, but as I learned later, it can actually be affected by the iron levels in the earth beneath you. Even though I knew approximately where we were, I just wanted to verify that we were heading in a straight path so we didn't end up going in circles. Desperation started to set in as I realized how close it was to getting dark and I told my teammates that I was upset and needed their help. I think that was a very smart move cause their attitudes started to change… After a brief discussion with God (no joke, he answered my call!) we heard the sound of a vehicle nearby and called out to it. They heard us, and honked back. We quickly emerged out of the woods into "safety" and got a ride back to the finish line. Disappointing, but a good way to end since we rode back with another team, "A for Effort" and heard about their adventures that day.
I could go on for paragraphs more, but I will leave it at that. I should also mention that things did get better and the mood lightened as we drove home and had time to debrief. We reflected on the race and how we heard from others about how incredibly long it was, and started to feel much better about our efforts. I think they are both gonna give it another try next year which is super awesome. Maybe not as Team Sassypants again, but you never know...
When I got home, the first thing my siblings told me was that I was famous - famous since I had made the Friday afternoon traffic report! LOL
Lessons learned:
- never again will I do an AR with canoe paddles!
- similar team goals are so important in Adventure Races (we had this one covered very well for the most part)
- I am a much better and more confident mountain biker than I thought!
- Andrea's bike is WAY better than mine (a few extra hundred dollars really does make a difference!)
- navigating is challenging but I can see how you can get better with time (I will definitely learn from my mistakes)
- I am impressed with my ability to handle stressful situations – although I'm sure there is lots of room to improve, I have to pat myself on the back for dealing with all my “unexpected” adventures so well...
