Adventure Racing!

Let me preface this post by saying that any adventure race that is less than 24 hours is a Sprint - I don't do well at sprints.

Some people know that Jeff and I met adventure racing nearly 12 years ago. I was the obligatory female on a co-ed team that Jeff and another guy, our team captain Ray, had organized. I knew nothing about adventure racing; heck, most people didn't as it was a fairly new sport at the time. There were so few races in the Nation that we traveled to CA, NY, UT, and AZ just to race. However, what I did know was that the idea of having to navigate from check point to check point using a map and compass, biking and running at night, rappelling and doing Tyrolean traverses would test my personal limits - and that was intriguing. What was I thinking?!

First race was 43 hours and I survived - the team actually did pretty well and finished the race, which was more than 80% of the teams. The team continued racing and even gained sponsorship to compete in the ECO Challenge Borneo - that's another story in itself.

Fast forward to the present.....

I haven't done an adventure race for 10 years since our premarital counseling days. Jeff and I fondly refer to the sport as that because we met as friends, but after 40+ hours of racing, sleep deprivation, and team dynamics you learn a lot about a person. After just 12 hours your inhibitions tend to decrease and you don't really care about bodily functions or changing clothes in front of your teammates and you find out quickly how people act under pressure while sleep deprived and fatigued. I guess we managed it all OK since we have been married 10 years as of this year.

I decided to spice up our life a bit and enter a Gravity Play www.gravityplay.com 12-hour race. Jeff was hesitant to do a 24-hour race so I thought we would get back into the sport s-l-o-w-l-y. Funny thing is 12-hour races tend to be sprints because elite teams finish in 5-6 hours while every one else trickles in around 7-10 hours. Not many teams actually race for 12 because of the cutoffs they have at various check points. So I just considered this day to be a longer training day that included multiple sports of running, biking, rappeling, and kayaking with very little navigation thrown into the mix all during daylight hours (yawn, boring). This format was definitely not a recipe for any great result because we aren't sprinters, but it would be a good re-introduction to the sport.

Moab is one of our favorite places and we have been biking there for 15 years almost on an annual basis. The other draw to this race was the 275' rappel in the middle! Booya! Now that's what I am talking about!

We drove up to Moab on Friday afternoon, checked in, and received our map and passport. We looked over the required gear and noticed that we had to check in our paddles and gear box that evening. Basically we just needed extra food, water, PFDs, paddles, wet suits, and extra clothes for the transition. After organizing and dropping off our gear box, we met up with an old colleague of ours that started adventure racing a year or so after us, but has kept with it. It is fair to say that he is considered an elite solo racer and finishes top 10 pretty consistently. He has raced this course multiple times and could outline the checkpoints without even looking at the UTM coordinates. After getting back to our hotel room and looking at the map, sure enough he guessed accurately. Sadly though, the coordinates looked to be all on roads with little challenge in locating the checkpoints or the route to get to them. This was unfortunate for Jeff and I as well since one of our advantages in the longer races is the ability to navigate the course without making navigational errors and passing teams that are too quick to plot coordinates and end up making errors that cost precious time.

Race day! We woke on Saturday morning, ate our breakfast and verified our gear for the day. We had to carry our running shoes and climbing equipment from the start since there would be no other transitions along the course. The weather was only in the 30s and would be in the low 40s at the start so I also packed a rain jacket and Capilene shirt for extra warmth. We were only going to bring 100 oz of water and one bottle of electrolyte (Carbo Pro mixed with Infinit) as well as a few gels, blocks, and dates. Hopefully it would be enough to get us to our last checkpoint at the kayaks to replenish. We drove to the start off of Potash Rd up the canyon and we knew exactly how far we would have to paddle to the Finish since we dropped off our gear box and paddles at the final check point. Wow, that was going to be a long paddle on flat water - approximately 10 miles. Ugh.

The first leg of the course was on mountain bikes. We biked a few miles up the canyon and then turned up Long Canyon and that is where the field shattered. Long Canyon is a sustainable climb up to Pucker Pass and the last set of switchbacks was unrideable for most forcing people to get off and walk their bikes through the deep sand and steep incline. The trail then leveled onto a dirt road with a mild incline and we cranked through this section passing many teams and catching up to some solos and 4-person teams that had started 15-30 minutes prior to our category. I had taken off my arm warmers during the climb through the canyon and now that we were higher in elevation and biking at a 20mph pace through snow-covered fields I was getting cold. We reached check point one and knew that the next leg would be biking to the rappel section - yippee!

We biked on the Gemini Bridges trail for a short bit passing a few more teams and then arrived at a bike cemetery where many teams had abandoned their bikes for the run to the rappel. In previous races the ropes section is typically a huge bottleneck where teams get on the ropes on a FIFO in, first out) basis leaving ample time to replenish fluids and eat food. However, this course had 10 ropes setup and we didn't have to wait to get on a rope but we had to wait for a fireman's belay at the bottom since belayers were sharing ropes. Once I was on the rope, I think the rappel took me a minute to descend and Jeff quickly came down after me. This literally was the highlight of the race, any race!

After the rappel, we had an uphill run to take us up and around and back to the bikes. Running is definitely not a strength of mine and many of the teams we had passed were now passing us back. It was absolutely demoralizing! Not only that but the bikers had to bike back past us while we were still running uphill so we knew exactly what teams were where and approximately how much time they had on us. Even though I wanted this to be a training day, my competitive spirit broke through and I was having a real issue with losing time because I had a hard time on the run. Finally back on the bikes we made a huge effort to catch the teams that had passed us on the run and we were able to pass 3 of the 4 teams!! The only team we couldn't catch was also from Parker and even in the same neighborhood as us! What a small world.

We raced the final bike leg and gained a much needed advantage over some of the duo teams that we had been leap frogging. Final checkpoint was at the kayaks were I didn't want to lose any more time so I forwent the wetsuit and just wore a short-sleeved splash jacket with my arm warmers and a hat. I haven't paddled for 10 years either so I knew that after my should injury that this was going to be my weakest leg. I was instantly cold on the water and knew we had 10 miles of flat paddling to go and teams that we had to stay in front of. The boats that the race provides are 2-person sit on top kayaks which are great for stabilization, but not so great for maneuverability. We were getting passed by all the solos that could use their own boats as if we were going backwards! I just pushed the pain aside and kept paddling in the rubber ducky with no food breaks and seldom water breaks. I was soaking wet because of the backsplash from the paddles and then the wind picked up. This was going to be a long paddle. Luckily Jeff is a strong paddler and we kept the other duo teams at bay and finished strong!

We finished in 7.5 hours and in 7th place. I spent the rest of the evening thinking of how much time we could have saved on the run. Next time.....