Posted: Mon Apr. 23, 2007 7:57 pm
Edited: Tue Apr. 24, 2007 7:20 am
Thus begins another chapter of my career as a ? pay your money, pin on a number, and drive yourself into oxygen debt all in the interest of an aerobic high ? kind of guy. I thought I had pretty much exhausted all potential avenues for such exertion, then a fellow Sunapee/S&W Racing Team member (Ryan Kelly) suggested Adventure Racing (which I know is near and dear to the hearts of some Team Pinnacle Members ... but definitely new to me). Teams of 3 members canoeing, mountain biking, and running around Concord, NH while always remaining within 100ft of each other and punching their race ticket at 24 checkpoints identified on a map (that they do not receive until the race begins) for up to 6 hours ? why not! An added incentive to compete was that we could represent (and hopefully not embarrass) one of the major sponsors of the race ? S&W Sports.
When Ryan and I were unable to entice any *masters* members of the Sunapee/S&W Racing Team ? we decided to ask a 17 year old senior from Bow High School who is a new recruit to the world of bicycle and multi-sport racing ? Matt Gloekler. Little did we know that there would be two definite advantages to having a teenager on the team: 1. he is a great candidate for the (seatless) center of the canoe paddling position and 2. if you happen to win adult beverages as a prize, that means more for the two of you that are of drinking age!!!
Placing your gear for an Adventure Race is a logistical challenge in and of itself. Put your bikes and cycling gear on one side of town at the ice rink, your running gear on the second floor of a parking garage in the center of town, then head north with your paddling gear (upstream from Concord ? fortunately) to the designated start area.
Now, we pretty much knew that we were going to make some mistakes in this, our first adventure race, but we hoped the damage would be kept to a minimum. The first big question was how well we would handle the canoe, as we are all recreational paddlers and we had never set foot into a canoe together. It immediately became obvious what our first mistake was ? not having a seat (or even a milk crate) for the middle paddler to sit on. Hence, Ryan and I quickly agreed that Matt should be the one to kneel on the floor of the boat and we tried to downplay how uncomfortable it would probably be for him to spend over an hour kneeling in the center of the canoe.
When the promoter yelled go ? Ryan sprinted about 100m along with the gazelles from the other 26 teams to a chain link fence where race maps were attached with clothespins. He was the first back to the transition area where Matt and I were waiting and we were the first to the water. We decided for the left launch area even though it was upstream of the right launch area because it was more open. By the time we had cleared the shore, we were neck and neck with the first team that took the right launch area route.
After about a ? hour paddle, with me in front to set tempo, Matt in the middle with his sacrificial knees, and Ryan at the back to captain the boat and read the map to locate the first checkpoint ? we reached the first checkpoint in 3rd position. We felt pretty good about this ? I punched our ticket ? and we headed back out to the Merrimack River. Then our second minor mishap happened ? Ryan dropped our maps into the water. Without your maps, you?re sunk (pun intended), so we backpaddled to retrieve them ? losing one spot to 4th place. Fortunately, Ryan had already placed them in a ziplock bag for safe keeping. We still felt good about our position, but our enthusiasm was quickly squashed as a flotilla of canoes was somehow ahead of us when we reached the main river. It turns out that most teams had parked their canoes and run overland about ? mile to the checkpoint and then they ran back to their canoes (subsequent discussions with the race promoter to see if that was an appropriate strategy revealed that all teams were supposed to canoe all the way to the checkpoint as the canoes were *mandatory gear* during that leg).
We appropriately dealt with the frustration of going from 4th to 8th place and focused on a good transition to the bike leg. We made up 4 places in the transition zone and departed in 4th place overall ? with another team hot on our tails.
The bike leg went pretty smoothly, but we made two minor mistakes. One was that our *knowledge* about driving around Concord resulted in our taking the long-cut between two check points as opposed to taking an off-road section. Second is that it took us a few checkpoints to learn that not every checkpoint has a nice flag and hole-punch that has been placed there by the race organizer. Sometimes you need to actually read the instructions to find out what you are expected fill in your race ticket with (like the numbers written on the back of a stop sign ? or the date on a marker ? or the initials on a statue).
By the time we had reached the last checkpoint for the biking section ? the leading 2 teams (both coed) were just leaving and three teams were arriving together (1 coed team and two all male teams, including us). It looked like we were in good shape ? but then my front tire went flat. I put some CO2 to it while Ryan and Matt were getting the ticket punched and prayed that the bike would make it the mile back to the transition zone. I leaned way back on the saddle and peddled for all I was worth. It was hard work ? as I am not a very accomplished unicyclist or wheelie rider!
We hit the transition zone with two other teams ? but this time we had the slowest transition by 15 seconds or so ? so we began the running leg in 5th place. Matt and Ryan had to wait up for me a little bit as I was not transitioning well to the run ? but I finally started coming up to speed. We basically ran neck and neck with the other two teams that we finished the bike with ? throughout the entire run. One of the leading teams became disoriented and essentially lost for enough time that our three teams all moved up one spot. I thought we were sunk when we had trouble finding the 22nd checkpoint and the other two teams got a 50 yard jump on us. But we remained calm and got lucky at the next-to-last checkpoint, when the other teams went around a building instead of sneaking up an alley to the arch with an important date written on it. Then it was a sprint to the Capital Building to get the initials on a Statue and a charge to the line. One of the two teams got there ahead of us, because they did not bother getting the last checkpoint and we just beat the other all male team by about 5 seconds.
Once the team that finished second realized their mistake, they backtracked to get the final checkpoint ? giving us the second fastest time of the day (11 minutes behind the coed team from Eastern Mountain Sports) and the fastest all male time.
So, in summary, our racing splits were as follows:
6.3 mile downstream canoe with 1 checkpoint: 1:18 (8th place at end of leg)
15.4 mile mixed terrain mountain bike with 9 checkpoints: 1:42 (4th place at end of leg)
6.5 mile urban run with 11 checkpoints: 1:06 (2nd overall finishing time)
Total Racing Time: 4:06
Later we found out that we did receive a 15 minute penalty for not always remaining within 100 ft of each other (Matt had punched our ticket at the 22nd checkpoint before Ryan and I had rounded the corner of the building, so we had not maintained eye and voice contact in accordance with the rules) ? but the other all male team that finished just behind us received a penalty as well ? so the upshot was that we still won the all male division and finished 3rd overall.
For winning the all male category of the race, we won a case of beer and three LED headlamps (about $110 retail value worth of stuff for our entry fee of $240). We also took home two more six-packs of beer in the post race raffle ? bringing our total winnings to about 50% of the entry fee.
This race was definitely quite an *adventure* ? and, just in case you are wondering ? we are already registered for the upcoming race in Portland Maine on May 12th!
For those of you that are interested in learning more about this insanity, check out
www.racingahead.com
Cheers,
Chris
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