SOooo…. On March 9th, Shelley and I embarked on another great adventure! We actually embarked on Friday and stayed at a cabin at Milford Reservoir. It was comfy and we were able to make our own food and pick up our map early! What an excellent opportunity to be relaxed in our preparations! A pitch here for the awesome cabins available at our state parks! This was a good deal, great accommodations and right next to the lake!
Saturday we had yummy breakfasts and got packed up in a nice leisurely way while hoping and praying that the weather would clear! Our race meeting was at 12:15 and our race started at 12:30, we got there at about 11:30 to set up our gear. The official cut off, or end, for our race was 6pm. It was simultaneous to a long race, The Break Up, their start time was 7:00am and they shared our cut off time of 6pm. Whew!
The Thumper had 17 check points, aka CP’s. We had the option to either paddle or trek first. We voted to start out canoeing, and we were lucky enough to get an open canoe. I actually hated this canoe, it was a little tippy. It was like the bottom spine was too sharp. It was pretty cold, windy and wet at the start. Shelley had to throw her PFD over the top of her camel back – uncomfortable! I slid mine off of my shoulders but couldn’t unclip the waist – awkward! I did have to stick my foot in the cold water, and although it seemed cold, it ended up not mattering overall. We collected one point on the short canoe trip and felt really good about our paddling. By the end of our paddle run, I was hot! After paddling, we took off on foot to find 5 more check points. This section felt great to me as far as navigation. There were plenty of land marks and while we did go slightly off track, we got back on quickly. We had good use of the map and the shape of the land – land marks are really helpful in orienteering!
Woo, hoo! We ran/trekked around and found all the points really quickly! It was super muddy! My feet were about 5 pounds each with the caked mud on the bottom! We checked out at the “manned check point” and set out on our bikes in search of 5 more CP’s. Neither Shelley nor I have ridden our bikes much this winter, we are fair weather bikers for sure! We did well though and, for the most part, the riding was not super muddy. We had one super tough CP where we overshot our point and then ended up on the putative “beach” slogging through the sand/rocks/zebra mussels. Needless to say, it was the coldest point of the race with new rain and big wind. I am proud about how we stuck with it and made a new plan to re-orient and get the point. Some racers don’t find all of the CP’s but we wanted to find them all, and we did!
Finally, we rolled up at the “last” bike CP, where we had a strategic choice to make. We had to cross an “arm” or really, with the drought, a “finger” of the lake. We could choose to drop our bikes on one shore and run around the finger or push our bikes along the way. We we chose to push. It wasn’t too bad, the lake is so low that you can’t paddle but you also can’t just cut across the middle due to mud and some deep water so we passed around the edge. This choice gave us the advantage of having our bikes at the last of the trekking check points so we could hop right on our bikes and head for the finish line. The trekking on this side was a little tougher for us. There were fewer landmarks so when we over shot our point we had to double back to find a spot to get re-oriented, but we did! One of the coolest things about Adventure Racing is the interesting camaraderie between racers. Almost everyone is willing to give a tip or support to other racers. I guess it is because it is a niche’ sport/interest.
The tools of the Adventure Race are: base plate compass, shoes, bike, camelback and then there is required gear for emergencies: water proof matches, pocket knife, emergency blanket, fleece and a headlamp. This is gear that we mostly just carry around and never use! We do both drink a lot of water as we race. This is us after the canoe, trek and bike on another trekking leg. We are chatting (aka getting tips) with the Orange Lederhosen guys who are in the longer race. They are funny!
The last leg was essentially a straight ride back to the home base. It was a hard core ride on the highway, essentially uphill and into the wind, but, whatever! We did it and we did great. This was happily the best weather of the day. Woohoo! We finished in 4 hours and 18 minutes. Pretty sweet. We took second in the women’s division. Yay!
This was actually the most fun I think I’ve had in an adventure race. I could be wrong though since all of them have been pretty awesome!! I hope you are finding some awesomeness in your daily life! Go outside for awhile!! Next up, some spring break stories for you! For more concrete info on adventure racing, check out Lake Adventure Racing, the sponsor of this race. There are also many more pictures that show the awesomeness of adventure racing!
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