well now!
Taking Friday off was a very good call. I got my bike all tuned up, replaced the back tire with a light-weight tubless Huchinson Scorpion tire (got for 1/2 price from my fabu bike guy Scott @ Paramount Sports), had the brakes bled, re-attached the remote rear-shock lock-out, and replaced some cables. I needed all the help I could get. I ended up not leaving Guelph until 4:30pm Friday; late because I had lost my mandatory whistle, late again because I had to return home to get the driving directions I'd forgotten, and then I arrived late to the check-in point, because I'd only brought directions to the campsite, not the community centre we had to register at. When I finally arrived, Charles met me with the words, "glad to see you. We've missed the pre-race clinic. Erkan's not here yet. I hate my team." But hey, he cheered up. Off we went to the campground, where despite having 4 open acres to camp in, new arrivals kept cramming into close quarters, and then yapping away 'til the wee hours. I woke bleary-eyed, to rain, to an over-anxious Charles, and had to forego the Planet Bean coffee due to him wanting to get to the start line early. Hey- I'm a giver.
--- R A C E D A Y ---
So 9:30am rolls around. All the teams are in the auditorium, adrenaline running high. I can't believe how nervous I am. The teams get their envelopes, and for the first time we get an idea of what disciplines we'll be in for, and in what order. It's too late to change my shoe strategy- canoeing is first, and I'm in my hiking boots. SHIT!! We have 10 minutes to plot CheckPoint coordinates on our topo maps (1:50,000 - eek, we've never practiced on that scale before), but we had our magnetic declination down, and we were able to get through this. Our navigation clinic instructor Nina is there, and she hovers over us, anxious that we make no mistakes). As these points are being plotted, the race organizer gets up and starts shouting directions at us. Charles and Erkan keep plotting, and I furiously scribble, anxious that I miss nothing critical. There is lots to write down. There's a map at the front of the room with an additional dry creek bed plotted on it, and an unmarked section of the Bruce Trail that we can copy onto our maps. This, plus two GPS markers to help us on the course are unexpected kindnesses. More instructions about how to get disqualified (be more than 100 metres apart from your teammates at any point) and a change slighly southward for one of the CheckPoints.
The 10 minutes is up. 60 teams of 3 each are hustled onto waiting buses. We are driven 15 minutes in some direction, and divided up. Charles and I will race down the road a kilometre or so to waiting canoes, jump in, and start paddling West to meet with Erkan, who has to run solo to the first CheckPoint, and then race out in the water to meet us as we finally reach him. Charles can paddle a kayak, but between his rusty canoe skills, and my never-been-good steering, we are one of the last teams to get to the pick-up point. This has the consequence of us trying to get in to pick up Erkan while 40 or so boats return Eastward into our path from the same point. We have a tense time getting to Erkan without capsizing, and there are boats over-ended in the water here and there. We have a few minor collisions, and then Erkan's in the back, Charles kneeling in the middle, and me up front, all of us paddling like there's no tomorrow. As yet, we have no idea how long it will take to get where we're going. The line of canoes seems endless in the distance ahead of us. The rain has stopped though, and the sun stays in hiding. The weather is with us!
The paddling leg goes on for a lifetime. We are told we have to wear our race jerseys over our life-jackets, which we must carry through the entire race. My Camelbak chest-staps won't close, so the shoulder strap burns an angry welt into my armpit stroke after stroke forever. I'm in agony, but despite our bad technique, the three of us are gaining and even passing boat after boat. I stop to adjust a few times, but other than that, it's hard-core paddling for the next hour and a half. We are looking for CheckPoint 2, which is at the bottom of the lake, under a buoy.
Charles is almost dead from humidity and exhaustion- he volunteers to jump out of the canoe. Somehow we don't capsize. He gets some kicks in the head from a group just leaving the buoy, but down he dives, gets the code to add to our race passport, and Erkan and I blaze toward shore with the canoe. It's another transition point.
We sign-in, dump the water from our now-heavy hiking shoes, and prepare for the next leg. This is just a race through side-streets back to the community centre, where we've left our bikes. We get back there, where I make a fateful decision. I grab the clipless pedal shoes I've duct-taped to my bike, and put them on. I also race back to the Element, and toss my heavy, soaking hikers under the car. Now I've got my beaten up Teva sandals and race shoes for the entire day... It's been raining recall, so this was a tough choice to make...
But no time to think- we're racing out of town on our bikes, looking for CheckPoints 3 to 5... We pick a good route, and we beat many more teams to the next checkpoint. We cross the dam, and there are 3 trails to choose from on the South side of a river to find our next CheckPoint. At this point, the unexplicable happens. Although race rules say all team members must be within 100 yards of each other at all times during the race, Erkan jumps off his bike, picks a trail, and races away on foot- he has no map, no coordinates, and no bike. Other teams rush up to this point, take in Charles and I on our bikes plus the abandoned one on the ground, and dive into the various trails. Teams are going in, coming out in all directions. Charles and I are dumbfounded- where the hell did our teammate go? And he stays gone for 5, 10, 15 minutes, while we just cool our heels. If we go in, it could easily turn into a long time trying to reconnect, so we stand there totally frustrated as the minutes tick by, and more teams leave with their passport codes. I won't dwell on this part too much, but this major tactical error will cost us later.
For the time being, we focus on moving past blame and frustration at this decision, and we race away, well back in the pack again. The next checkpoints are also by bike. The coordinates have us racing up and down hills, and having the satisfaction of seeing many teams perplexed at crossroads and intersections with no sense of where the CheckPoint is. Erkan is directing us, and he's pretty good at judging distance and direction on the fly. We are back to gaining on teams. We spend an hour or so getting up to this ugly section of contour lines, where we know something even nastier than all the hills so far awaits us. As we round a corner, we see the hill rising and rising in front of us. It's not a hill, per se.... The chair lifts aren't moving...
We look up and see a sea of humanity moving really really slowly up the mountain. It's intimidating, awe-inspiring, and sickening to think that in moments we'll be pushing our bikes up this mountain. I look at the altimeter on my watch. 167 meters. I wonder what the number will read at top, and then quickly, grimly, we begin.
Only 30 metres up, we're already dragging our feet, and feeling the beginnings of fatigue. I've never done anything like this. I stop, and switch from bike shoes to sandals, and keep plodding. Charles does the best, while Erkan and I struggle to force our legs to obey mental directions to step, step, step. Another 30 metres, and I'm gasping. It's steep!!! We have to stop, stop again, keep stopping. We set goals - the goals keep getting smaller. First- no more stops 'til we pass the chair-lift pole. Eventually- 10 steps before stopping. 5 steps. My head is down on my bike seat, eyes watching the stones inch by underneath me, arms and legs losing steam with every movement. This goes on and on and on. My lower back has bloomed into different colours of pain, and instead of worrying about it, I observe it clinically- as if I'm someone else looking down and observing it, but not really immersed in the experience. Step, step, step. Calf muscle on left leg threatening to go.
We are at 270metres, feeling like we must now be very near the top. My head is pounding like never before, my eyes seem to be picking up less colour, I can tell my face must be bright, unhealthy red. I feel like I'm hallucinating, and 10 minutes later, when it happens again, I'm sure of it. I hear two other people say, "I swear I'm hallucinating...". I feel sick. Erkan is in the same place as me. We keep giving each other looks of dumb disbelief and agreeing to another quick stop. Charles is about 15 metres ahead of us the whole time. We take turns hating his guts. If only he'd keep back with us, we could debate the option of dying.
This woman irritates the hell out of us. She's this bright chipper young thing, somebody's girlfriend or sister, and she has this little cow-bell. With it, she runs up and down within 15 metres of our group, cheering us all on. We just hate her mildly until she informs us that we're half-way there. That does it. Our scowls tell her she's no longer welcome, and the climb goes silently on. And on. In my entire life, I've never been so physically exhausted. Every cell in my body is gasping for relief, and I have to keep stopping to forestall an impending asthma attack. But eventually, really eventually, we are up. 325metres.
We all collapse, shed our bikes, and start off into the woods for CheckPoints 9 & 10. I pop 2 Robaxicet and 3 Advils to loosen up the back muscles that feel like they're being pulled vise-tight. I've never taken that much muscle-relaxant at once before, but the situation calls for it. My back has me gasping in pain every 20 feet. This means that in 40 minutes, I'm ready to have a heart attack, but over the next 10 minutes, the back pain fades away, and we continue.
Finally, the woodsy orienteering starts. It's a total relief to be in the woods at the top of the mountain. It's gorgeous and green and cool. We walk, because I cannot run, and other teams alternately walk, run, or stagger all around us. We apply all our training and resist all undisciplined urges to follow others into the woods. We pace-count, find the GPS banner, and navigate without flaw to both CheckPoints 9 and 10. Again, we know we've made up a good chunk of time on the other teams. Everywhere around us, teams are looking frantically for the CheckPoint signs, debating how far they are, and trying to read the contour lines. We sail on.
Until... we realize our mistake. One set of small lines turns into a crazy steep hill, and me with my soggy (from falling in the river due to a slippery slope) sandals have to crawl foot by foot up a hill to return to our GPS marker and trail. Erkan hands me a walking stick, and somehow, we are up. I've learned something important: Next race- better shoe strategy! From here, we retrace our steps to the bikes, jump on, and are immediately passed by the Yummy Mummies team. This is only mildly discouraging to team eXtreme PouTine. But by now, we've learned we can sing our team name and shake our asses while riding to help our morale, and we do so, and keep going.
We finish a couple more bike stages (with some downhill now), and make our way to CheckPoint 14- the surprise inner-tubing section. Again we ditch our bikes, and flop onto one inner tube each. The river is shallow and barely moving, so for a kilmoter or so, we have to paddle/swim our tubes down river. Refreshing, but tiring. After 15 minutes of this, Erkan asks if I've lost something. As it turns out, the Zip-Lock bag with our race passport and 2 ounce disposable camera floated out of my side shorts pocket, secured by only one button!! Here was my big mistake! Happily, it floated right to him, and we didn't end up without it at race end- although I heard that at least another couple of teams lost their passports too.
Bike, bike, bike. Hill, hill, freakin' hill. On and on. Finally, we hit CheckPoints 16, and 17, and realize we're on the home stretch. Now the good adrenaline comes. Now we share crazy grins with each other. We've just completed an Adventure Race!!! Yay us!! We're still passing teams who look lost and confused, which is a good thing, since we're still sure of our route to the finish. We agree to bolt for the finish line side by side, and we pound out the last few hundred yards, legs pumping furiously, as if we were being chased by Cerebus himself. We finished about half-way through the pack of 60 teams, with the announcer yelling "and now down the stretch comes team eXtreme PouTine!!!" The crowd explodes in appreciative applause at our finish (and our name) and our arms are pumping in the air in celebration. It is the most unbelieveable feeling.
Muskoka- September 11th. PouTine strikes twice.
