Adventure Racing is for Anyone and Everyone

Since I had some good responses to my first AR story posted on April 8th, I decided to study for exams instead of writing something right now and post another. I hope you enjoy and am getting as excited for the upcoming AR season as I am. Watch out for Team HolisticClinic.ca this year!

Interesting how the simple resonance of the vocal cords of one person fires hundreds of synapses in an army of eager minds front of him. On the beautiful morning of June 23, 2002, said vocal cords belonged to Dave Zietsma and the eager minds belonged to the 47 teams of three beginning to vault themselves and their mountain bikes down the gravel road ahead for Salomon Adventure Challenge - Parry Sound (2 hours north of Toronto). This race marked my first 8 hour summer adventure race I had participated in and my mind was racing, both proverbially and literally as Team Freaks of Nature began to power our way to the front of the pack amidst the loose sand and potholes.

During the first half hour, I was suffering from what I call “first ten minutes syndrome.” In distance events, the body can take a few minutes to settle into a stable aerobic pattern while in the mean time using the more inefficient anaerobic system. The result is very tired and lethargic feeling body for a short period of time. The key is knowing that the feeling passes and pushing hard through it.

Within a few minutes, Freaks of Nature’s hammering paid off as we took an early lead. The biking portion was our strongest discipline, so gaining this early lead was essential to our race plan; it was for this reason that we were so disheartened when we came over a hill 12km into the short 14km bike section to see the backs of Team Hunger. They had taken a navigational risk on an unmarked road that cut 2km off the route to CP1.

Only 40 short minutes after the start, we arrived at the first transition area only 1 minute behind the leaders and 2 minutes in front of Team White Squall. Although we left the TA to begin the hiking section first, we were less then 30 seconds in front of a ravenous Team Hunger and swift Team White Squall. The nine of us jogged lightly down the trail toward the beginning of the bushwhack section trying our best to ignore the presence of the other teams to avoid falling into the trap of making pace and navigation decisions based on the other teams’. Although the heat and the thirsty mosquitoes escalated, we failed to notice since the occasional creek crossing, constant movement and sufficient “game face” kept them both at bay. A very strong bushwhack on the part of our fellow competitors brought us out of the bush in third position to our bikes and fresh watermelon provided by race management.

At this point, a fire ignited inside me to reel the team in front in. Knowing full well that there was only 15km of race course remaining to catch the fleeing teams ahead, we vaulted quickly away from the TA for a fast 5km bike to the canoes.

Mechanical problems slowed our progress and smothered our remaining advantage because of the other teams’ strength in the water. During the ride, we screamed our strategy back and forth through the draft to allow us to make a swift escape into our boat. Our plan was well executed where we exchanged our bike for a canoe and jumped in while still wearing all of our bike gear. One by one, through gritted teeth because of our cramping legs from lack of water and electrolyte consumption, we changed into our running shoes in the boat to facilitate the portages remaining on the course. Although we pulled harder on the water more then we had before over a 10km paddle and ran the portages, our efforts were not enough as we beached our canoe between the finish line posts in third position for a finishing time of 4 hours 55 minutes. As we congratulated our opponents and recounted our race experience over the free post-race lunch, we realized that they had both competed in the open division because of their three-male team. Team Freaks of Nature won a nice new set of Salomon packs for our first place finish in the co-ed division!

The most uplifting part of the day was spent sitting on the beach congratulating the incredible number of teams crossing the finish line. Out of the 47 teams that started, 100% reached the finish of the tough bushwhack section, and 90% reached the finish line. A large number of teams were rookies to the sport and/or were complete rookies to one or more of the three disciplines of the race. Witnessing first hand every team’s amply joy of accomplishment as we all paraded across the finish line confirms my thesis that the sport is well suited for anyone. Fancy gear, mammoth lungs, cut build, expensive bikes, years of skills training and other such frills are not necessary to for success. All that is needed is a positive attitude and the desire to finish.

For more information on adventure racing, check out http://www.far.on.ca/ or http://www.raidthenorth.com/.