Mountain Adventure Race Recap Part 1

I wake up. I’m cold and I brush my hands against my pants and feel that they are wet, the sounds of rain hitting my waterproof jacket and pants then register in my head. “Hey guys, wake up, it’s raining” I say in a loud whisper. Immediately Sara shoots up and starts to get ready to leave, but then stops, “What do you guys want to do?” Before any of us could answer we see a headlamp pop up over the horizon, then another, then two more; the four-person team behind us has caught us while we were sleeping. “Cover everything reflective, don’t let them see you.” I say in a firm whisper. Jim, wearing the most reflective, brightest yellow jacket ever known to man immediately flops onto the ground on his back, hoping he’s covered enough. We watch them go by like walking zombies, no conversations between them, just silent marching; I think we could’ve been having a kegger 30 feet off the trail and they wouldn’t have noticed us. After they pass we agree to huddle together for more warmth and sleep another hour in the cold rain, as I fall asleep I’m amazed at how much has happened in such a short time to get me here.

6 a.m. July 29^th, I wake up to pack for my first ever expedition-length adventure race. I really should’ve done this much sooner, but 60-70 hour work weeks and a bachelor party that lasted until 3 a.m. made for barely enough time to get some sleep, let alone pack gear. I frantically pack things, making sure I have all of the “required” gear and my nutritional stuff. I haven’t really figured out what clothes I’m going to need and I know that the weather can fluctuate wildly so I just decided to throw all of the technical clothing I own in my gear box. At 8 a.m. Rod and Sara (team mates) show up to my place and we load my bike and two gear boxes into the truck/trailer rig and head out. We go pick up Rod’s mom, Barb, she’s going to be helping Andie with support crew. We then make one more stop on our way out to Montana; we stop in Ft. Collins to pick up our 4^th teammate, Jim. Jim was the x-factor, we had no idea if his personality would work with us and if he was at the same fitness level as us, on paper it looked like a good match. Jim and Barb rode with Andie and me; 12 hours in a car together is a good time to find out how personalities match up.

We arrive at the race start late and set up camp and get some rest. The next morning is running around getting the rest of the required gear, the most important of which is the bear spray, basically a super-sized pepper spray. The afternoon is filled with check-in, gear checks, and trying to stay out of the sun, the upper 90-degree temperatures were not welcome. We’re all in high spirits and there doesn’t seem like we will have any personality conflicts in the team, thank goodness, the nightmares of Jim being some former military die-hard are gone, he’s just a former triathlete that doesn’t like running on pavement anymore.

4:30 a.m. Tuesday July 31^st, I wake up to a watch alarm; little did I know that this would be the last time in several days in which I would be sure about the day of the week and time. We all rustle out of bed and eat a breakfast burrito, delicious and bland all at the same time. Somewhere around 6:30 we all get into the cars and caravan down with the rest of the teams (10 total) and the race directors to the start of the race. As we wait for the start we discuss a few things and decide that we should go hard at the start to try and get out of the hustle and bustle of the pack and get into a groove. At 7 a.m. the race officially begins and we start racing, uphill, trekking is our first leg. We quickly gain the ridge and can see that we are in 4^th place, we wanted to be on a lower trail that we missed, but the ridge will also work for us. We continue along, a cold front has moved in so we have clouds and a high in the upper-80’s so we all feel good. We eventually come to Saddle Peak and are faced with a decision, climb the peak(s) for another 1000’ of elevation gain or traverse a scree field over to a saddle where the lower trail is. We decide to traverse the scree field, first lesson learned, traversing a scree field is slow and tears up your feet. At the end of the 1 kilometer traverse I have to stop to address a few hot-spots on my feet before they become blisters, duct tape to the rescue. We start up again, realizing we’ve lost at least one place during our traverse, we pick up the pace and are running on the flats and downhills. At one point we missed a turn and ended up in Turner Gulch. After talking to a local who I believe had a GPS implanted in her brain we shot up a drainage and were once again back on the correct trail. Another 4-person team was hot on our heels so we kept up the pace, but we definitely wanted to start implementing a “Smarter, Not Harder” strategy, our Turner Gulch detour had lost us about 45 minutes in time, and who knows what in energy. We arrive at the Ross Pass checkpoint (CP) at 1:20 p.m. and find out we’re in seventh place. We’re a little disappointed, but we know we’re moving faster than the people in front of us, we just have to stop making mistakes; easier said than done.

After another 10 kilometers on the same trail we reach a trail junction that marks our launching point for the next CP. The race instructions state that we have to go within ½ a mile of the summit of Hardscrabble Peak and the race director said that the north drainages are easily passable, which is nice, but we are approaching from the south. With a name like Hardscrabble I wasn’t expecting an easy little jaunt, but kilometer after kilometer of side-hilling in loose slate scree fields takes its toll. We checked out the drainages as we went, all were only passable if you had a death wish (which apparently Team Timberland did because they took one and were knocking rocks down the gully the entire way), until we got to the north side. We descended down a drainage and checked in at the CP, 6^th place now, we had passed a 2 person team since the last CP. The lake that was on the map was dried up, so we filtered water out of the only source available, a 10-foot wide muddy puddle. Mmmmmm silty.

The rest of the trek was uneventful other than our feet slowly turning into instruments of torture. At one point I made the mistake of singing the song “This is the trek that never ends…”; I had this stuck in my head for the next 72 hours. Finally after 14 hours, around 35 miles, and over 10,000’ of elevation gain we awkwardly shuffled into the transition area where Andie and Barb were waiting with the most professional looking TA I’ve ever seen and hot pasta! I had drank 360 oz of fluid during this leg of the race, yet I was still thirsty upon arriving; it was time to refuel.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Biking, Hiking and Bears, Oh My!