The Savage
My friend Christy and I did an adventure race yesterday.
Holy crap, talk about the hardest thing I've ever done! It was six hours of non-stop physical activity... And I thought drum corps was hard! Here's how the day went:
Arrived around 9 and got all checked in, did our gear check and found a nice grassy place to put all of our crap. (There's a two page list of mandatory gear you need for the race.)
The race consists of 4 sections, and your "passport" determines what order you do them in. In order to get your passport at this race, one team member from every team (there were at least 100 teams there) had to run down the road and into the lake and swim out to a boat where they were tossing them out. Christy did that. The lake was freezing!
Our first section of the race was canoeing. Luckily we both brought water shoes with us. Next time we bring our own paddles. People had the double sided kayak paddles. The paddles they gave us were just single ones. It took us FOREVER to get around to the 4 checkpoints on the lake. (It was about 5 miles). Double sided paddles probably would have cut off 20 minutes to a half hour.
Our second section was "Fun Team Challenges". That consisted of filling a piece of PVC pipe to the top with lake water. Of course you had to run through the lake to get to the island to do this. The pipe had 2 1-inch holes drilled into it that you had to cover with your hands. But you had to take turns using the cup, so every time we switched hands, we lost most of the water we had just put in. The second team challenge was Christy climbing a rock wall. I've never done it before and she goes to the climbing gym all the time. The third was each partner had to be carried around a cone and back. That wasn't too bad except my ankle turned on me and we fell down in a heap.
The third section for us was the mountain biking. We were a little nervous because Christy was borrowing a bike and the chain had already popped off once just getting the bike to the starting point. My bike was brand new, but I'd never mountain biked with it, so I had no clue what I was in for.
This was the most grueling part of the race. The biking was split into two halves. A friendly co-race-goer told us which part was really hard, so we did that first. I couldn't believe the stuff they expected us to ride bikes up and down! It was scary at points! We had to carry our bikes up and down what seemed like cliffs, over piles of stacked logs, through waist deep water.... It was nuts. We and our bikes were COVERED in mud! Also at one point I ran into a big root and my bike stopped and I didnt. I just slid forward and smashed my girly area into the hand bars. OUCH!!! I had to stop for a few minutes because it hurt SO BAD!!
We eventually made it through that and after a quick snack break, started on the second part of mountain biking. That was a bit flatter, the water wasn't waist deep (only a little above the knees!) and there was actually a marked trail to follow.
Once we finished that, we both wanted to lie down and die. But we still had 5 miles of running to do. And an hour left before the 6 hour cut-off point! Needless to say, I was NOT into running by this point. Christy was so thrilled to be off the bike, she was ready to go and took off. I felt like the fat kid in gym class, plodding along behind her. It didn't help that my back pack was NOT fit for running. I should have tested that out before we left.
My brain was broken by that point too, so Christy took the map, ran ahead and would slow down or stop every now and then to wait for me. (We weren't supposed to be more than 100 feet apart at any time!) She navigated like a pro! We didn't get lost at all and found all the check points! There were a handful of other teams in the woods too, who also were just hoping they could finish the race within the time period. I tripped over a root or rock (or maybe just my foot??) and fell pretty hard. My leg and knee are all scraped up. Christy wouldn't let me lay down on the trail and stop though, so we kept going.
Somehow, we made it.... I hurt so bad and my ears were ringing and I was covered in goosebumps and my thigh cramped up and started twitching... but Christy got me to the end and we finished the race having done every single checkpoing for every event. The best part was when the official at the finish said "This team is an OFFICIAL finisher!". We couldn't believe we'd finished within time! I almost cried I was so happy! I plopped down with a bag of chips they had there and sat for a few minutes. Then I found a medic and had him clean off my gross bleeding muddy leg. He wrapped it all up for me. We sat for a little longer, then decided to hike back up the huge hill to where the car was parked and just drive it down to collect our gear.
They weren't kidding when they named it "Adventure Racing".
I am so glad that we decided to take personal days today. I feel like I've been hit by a truck. But it's almost a good feeling, knowing that we finished the race!
We are hoping to find another 6 hour race to do before the 12 hour one. And now that we have a much better idea about this, we know how to train a bit better for it. We decided that we probably won't be attempting the 24 hour one anytime soon. I don't even want to attempt the 12 hour one (All the distances are exactly double the ones for the 6 hour race) without doing another 6 hour one and getting a better time on it.
That's all I have for now! Time to get dressed and attempt to do something normal today.
Holy crap, talk about the hardest thing I've ever done! It was six hours of non-stop physical activity... And I thought drum corps was hard! Here's how the day went:
Arrived around 9 and got all checked in, did our gear check and found a nice grassy place to put all of our crap. (There's a two page list of mandatory gear you need for the race.)
The race consists of 4 sections, and your "passport" determines what order you do them in. In order to get your passport at this race, one team member from every team (there were at least 100 teams there) had to run down the road and into the lake and swim out to a boat where they were tossing them out. Christy did that. The lake was freezing!
Our first section of the race was canoeing. Luckily we both brought water shoes with us. Next time we bring our own paddles. People had the double sided kayak paddles. The paddles they gave us were just single ones. It took us FOREVER to get around to the 4 checkpoints on the lake. (It was about 5 miles). Double sided paddles probably would have cut off 20 minutes to a half hour.
Our second section was "Fun Team Challenges". That consisted of filling a piece of PVC pipe to the top with lake water. Of course you had to run through the lake to get to the island to do this. The pipe had 2 1-inch holes drilled into it that you had to cover with your hands. But you had to take turns using the cup, so every time we switched hands, we lost most of the water we had just put in. The second team challenge was Christy climbing a rock wall. I've never done it before and she goes to the climbing gym all the time. The third was each partner had to be carried around a cone and back. That wasn't too bad except my ankle turned on me and we fell down in a heap.
The third section for us was the mountain biking. We were a little nervous because Christy was borrowing a bike and the chain had already popped off once just getting the bike to the starting point. My bike was brand new, but I'd never mountain biked with it, so I had no clue what I was in for.
This was the most grueling part of the race. The biking was split into two halves. A friendly co-race-goer told us which part was really hard, so we did that first. I couldn't believe the stuff they expected us to ride bikes up and down! It was scary at points! We had to carry our bikes up and down what seemed like cliffs, over piles of stacked logs, through waist deep water.... It was nuts. We and our bikes were COVERED in mud! Also at one point I ran into a big root and my bike stopped and I didnt. I just slid forward and smashed my girly area into the hand bars. OUCH!!! I had to stop for a few minutes because it hurt SO BAD!!
We eventually made it through that and after a quick snack break, started on the second part of mountain biking. That was a bit flatter, the water wasn't waist deep (only a little above the knees!) and there was actually a marked trail to follow.
Once we finished that, we both wanted to lie down and die. But we still had 5 miles of running to do. And an hour left before the 6 hour cut-off point! Needless to say, I was NOT into running by this point. Christy was so thrilled to be off the bike, she was ready to go and took off. I felt like the fat kid in gym class, plodding along behind her. It didn't help that my back pack was NOT fit for running. I should have tested that out before we left.
My brain was broken by that point too, so Christy took the map, ran ahead and would slow down or stop every now and then to wait for me. (We weren't supposed to be more than 100 feet apart at any time!) She navigated like a pro! We didn't get lost at all and found all the check points! There were a handful of other teams in the woods too, who also were just hoping they could finish the race within the time period. I tripped over a root or rock (or maybe just my foot??) and fell pretty hard. My leg and knee are all scraped up. Christy wouldn't let me lay down on the trail and stop though, so we kept going.
Somehow, we made it.... I hurt so bad and my ears were ringing and I was covered in goosebumps and my thigh cramped up and started twitching... but Christy got me to the end and we finished the race having done every single checkpoing for every event. The best part was when the official at the finish said "This team is an OFFICIAL finisher!". We couldn't believe we'd finished within time! I almost cried I was so happy! I plopped down with a bag of chips they had there and sat for a few minutes. Then I found a medic and had him clean off my gross bleeding muddy leg. He wrapped it all up for me. We sat for a little longer, then decided to hike back up the huge hill to where the car was parked and just drive it down to collect our gear.
They weren't kidding when they named it "Adventure Racing".
I am so glad that we decided to take personal days today. I feel like I've been hit by a truck. But it's almost a good feeling, knowing that we finished the race!
We are hoping to find another 6 hour race to do before the 12 hour one. And now that we have a much better idea about this, we know how to train a bit better for it. We decided that we probably won't be attempting the 24 hour one anytime soon. I don't even want to attempt the 12 hour one (All the distances are exactly double the ones for the 6 hour race) without doing another 6 hour one and getting a better time on it.
That's all I have for now! Time to get dressed and attempt to do something normal today.