18A "Dynamic Warmup" in 30 min, then a treadmill interval workout with a 1 mile warmup @ 7mph, then 4x(0.5 mi @ 8.5mph, 0.25 mi @ 7 mph) in lime green Kinvaras. It's not my top speeds for this workout and was lower by 0.5mph for the "on" and "off" segments, but that's ok... at least that made it doable.
Afterwards, I did Day 12 - Focus & Day 13 - Flight | MOVE yoga with Adriene.
Wednesday, September 18:
18A "Upper Body Prep" in 24:18, "Pull-up" in 26:29, then HDT IR34-35.1.2 (core and legs) in 35:51.
Thursday, September 19:
Finished reading "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" by Edward Tufte. Interesting concepts, though some parts can be a little tougher to get through than others.
Friday, September 20:
Rucked with 50# in the v2 rucker wearing MACV2s at Iswa Nature Preserve, covering 5.0 miles in 1:57:19 (23:28 average). It felt easier than it did in the past, which is good.
Saturday, September 21:
Made a trip to Coleman's with SB, for my first visit since renewing my membership there. During my first year there, I completed 15 range trips (plus maybe one or two competition trips where I would've been able to get onsite anyways even without being a member).
Zero Range Muzzle Brake Tests
I had left my Send-it on last time, so it ran out of batteries. Fortunately, it's the same battery that SB's crush-it uses, and we didn't need a timer for anything today.
One of my big goals was to test different muzzle brakes for my 6mmCM RPR.
- The APA Gen2 Little Bastard for 0.243 gave me an average final rise of 2.3 mil.
- The Area 419 Hellfire Match for 6.5CM gave me an average rise of 1.75 up and 1 mil to the left. This one gave SB the least amount of blast, as a bonus. This was easy to install, too, once the adapter is on (there's a tool you should get from Area419 to make it easy to install the adapter to begin with... some nice guys at the bay let me borrow theirs, and they also helped me with other stuff).
- The Precision Armament Hypertrap for 6CM gave me an average rise of 3.3 mil and needs the included wrenches to install. Wasn't super easy and intuitive.
I decided to stick with the Area 419. I wish I had an MDT one to test, too, but I didn't.
Meanwhile, SB still sticks with a naked barrel.
Zero Range Bag Tests
Once I had settled on the muzzle brake, the next series of tests was for bags.
- Pint sized GC in waxed canvas with Spexlite 2064 gave me a 2.8 mil average rise, and the group opened up, too.
- The full ultralite in a schmedium wax canvas GC gave me an average rise of 1.2.
- The less full ultralite in Schmedium gave me a 1.66 mil average rise.
I tried some more shooting from a barricade-style tac table. The ultralite fill was the toughest to get on target.
Western Range Bag Tests
We did some more bag testing on the board pogo stick, tire, and low rocks. I think I prefer the 5025 or the Gitlite over the Ultralite Spexlite. There's too much wobble, and it's hard to get on target, with the Ultralite.
Pistol Arcade
SB shot my CZ to see if she wanted to get one herself. She liked the trigger. I see nothing wrong with the Glock stock trigger, though. I do like the weight of the CZ.
Sunday, September 22:
Day 23 - Soften & Day 25 - Release | MOVE Yoga with Adriene
Monday, September 23:
Went to Blackstone for pistol work with the CZ.
I was flinchy at first... stress from everyday life can carry over. I did some dry fire to work it out each time I flinched.
I did some cadence work, and it went OK.
I did a bit of alternating hands rifle at the end.
200 pistol rounds and 12 rifle rounds overall, for a total of 657 rounds on this target so far.
Tuesday, September 24:
Glute and pec PT v1 in 31:12, then HDT "Jump Release" 25 min BW AMRAP
Wednesday, September 25:
Yoga for Text Neck & Yoga for Neck and Shoulder Relief with Adriene
USARA NATIONALS
On Valentine's Day, we received an email indicating that Steel Wolves had won a $300 scholarship towards Nationals, for our top-10 (specifically, 6th) F3/4 division placement during the 2022-2023 season, thanks to our finish at Rev3 at Seven Bends. It wasn't something that I had been tracking or really aware of, so it was an awesome surprise.
Unfortunately, only teams of 3 can attend Nationals. I'd later find out through a podcast that it was due to boat seating and availability constraints, plus the greater chances of teams of 3 being able to form and stick together vs larger teams of 4, when life can get in the way and cause a need to find replacements. We were able to figure out a good plan for who to send this year, though, so it worked out. It was sad to not have all 4 of us there, though.
We didn't expect to be anywhere near the top. We'd just be happy to be there and experience it all.
This race would *only* be 36 hours, so our plan was to not sleep. It would feel like a sprint, in comparison to 50 hours and 72 hours!
In the days before the event, we did receive this schematic:
And this map of the Snowshoe resort area, although we had no clue what % of our total travel area this map would cover.
We got a little swag bag, shirts, and team photos and interviews once Meg arrived.
During the Brief, they showed a cool preview video of the whole route, and it left me wondering if this was supposed to be a week-long race. One cool concept in this race is that there would be "windows", or clusters of points where if you found all the points in that cluster, you'd get bonus points. That introduced a neat strategy element.
We got a Women of AR photo with Stephanie Ross at the end. It was cool to have 2 female RDs, and to see how the numbers of females competing in ARs have grown. Strong competitors, too.
Before we could head back to the AirBNB, we had to drop off our paddle bags and bikes. We were told that there was a chance that the paddle might need to be cancelled. It had been raining heavily, so maybe the water levels were too high and unsafe, I thought. It turned out that the problem was actually that the water levels might be too low, in spite of all the rain that weekend.
(I felt like a bit of a bum not helping to carry the paddle bag, but I was busy being the camerawoman!)
SB had made a gluten-free pasta dinner for us. It was delicious and made the night before the race easier and stress-free.
A bit of last-minute packing, and then sleep. Sleep is important for good physical performance and decision-making.
One nice thing about not getting maps until the morning of the event is that you can get more sleep, since you don't have the option to stay up late plotting and planning.
Friday, September 27: RACE DAY 1
Map Distribution
Maps would be distributed at 6am, which would kick off about 2.5 hours of planning time before we'd have to head out to the starting line.
There were tables throughout the ballroom and in the hallways, enough for each time to have one or half of one. We had a nice round one, allowing for plenty of space to lay out the maps. There were 10 maps to piece together.
As this was a Nationals event, there was a strict no phone policy, so once I picked up the maps and showed my sealed phone, I'd have to get all footage from my GoPro Hero.
Between reading the Rules of Travel book, which was thoughtfully put together with inspiration quotes and everything, looking for maps, getting a lay of the land, putting together plans and contingency plans, and map wheeling distances, there was a lot to do. There was also a Q&A session mid-way through.
We did find out in the morning that the paddle was cancelled, but the RDs had a plan for how to handle that, too. We'd essentially bike that segment, instead, which made for even more biking. It was sad, since paddling gives your leg muscles a break, and you miss out on the water experience, but it happens. It is impressive that they had a plan for it.
2.5 hours was a pretty good amount of time. There was a lot to do, and there's always more detail you could work through, but at some point, you're also eager to just get started.
Start & Prologue
We dropped off our map kits in a bin as we headed out to the center of the ski resort village. Snowshoe is unique in that the resort is located at the top of the mountain, so people typically ski down and take gondolas back up. This is the opposite of what you typically see at ski resorts. As we exited Snowshoe Mountain Lodge, we were met with misty rain and high winds. This was the weekend that Hurricane Helene was hitting the US, which made the cancellation of the paddle due to low water levels even more ironic. We had been wondering whether the event would be cancelled or anything like that, but we were far enough north that we'd just be getting rain from the clouds that were in front of the hurricane, not even part of the hurricane system.
We stood out there for a little while, waiting for starting time. The National Anthem was sung, and then prologue maps were distributed. We'd need to find 5? (I think it was) CPs in the village area, out of about 10 options. You could essentially choose between a northern set or a southern set (or go for middle, but north or south would be more efficient). We chose the southern set, since we were slightly more familiar with that area, since it was where the lodge was. Maybe half of the field went each way, though.
Before the event, we had decided that SB would do boat nav (since she enjoys it), I'd do trek nav, and Meg would do bike nav (since she was the strongest biker). With the paddle out, SB and I would split the trekking nav. She started, with the prologue.
The purpose of the prologue is to spread the teams out. There were some short lines at the points, since the points weren't far away, but that's fun. It's fun to be around all the excited racers early on. We'll be spread out soon enough. You can follow the other teams pretty easily, this early on, so there's not as much nav to have to worry about yet. You are excited to go fast because you're fresh and everyone else is going fast, but you also need to pace yourself this early on. Ski resorts are fun. Even though I barely ski, it is a unique and fun environment.
Once we turned in our prologue punch list, we were allowed to get started on the first leg. I'd be navigating this one.
Leg 1 - Trek
We walked along the main road of the resort for the first part, then began attacking CP1 as we entered a series of MTB trails. It was actually quite a messy and confusing series of trails. Trails are tricky, since they aren't always mapped exactly as they are in real life. Quite often, there can be new trails that people either officially or unofficially blaze, too. Many teams wandered around the trails and bushwhacked through, looking for the point. We were all going in circles, it felt like. There were parallel trails, so you'd go, then see people on a parallel trail and cut over. Groups would be going in both directions. We spent sooo much time there, but it seemed like such an easy point to find, so we didn't want to miss out on it, or miss out on the very first CP of the race. It had to be there!
Finally, I suggested re-attacking from the corner trail near the road, instead of the center trail where we had originally entered, and that approach was much more effective. It helps when you can figure out exactly where you are on the map.
With that out of the way, we could continue on to CP2. We did have to wander through many more confusing trails, not quite sure where we were, but we were generally heading north. The point was much farther that we expected it to be, but we kept looking for terrain clues and eventually found it. That was a good feeling, to find this one more easily and to have survived that trail network.
Next, we'd be going downhill to CP3. This trail network was gorgeous. Some race preview pic had been posted on FB ahead of time, and this moss-covered ground in the fog seemed like a magical place. It didn't disappoint. As we went downhill, the magical fairy land turned back into normal forest.
Once we hit the T-intersection for the road at the bottom, we went south a bit more to the bend in the road to attack CP3. It was in a boulder field. We ran into a nice boulder field and looked all around it. We couldn't find it. We kept looking further downhill and all around. It turns out that the whole side of the hill was a boulder field. Gigantic boulders are tricky to move around and over, so it was slow searching, too. Eventually, one of my teammates suggested that we try re-attacking from the road at the bottom of the hill. We went down, south, and back uphill. That was much more successful.
When we had been route planning, CP4 had been a potential option, but after CP1 and CP3 took so long, there was no way we'd be going for CP4, so we went north, skipping CP5 to the east, following the road and grabbing a bite to eat as we walked.
As you navigate, it's good to say aloud what you're looking for, so that your teammates can stay aware and be looking out for the same things. It also helps you stay focused, when you need to verbalize your plans.
There were still a couple of teams that we ran into in the boulder field and on the road, but things were spreading out more and more.
We skipped past TA1 to first hit CP7 down a ski slope. Some teams were already on their bikes on leg 2. We went downhill halfway to CP7, and then we continued on to grab window point C, which we'd only be allowed to get during leg 1, even though it was more "on the way" during leg 2.
Finding the place to do the water crossing was easy. We then had to climb a steep bank to get into the forest. There were many teams around this area. We were glad that the water was shallow, so we didn't have to do a full swim. Some rivers here are deep, but this was not.
Some teams were going too far west once they exited the river, and I stuck to my pace count, so I knew when we had to keep going, and which direction to search once we had hit the distance. It took a bit of searching, but we remarkably found the point and got out of there.
TA1 - Trek to Bike
We backtracked to TA1, where we encountered a surprise... some bikes had been crushed by a falling tree overnight. Mine was one of them, and it was unrideable, since the handlebar was bent, shifters were messed up, and the front wheel had popped and a spoke had been bent. Fortunately, the frame was OK, so my local bike shop (South Main Cycles) was able to repair it for less than $150. Some racers weren't as lucky.
The race had managed to come up with rental bikes for those who were affected. It had a really high seat with no dropper post, so it was more challenging to get on the rental bike. I also had to get used to how it shifted gears, but it did have full suspension and bigger wheels, which was nice. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that this type of bike had left and right shifters that affected the range of gears that I could use. I only ever changed the right shifter gears, since that's all I know from my bike, so I ended up doing the whole race with limited gears, unknowingly. It made sense afterwards why pedaling even on flat ground had been so challenging for me. The pedaling crank radius also seemed very small to me, so between that and the seat height already being as low as it could go, I felt like I could never fully extend my legs to generate full power. I'd feel like I was doing an isometric hold of a squat during the whole ride, which was brutal.
It took time to move my accessories from my old bike to the rental bike. It's tedious enough to do when you're fresh and dry. It's not as fun when it's raining and windy and cold, and you're trying to figure out which ones survived and which ones didn't. My bike compass and map board were destroyed. I wouldn't have a bike computer to use, since that's part of the wheel and something that needs to be calibrated. Good thing Meg was going to be bike nav anyways. My front light is a pain to move over because of the screw system, and it didn't fit these handlebars, so it wasn't on very tightly. I'd end up losing a screw later because it would back out completely, which was unfortunate. At least I had a bike to use, and at least the tree had only fallen on bikes and not on people. It's part of the adventure! Adapt and overcome.
Leg 2 - Bike
Trekking is my comfort zone. Biking is not my favorite. It hurts where you sit, and downhills are scary. Our bike leg started with a gigantic, steep climb. We definitely had to push bikes up this one. The wind was absolutely howling up the mountain, too.
Once we got to the top, we did some downhill riding. I'm always amazed when I come down alive. I was still getting used to the new bike.
We searched in the forest for a point, but much too early, and it ended up being right on the biking trail further down.
We went along very muddy trails. I wouldn't have thought about this earlier, but later teams experience much muddier trails than the faster teams that hit the fresh ground first. Between the rain and the other riders, it got really sloppy in there.
Looking back, we could've skipped a lot of this biking section, which would've been a good move for a team that knows that it's not strong at biking. It was still early on, and we were optimistic at that time about how much of the course we could afford to cover, though.
Before we left the main snowshoe area, we did make one wrong turn, but fortunately, we were able to catch it after a while. Communication and openness to ideas are big.
We continued on to a bog, which was a fun spot to find a point. We rode through some deep water to get there.
We took a little break after hitting CP11, to refuel and use the bathroom. We all had muddy faces from the trails.
We rode on more mud trails. It was probably a green-level trail, but still challenging with the slick rocks and other stuff. It was starting to get dark, and riding becomes even more challenging at night so we had to keep riding to make the most of the daylight.
At some point on this trail, Meg's hub broke apart from her wheel, which meant that when she tried to pedal, the wheel wouldn't turn. We'd only be able to really ride on the downhills. Otherwise, we were pushing bikes. I didn't mind too much, since riding flats was tough, and trail conditions were tough.
We eventually got to a gravel road, which made things slightly easier. We were very excited to be off the trail. That didn't help with the hub situation, though. We did make an attempt at having SB tow Meg, but it didn't work out, so we went into the night, pushing the uphills and flats, and riding the downhills.
It was now dark. We definitely weren't going to go for more points, since we had lost a lot of time pushing bikes on the trail, and we had a ton of mileage to cover. We were working under a cutoff, too.. we had to leave TA2 by midnight, or else we'd have to proceed directly from TA2 to TA3 while skipping all points to make up time.
We weren't sure how this was going to go. It was dark. I'm sure it was pretty there. People raved about the views from this bike leg after the race, but we didn't get to see the Mower Basin. We just kept pushing. We did our best to enjoy ourselves, in spite of the situation.
I wasn't sure if this would be the last leg of our race. It's hard to imagine having a catastrophic bike failure on leg 2 of 6 and still managing to finish the rest of the race only able to push bikes uphill and on flats. Maybe if my broken bike was at the next TA, there was a chance that we could swap my good wheel onto Meg's bike?
During this leg, SB's main brake stopped working, too. Not an ideal situation for some of the steep long and downhills that we encountered, but we made it through.
As we got closer to TA2, we ran into some other teams, remarkably. They weren't going to make the cutoff, either, it seemed. I'm sure they had found more points than us and had covered more distance. Maybe they had under-estimated the time it would take to find those points, since they were far behind like we were.
The trail got pretty confusing at one point, and after crossing a river, we seemed to just bushwhack through forest until we found a steep trail, leading to some more technical and sloppy trail. We did manage to snag one last point on the way before we went into TA2.
TA2 - Bike to Trek
We were happy to see civilization again.
No time for trail mail or time to dilly-dally, though.
A kind racer (who I think might've been out of the race at that point) helped SB fix her brake.
Another (maybe the same) racer also lent their fancy carbon fiber bike to Meg, since her bike wasn't going to be able to get us through the rest of the race.
Lots of priorities of work to do, but it's slow going when you're tired.
My legs were full of lactate from my non-ideal riding geometry, but we decided to keep going, since we had three functioning bikes now.
At least the next leg was a trek. Trekking is our happy place. We'd see how it would go.
Before we left, I ate a bunch of caramel blondie brownie-like bites, and the RD let me take a bunch on the road, too. We might've been the last team in. She said that they'd be waiting for me at the next TA, too.
TA3
It was SB's turn to navigate again. She paid close attention to the directions of the road. We started off with lots of pace counting, but after a while, she felt comfortable just going based on the orientations of the trails.
The stars were nice to look at. We took a couple of breaks along the road, to give our legs a rest. Since this was such a short race, we'd only have to worry about getting through the sleepies on this one night. At one point during the night, my GoPro gave me a message saying that the memory was low or out. That was alarming, since it would've been unfortunate if all the footage was gone, or if I'd only have footage for half of the event. I wouldn't know for sure until after the event. Fortunately, everything was fine, in spite of the message.
Along the way, we saw some teams who were allowed to still get points. We kept going, though, since we had to go straight to TA3.
We finally got to see the famous Allegheny Trail. We were going to cut onto it from the main road, but the connector trail did not seem to exist in the real world like it did on the map, so we had to bushwhack.
It does not appear like the Allegheny Trail is used very much. It's barely noticeable at times. We were around a bunch of teams now, though. There was lots of meandering, it felt like. The trail itself was super rocky... more rocks than dirt, it felt like, at times. How is this supposed to be a trail? There were blazes on trees that we could follow. When there was trail, it was super narrow. The technical terrain definitely worked everyone's ankle stabilizer muscles.
Eventually, the trail ended. We took a road up to the river. That road and trail lasted forever, too.
We finally got to the ford that the RD had been talking about. It wasn't too bad... the packs could stay dry if you kept it up high on your upper back. We reached the ford just as the sun was starting to rise.
You did want to tread carefully, though, and avoid slipping and dunking your pack in the river.
With the daylight, we are re-energized. It was still chilly, though, especially since we got halfway wet.
The little trek that we had to take to the TA wasn't a bad thing, since it allowed us to get warmed up again.
TA3 - Trek to Bike
The TA was pretty busy. They had a fire going, which was nice for all of the wet racers.
I think they were out of water and didn't have any caramel blondie brownies left by then, but it was a really short bike ride to TA4, so that was OK. We wanted to quickly change into bike gear (as quickly as one can when this tired) and get going.
The TA was pretty busy.
Before the race, I had duct taped a rip, to make my waterproof pants usable. I had applied tape on both sides. It came apart early on during the ride. When I'd mount the high seat, it tended to snag and rip even more, too. It gave me some front-of-leg coverage, which served its purpose during the first half of the race, which is why I had still kept it on. Now, though, it was time to send the shredded pants to the trash.
Leg 4 - Bike
This was a quick bike leg. There was a point on the way (CP31), and we attacked and reattacked it and then re-re-attacked it, since it seemed like it should be an easy one, and we were hurting for points.
Our next cutoff was that we should leave TA5 by 10am, to make sure we had enough time to get back to the finish.
I should've done some backwards scheduling to figure out how much time we'd need to get to TA4 then TA5, because we couldn't actually afford to spend even 15 minutes looking for a point, with our timing situation. We did, though, and that's a lesson learned for next time.
During this ride, the sun finally did come out, for the first time all race.
TA5 - Bike to Bike
Since we were already on bikes, we "transitioned" from bike to bike at TA5.
There were walking tacos. I had never had that before, but I had been looking forward to it all event. During the brief, I remember the RD saying that at some TA, we'd be able to eat as many walking tacos as we wanted. I didn't catch the TA number, so at every TA, I had been anticipating it. It didn't come until TA5, though.
I got the gluten-free white cheddar Doritos with soy taco meat. It tasted pretty artificial, so it did not meet my expectations, as hungry as I probably was. I ate it anyways, though, for energy for the last push. We probably stayed there too long, but it's hard to move with urgency when you're tired.
One big bummer about this TA was that we weren't allowed to use the campground's restrooms. They probably didn't want all the racers destroying it. That was quite inconvenient, since we really had to go. We were in the middle of a town, too, so there weren't good spots to duck behind to go. We'd have to ride on long enough to find a remote place to go.
Leg 5 - Bike
There was a frago, and we had to go a more roundabout way to TA5 for some reason. That meant more painful biking. I can't believe how difficult flat ground biking can be. There was plenty of uphill, too, to make it even spicier.
We went up and down country roads before screaming down gravel hills to get to TA5. It's nice to go down fast, but you know it's going to be uber-painful coming back up later.
TA5 - Bike to Bike
We were going to be really close to the cutoff, which had been moved to 11am.
From TA5, we had two choices - a longer paved road or a steeper but shorter gravel road.
Since riding even flat paved road was really difficult for me with this bike and the right shifter gears I was using, I expressed a preference for the shorter gravel road. I'd be pushing on anything even slightly uphill, anyways, so it's better to push fewer miles than to push for more miles. My teammates didn't seem to have a preference, so gravel road it was!
My teammates asked how they could help me move faster. We did have the tow rope, which may not have been good for the bike hub situation, could help on walking tows! We'd push for a certain bike computer distance before taking a break... maybe something like a quarter mile, for 4 miles. I kept an eye on the altimeter and watched as we gradually worked our way towards the 4,848 feet of elevation that would signal the top of Snowshoe. Meg towed me pretty much the whole time, using SB's bike which had the tow rope, while SB pushed Meg's borrowed carbon fiber bike. At times, Meg's pushing was so strong that my bike handlebars were even pulling me along.
We got to the top of the gravel road and re-entered Showshoe resort MTB territory, but we'd come to realize that that was only half of the battle. We still had a lot of distance to cover, and the trails we'd be taking were muddy and messy. We mosied on the flats. Time would be tight.
We eventually got to a downhill muddy mess. I defied death and steamrolled down that thing. I don't know how I survived. Courage isn't the lack of fear. It's doing it despite the fear. I don't think I've ever exercised that much courage before. I also don't think it would've been possible for me to make it down like that with my original bike. The big wheels on this bike helped me roll over things better.
We were missing the official race finish time, and now, penalties of 1 point per 5 minutes of being late was kicking in. After 1 hour of being late, game over.
We were eating into our 1 hour of late time, even as hard as we were pushing. The messy trails were just taking so much time to get through. At some point, we were even beyond the 1 hour of late time. We considered whether we wanted to call it in and ask for a pickup, if we were out of the game anwyays. We were so close distance-wise, though... not nothing, but not much in the scheme of things, after all that we had already done. We decided to make our way back to the finish line on our own power, no matter how late we'd be.
SB was struggling now, too. I was OK pushing without a tow for a while, so Meg pushed both her bike and SB's bike up the hill... it was a feat of strength that was incredible to watch. I'm not sure I could do that fresh!
As we approached the ski village, we were ready to see it be empty, with all the finishers and staff inside somewhere, celebrating. To our surprise and delight, the staff and volunteers were all out at the finish line, ready to welcome the last team in. Even though we were more than an hour late, they had seen from our tracker that we were making our way back and waited for us and allowed us to finish.
After finishing, it was a rushed whirlwind of getting medals, congratulations, showing the sealed phone, showing the AR mode watches, taking finisher pictures, getting post-race pizza and beer, returning the borrowed bikes, and doing a post-race interview. There was a lot going on, all before we were even leaving the area to go back to the AirBNB for showers.
Everyone was so nice to us, even though we were the number one losers, haha. They took such good care of us, and treated us like we had just finished first. What a great community.
We went back to the AirBNB for quick showers. We missed awards, but we made it to the Women of AR dinner. We sat with some seasoned racers and volunteers. It was cool getting to hear from the volunteers' perspectives about the tree incident... one of the volunteers had been the one to break the news to us about my bike. The racers' love for AR and orienteering was infectious. They were really down-to-earth.
After pizza then more dinner, we went back home to sleep.
In the morning, we didn't find a good breakfast place at the resort, but we started driving south and stopped at a small town for an amazing diner breakfast. Lots of salt, meat, and calories... hit all the right places.
Somehow, my Garmin had us at a higher mileage than some of the other teams that found way more points than us. Maybe it overcounted, but the track looks right. We did a lot, even though we came in with net zero points.
Perseverance, even when all seemed lost, was the name of this game. There were many reasons we could've quit during this race, but we didn't. What I really wanted going into this race was the Nationals experience and the cool medal. Thanks to an incredible team that wouldn't let each other quit, we did meet those goals, even without any points!
There were good lessons learned, too...
- skip bike sections any chance you get, especially if the conditions are sloppy, if biking isn't your strong suit... give yourself more time for other types of points
- backwards schedule for cutoff times, even beyond those that the race gives you
