TRAINING LEAD-UP
Monday, Sep 1:
10 mi run in zone 2 in 2:34:11 (15:25/mi) in Brooks Mazamas at Latta Nature Preserve. Drank one Hero from my Boogie Bag. Played Pokemon, but no music or podcasts. No bathroom break or snacks needed this time. 79*F and hungry by the end.
Tuesday, Sep 2:
Prana Day 6 & Yoga for When You are Feeling Scared with Adriene
Wednesday, Sep 3:
Glute and pec PT v2 in 24:14, then JBF "2 Hundo" with 30#R in 22:08 not too bad. Finished with a 90s OH hold with a 60#SB (palmed).
Thursday, Sept 4:
Got a free jade tiger from a neighbor who was giving it away. Appeased my parents' opinions on which way a jade tiger should face, because apparently, there are rules about this!
Friday, Sep 5:
Wind-down Yoga & Yoga for Teens with Adriene, since my body was still a little jacked up and not ready to exercise again.
Saturday, Sep 6:
Went on an REI trip to get Permethrin to tick-proof my clothes for USARA. Afterwards, I went to Rosedale Nature Park to recon a ruck that I was hosting. A thunderstorm came in, so it was all in the rain, and I ran when the thunder was really close and I was exposed. I used MACV2 8" and a 30#RPC. The park at the starting point had a nice playground and restroom. The route itself would be nice, too, all with greenway after an initial road crossing.
Later, I did 18A "Upper Body Prep" in 28:45, then "My Invention+" in 41:28.
Sunday, Sep 7:
Day 30 - Begin | BREATH yoga with Adriene... one of her free-style ones
Monday, Sep 8:
3.5 mi ruck at Iswa Nature Preserve with a 30#RPC = waist belt appreciation day, wearing Garmont T8s, covered in 1:18:22.
Trying to rehab plants that didn't get watered while I was in Denver...
I was excited for Nationals for a couple of reasons...
1) an opportunity for redemption after finishing but with 0 points last year, after coming in late
2) it would be in Bentonville, which is supposed to be a mecca for mountain biking... I had never been before and am not a big MTBer, but it would be cool to check out, still.
Third Teammate
We had our 3rd teammate have to pull out 10 days before the race, so we started contacting all the people who might be crazy enough to jump in with us with such short notice. Not an easy feat, since you need to find someone who's 1) fit enough, 2) with a flexible enough schedule, 3) knowledgeable enough of the different disciplines, 4) who has most of the required gear already, 5) mentally gritty and resilient enough, and 6) with enough disposable income on short notice.
We had a few who were interested but would have to see about their schedules, but one seemed really promising, and she was an awesome fit, too. Tactical and AR worlds would collide, with our tactical buddy joining us as our third.
There were logistics to work out and gear planning and a pre-race meeting to align on goals and strategies, but we got it all figured out. She happened to have a strong background in biking, plus AR and longer endurance events from long ago, so she was familiar with what kind of planning needed to go into these kinds of things.
The Drive Out
SB and I would drive to AR. After having driven to Texas earlier in the year, our frame of reference for what was far and reasonable had expanded, so a 15 hour trip didn't seem quite so bad. We'd only have two of us to share the drive, instead of 4, but it would still be manageable.
The Day Before
The day before the race, we started with a nice breakfast at First Watch. I had heard good things about this chain but had never been before. Now would be my chance, and it did not dissapoint. Everything on the menu looks amazing. The server was really nice, too. Bentonville hospitality is a real thing!
We got a meal to-go for AH and then went to Walmart to pick up items for her and for SB, so that we could maximize time once she arrived. Of course it would be a trip to Walmart in Bentonville!
SB indulged me with a stop to find a geocache in Arkansas, so that I could get that state's virtual souvenir. It would be my 31st state! There was a guy there cleaning out some gear. He worked there and said that another geocacher had come along previously, but the cache seemed to be missing. The app was pointing us in a slightly different place than where he had been looking, though, and SB spotted it.
We went back to the AirBNB to do a little more prep before picking up AH from the airport.
Our first priority afterwards was picking up AH's rental. She typically uses a carbon fiber bike but didn't want to mess with transporting it for this race, so she rented a bike from a local shop. The shop was super accommodating and helpful... highly recommend Bentonville Cycling Co!
Once we had our critical gear squared away, we went to the hotel where race check-in was being held. We got swag bags and took our team pic. Very fast.
We had a bit of time before the pre-race brief, so we went back to the AirBNB to prep gear. We tied numbers to our bikes and packs, finalized who was bringing what, prepped and tested the bikes, compared bike computer readings, and finalized packing.
The pre-race brief was held at a conference room in the local library. Last year, they showed a video with a flyover of the race course, and I remembered thinking that seemed like a 30-day race, not a 30-hour race. SB was watching AH's facial expressions during the video, and she seemed to be thinking something similar about this year's race!
Before we left, we took the traditional Women of AR photo.
After the race, we went to do bike and paddle bag drop-off. We waited until after the brief, in case there was any info shared in the brief that might change up what we wanted to turn in, although there wasn't anything to change. We did get a chance to test out and make sizing adjustments to our canoe middle seat, which was good.
After gear drop-off, we went to get dinner! Mexican, of course. This place even had mole. And a friendly server again.
Race Morning
Everyone was up and ready for our early start. This year, the course would be point-to-point, so we got onto busses for a 45-60 min ride out. It was fun chatting with other teams on the ride out. The sun started to rise as we went along. When we got off the bus, there was a nice sunrise at Lake Wedington.
I, along with many others, were eager to use the restroom as soon as the bus stopped. We had all been on top of hydrating. After taking care of some business, map and phone bag distribution started in one place, while another teammate went to get trackers and punches in another place.
Our table mates were really nice and shared extra breakfast sandwiches with us. I gladly took one, since I had started to wonder if I had brought enough food, but I actually had more than I thought I did and would end up with a ton of extra food by the end of the event. The sandwich was nice real food, though, that I enjoyed early in the race since it was a heavier item.
We started by reading the rules of travel and started marking up the map, picking routes, and measuring them. There were many maps to go through and not that much time, by the time we had gotten our maps and by the time we needed to go to the final Q&A meetup. We didn't get to the last stage, so we'd have to figure out our plan for that later on, during the event.
Someone sang the national anthem, and then it was time to head out!
Leg 1 - 18K Trek
From the start, plans changed. We saw that most teams were going for points 1 and 2. We were going to skip points 1 and 2 at first, to make sure we made the cutoff, but after seeing that most teams were going for them, so did we. SB figured they weren't too far, and it would be easy to find the points by following the crowd. It was still quite a bit of walking.
We had wanted to be super conservative with our timing for leg 1 because on leg 2, we'd encounter the one and only short-course cutoff... we were warned that we should spend no more than about 5 hours on leg 1, if we wanted to make sure that we didn't have to get short-coursed during the water leg. I think they wanted to make sure we'd be off the whitewater by a certain time. We'd be earning 2 extra points this way, but we'd need to be prepared to run towards the end, if we later found that we were cutting it really close. There's so much that's unpredictable while navigating. Terrain, maybe getting lost, and extra time spent searching for checkpoints can quickly eat up 30 minutes, which is a large percentage of a 5 hour window. All short-coursed teams would be ranked below full-course teams, so that would be a big deal and would be decided pretty early in the race. There are always tradeoffs between risk and reward during these events. Competitive teams had even tougher decisions to make, since the best teams typically clear the entire course and find all checkpoints. Many teams going for a podium spot had to decide very early on, whether they wanted to stay on track for clearing, or if they wanted to give that up in favor of making sure that they could meet the cutoff. We at least know we have no chance of clearing, so we can afford to be much more conservative in our decisions, with many opportunities later in the course to make up points if we find ourselves having extra time.
After we found our first two points, we deviated from the rest of the group by taking roads to progress along the general direction of travel. Roads make for faster travel. We bypassed CP3, which involved more terrain and switchbacks, plus time that might be spent looking for the point along the switchbacks.
While on the roads, we did blow past a turn we wanted to make, because it ended up being a dirt road that we needed to turn onto, which made it less obvious than another asphalt road. That was a good early reminder that it's always good to have multiple ways of verifying that we're on track... not just looking for landmarks, for example, but also pace counting. The important thing is that we caught it early. Nav errors will happen and are to be expected, but the earlier you catch it, the better. Better to stop and re-assess and check, than to go extra miles in the wrong direction and have to backtrack and then go the direction you originally wanted to go.
While we were going along the dirt road, we noticed an offshoot going to the left, somewhere close to where a point we were going to skip due to lack of a good attack point was going to be. Not long after, a team came down the hill, after having found that point. We must be close! So we went back to the offshoot and went for it. People coming from a point have a pretty predictable route away from the point, which helped.
From CP4, we went down the other side of the spur to take a shortcut to reconnect with our road. We got back on the dirt road and saw cows and flowers. During this section, we passed by the area where a bunch more points were located, but they were far off the main road, so we wouldn't be pursuing them. We did run into other teams who were going to or from them, though. It is kind of neat that you can run into top teams during the race, even if you're not at the top, just because they're covering more overall distance as everyone makes their way through the course.
The next point we got was CP14, which wasn't far off course. We attacked it and found it pretty quickly.
CP15 was trickier. I think we made a parallel error and were looking one reentrant north of the one we wanted. We followed it in the general direction that we wanted to go, so that we wouldn't waste too much time going after it. We came across another team who had found it, though, and pointed us in its direction and got it. We spent a good bit of time on this one, but we were doing OK on time.
TA1
We approached TA1 to transition from trekking to paddling. When you check in, you punch, and you might get some instructions from the volunteers. We were pretty efficient. SB and AH went to get the canoe after we got the paddle bag. I assembled and sorted the paddles and PFDs in the meantime.
There were still many paddle bags in the staging area, when we got there. That mean that many teams were still out on the trek. That was surprising, since we're typically near the back of the pack. We didn't have that much of a time buffer, so we were curious how many of the other teams would end up making the cutoff.
Leg 2 - 25K Paddle
For this paddle, since SB would be busy steering from the back and AH was going to be the powerhouse in the front, I'd be in charge of navigation. I had never done boat navigation before, but I'd have to figure it out now! Since the different segments and turns in the water here were pretty noteworthy and long, vs repetitive and nuanced like at Sea to Sea or Rev3, I didn't have to physically mark the map with a grease pencil and could just keep track of what segment I was on in my mind. It wasn't too bad. I didn't try estimating distance based on time. The water flowed faster in some parts vs the other, anyways.
It was scenic. There were cliffs on the sides sometimes, and they almost looked man-made because they were so straight up and down. In my last few events, I feel like we canoed during the nighttime a lot, so it was nice getting to paddle during the daytime again. Nav would've been a bit more challenging at night. You could still use direction of travel with the compass, but you wouldn't see as much.
The RD did mention that since water levels were high, what might look like a peninsula on the map may now be an island. We were going fast past our turn into CP16, but it was shallow enough that we could park and grab.
More paddling and keeping an eye on our time. Based on our time per distance, we seemed to have about 15 minutes to spare, but we kept working hard... you never know what might happen with getting caught in strainers or shallow sections or odd currents. There had been a bridge that we went under, which gave a good confirmation of where we were on the map.
With the push, we did make it, which was a relief. We punched in at CP17 after going down two mini-drops that had lifeguards there. A good portion of the teams tipped over after having their boats overwhelmed with inbound water. It was a little dicey, but I guess we were light enough that our canoe walls kept the water out during the drop.
From the TA, we had to proceed onto the second leg of the paddle to be considered full-course. We had the option to go straight to biking from there, but that would be treated the same as missing the cutoff, since there was a TA at the far end of the paddle that was mandatory. There were some reservations about making it through the rest of the paddle dry after the close calls on the test drops, but we all decided to continue. We had waterproofed our gear reasonably well.
When we got close to Woka, where there are man-made whitewater features, we saw the first drop. Some teams attempted it but capsized, so many teams opted to portage. We were OK with that, as long as it meant that we would continue on the race and not quit. Staying dry was a nice plus, too, even if we didn't get to fully experience Woka. Teams that did capsize had to spend extra time re-collecting their gear and boat and making it out of eddies, anyways. I think nearly every team that attempted the rapids did capsize.
TA2
After surviving the paddle unscathed, we took our time re-fitting for the next trek.
It is nice that you get to change disciplines at Adventure Races pretty often. If your butt gets sore from sitting in an uncomfortable canoe or bike seat, you can look forward to walking for a while and stretching out your legs on the next trek.
There were real restrooms and potable water sources at this TA, which was nice. There was even a concession stand.
Leg 3 - 7K Trek
The sun was starting to go down, so we wanted to maximize daylight with finding points. We didn't want to overdo it with trekking, so we kept mileage to a minimum and skipped CP18. We ran into another team and found CP19, although each taking our own routes to get there.
From CP19, we connected to a nice paved sidewalk-like bike path. It was so easy to walk on. CP20 wasn't too hard to find, not far off-trail.
We shot past the attack point for CP22 and realized it when we started making a hairpin turn in the road. The two other teams going for the point should've been a sign. It wasn't too far back, though, so we went back to get it. On the way down the hill, I saw a grey thing tumble down the hill and thought it was my GoPro at first, only to realize that the GoPro was in my pocket the whole time. That was a relief.
We hiked on, out of the trail system and onto roads. We got CP23 on a telephone pole on our way down to TA3, which is where CP17 and the short course cutoff had been.
TA3
It was very dark, and the CP/TA looked very different, by the time we got there. There didn't seem to be very many bikes left to be picked up. All of the short coursed teams would've been long gone, and most full course teams would've passed us already.
We got our bikes then went to a lit-up area to gear up for the next leg. Some foot care might've taken place. I didn't change into my chamois, since this next leg was going to be fairly short. I did change out of my wet trekking shoes, into my bike shoes, though.
I got mentally prepared for my time to do bike nav. I'm not a strong biker, so having to multi-task staying alive on the bike and navigating at the same time isn't the easiest task.
Leg 4 - 13K Bike
There were prohibited roads on the map, so we had to figure out what options we had to get from TA3 to TA4. After looking at the map a little more back at the start before the race, we saw that we could go left and get CP24, instead of going directly to TA4. It added maybe 3K extra distance, but it was easy greenway riding, and the route would involve much less traffic to worry about, in addition to getting that extra point.
We had paid close attention to making one important turn on the way out, but we missed the turn after that and ended up working hard to get up a hill, only to get to a road that we would not be allowed to travel on. My bad. Like the lesson I was supposed to have learned before, always have at least 2 ways of checking that you're going in the right direction. If I wasn't going to track distance, then I should've at least been looking at cardinal directions. We went back downhill and then worked our way uphill again, to get back on that nice paved greenway.
On the greenway, we were rewarded with the point, which I think the Women of AR team came back for just as we arrived, since they had blown past that earlier. It's good to know that we're not the only team that makes mistakes.
TA4
We made it to the TA, which was at a memorial park. There were a number of teams there, doing different things. This was the location of the Photo-O. You had 6 points to get to, and at each point, you had to look around to see landmarks that you could match up with photos. At first, we thought it might be easy, since you could do a process of elimination, but they had decoy photos for a total of 12 photos, so you actually did have to go to all the points.
It would've been nice to have a walking break after the bike leg. It was a nice spot, though, with a stage at the park, so we used that spot to do route planning for the last leg that we hadn't gotten to before the race. When we measured the expected distance and compared that to our schedule, we determined that we couldn't afford to go on the Photo-O and needed to bank all the time we could get, for the rest of the minimum race length.
We therefore changed into our chamois, fueled up, and got ready to get back on the bike.
Leg 6 - 30K Bike
We left the TA, and there was a point not to far away. A good little morale-booster to make you less poopy faced that you're now back on the bike. It is important when you're navigating, especially on bike, that you notice where there are CPs on the route. The bike CPs themselves on this course weren't hard to find. You just needed to have enough situational awareness to remember to stop for them to grab them. At some other races, you do have to get off the bike and hunt for points off-trail, but these were more like waypoints.
Biking on roads can cover a lot of distance in not a lot of time, so you do have to switch or flip maps more often on bike.
We did skip CP27 that was nestled in some MTB trails, since singletrack is not my strong suit, but we did get CP28 after that. My Garmin happened to run out of battery right at about CP28. I thought I was on the maximum battery life setting that would've given me plenty of battery for the race, but maybe it's user error or something.
More riding on roads, keeping track of distances on our bike computers and turns. It was fun to go by a couple of speed detectors that could actually see us. I sped up at the first one to see how fast I could go... 19mph. At the second one, I had my GoPro out to get footage, so it was only 9mph, riding one-handed.
We kept chugging along, getting another CP at a road intersection.
And then another by a bridge... lots of gravel roads, with fortunately, no traffic to deal with.
At last, we made a hilly push into TA5, which was located at an educational campus that teaches veterans health-related skills.
TA5
This was another opportunity to get another break from the bike, plus bank some rest for the team. It was an O-Relay, where one person went out at a time to find 1, 3, or 6 points. Each successful trip was worth one CP point. Based on time vs point value, we decided that we'd just go for the one point. I was feeling pretty good physically, so I volunteered to be the one to go out for the one point, while the other two rested and refitted.
This was the TA with hot food, too... there were pancakes, turkey bacon, and drinks.
I should've had coffee before setting off, because my brain was not functioning properly. When I went to get instructions for the trek, I had a hard time remembering the list of like 4 pieces of mandatory gear that I had to take with me, so I wrote it on my hand... phone, 2 light sources, tracker, water, compass... something like that.
I also seemed to think it was a memory-O at first, since I didn't grab a map, which was where I was supposed to punch once I found the point. Once I got the map, all of the details included on the map completely went over my head. All I saw was the shape of what looked like a road, and I figured it was the road we had rode in on. It seemed like the point would just be down the road.
With the mandatory gear, there was more confusion, too, since I asked SB for the tracker, but she said she had been asked to turn it in, so I went back to the desk to figure out how that was supposed to work, and then they said that we had turned in the punch, not the tracker, so I went back to SB again to get the tracker. Mark Lattanzi and Andrea Anderson must think I'm the stupidest person in the world, haha. Like how did I ever make it this far in life or in the sport of adventure racing.
Leg 7 - O-Relay Trek
I went outside and used my compass to try to figure out where North was, in relation to the building that hosted the TA. I went that way but couldn't find the road. The road was on the other side, which really confused me. I ended up circling around the building area twice, essentially. Attacking and re-attacking, but nothing was lining up or making sense.
It was only after the event that I noticed things like the actual road markings, the fact that there were grid lines that would give you distances, and the fact that what looked like a gravel road was actually a river or dried creek bed.
The race organizers did a fun / funny thing, too, where they had a live feed of tracker data showing on a screen in the TA, so that everyone could watch their teammates. I guess it could've been worse. I didn't spend too much time looking for the point and called it after a while. Looking back, I barely covered any distance at all and was nowhere near the point, anyway. Better to save the time for later in the race. I went back and told the desk that I was a no-go for the point, even on the beginner map.
Now time for priorities of work. I ate the meal that SB had gotten for me, packed up a bit, then woke up my teammates so that they could also refill their water and start packing up.
I drank coffee on my way out of the TA and felt a little sharper after that.
It was chilly leaving the TA, but the uphill quickly warmed us up. It was a little demoralizing having to go back up the hill we had screamed down earlier, and knowing what hills we'd have to repeat on our way back out of the area.
Time was ticking by, though, so we had to keep moving forward. We did have to go on the far edge of the map here and started going south instead of north at a T-intersection but caught it pretty quickly and were back on our way.
We had to make a stop somewhere by the side of the road to fix up lights. Having extras and repair stuff is always good, as is adaptability and not getting let down by setbacks. It was great to have a resilient, problem-solving team like this.
At first doing bike nav, I'd stop the group at pretty much every intersection requiring a turn to figure out the instructions for the next section. Over time, though, I got a little more comfortable with figuring it out while riding and shouting out the next steps to the team.
I did get a little over-confident at some stairstep turns up one section and misjudged where we were, though. We ended up looking for a point one stairstep too early, but SB helped me figure out my mistake, and we kept going and got the point not long after that.
TA6
We were glad to see people and civilization again as we rolled into TA6. There were some teams out and about. They were going for the trekking points here.
We wanted to bank time for the last bike leg, so we opted to skip all of the trekking points even though looking back, at least one of them would've been a pretty quick grab.
This did end up being the TA with many ticks, though, so I'm not sad that we skipped it completely.
SB kindly helped me prep the next set of maps, since she had plotted the route and knew it better than I did, while I used the porta potty. I wasn't looking forward to this next bike leg (the last leg overall). It would start by traversing what looked like a maze of a neighborhood, followed by a ride through a network of singletrack.
As we were getting ready, the TA leaders said that there was an alternate route option that they could recommend for teams leaving after 8am, to make sure they didn't miss the finish. It would allow us to skip half of the singletrack, which sounded very appealing.
Leg 10 - 33K Bike
Doesn't this look like a maze? Fortunately, it wasn't quite as bad as it seemed at first. SB had found the relatively straightforward path to get to where we needed to go. There was one main turn to look out for. It still required concentration counting intersecting roads and landmarks as I rode, but it was ok.
We got to CP40 and the start of the singletrack. Here we go!
I did take on my sunglasses, to see better in the more shaded forest. I rode in front, so that I wouldn't get left behind. Some parts were rideable, but some would go uphill pretty steeply pretty suddenly, and I'd have to walk up. My teammates were patient with me, though.
Occasionally, there would be bikers coming in the other direction, since these trails are bi-directional. Fortunately, it wasn't on any sections were we were going fast. That made it easy to get to the side and let them pass. I did fall a few times, typically tipping over when I'd lose momentum trying to go uphill and getting tripped up by a rock or root. I ended up hitting my right forearm on rocks in pretty much the same spot 3x... hitting an already bruised spot repeatedly with a rock isn't fun.
I did have a better time of riding when I started looking further out ahead. We were able to go longer without stopping for falls in those cases. It felt like we were making good progress, but we had still not hit a trailhead yet. The singletrack kept going and going.
Eventually, we got to a road intersection. It had a nice bike re-fit station next to it, with water, bike tools, a trail map, and morale boosters (little tactical gnomes that were perfect for our team).
Since we weren't going to pursue any dogbone points, we headed for Arthur Road (which we funnily transposed as "Arnold Road" onto one of the maps.
It was good to be off of singletrack, although the map for this road-based route wasn't very detailed and had no gridlines, so we had to use guesstimates for distances and cardinal directions to figure out where we might be. It was fun to take on the challenge and actually succeed without any nav issues.
It got quite hot on the asphalt on the way back into the city. It was still pretty early in the day, too, so it would only get worse. Every step or push of the bike forward was a step towards the finish line, though.
We made our way into the city, careful to avoid prohibited roads, and meandering through the increasingly busy roads. We finally arrived at the Ledger, which is the world's first bikeable building. You can get to all the floors by riding along the outside of it. It's a mixed-use building, with offices, event hosting spaces, and retail. It's a cool place for a Bentonville event finish line. We rode up to the top, up and up...
Bug mosaics led the way for SB...
The finish line was loud and welcoming, especially because we had a good cushion from the cutoff time. Normally, we'd try to be on course for as long as possible to maximize points, but this time, with technical biking as the final leg, we had to be really conservative.
We nabbed our final punch and got our giant medals.
Finish
It's never easy, but we did it! There are always ups and downs in races, mistakes and recoveries, but you push through and work together time and time again, and in the end, you make it through. It's always cool how everyone comes with different strengths and weaknesses, and together, you can tackle and get through anything.
After taking off our stuff, we recovered in the AC for a while, drinking local beer, while listening to a top team do their post-race interview.
We made our way back to the AirBNB, with AH dropping off her bike on the way bike. We showered then came back out for the post-race dinner and awards ceremony.
We got to share a table with BRF BARF, which was a lot of fun. We got our start in Adventure Racing listening to them share their experiences. Their podcast is the best, and it's hard to stop laughing when you hear their stories. They're super nice and have brought so many into the sport with their welcoming nature and openness about all the highs and lows that they share about in a down-to-earth and relatable way.
They placed 3rd, too, which is amazing!
The next morning, we dropped off AH at the airport, and then we began our drive home. The drive home always goes by quicker than the drive out! The route we took on the way back brought us through Mississippi, so SB indulged me with a geocaching stop again. We were going through Tupelo, MS, and got a cache at Elvis's birthplace, which was fun.
The day after, as usual, I made my recap video. I do enjoy making the video and telling the story in that format, as much as I enjoy the race itself!
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