The beginning of June brought the 2nd iteration of American Adventure Sports Equinox Traverse. For this event we fielded both a 3 person Coed and a 2 person male team. When the dust (and our stomachs!) had settled, our coed team ended up 4th and we had accumulated more precious points in the CP Tracker series.
Ready to Race!
Thanks as always to our sponsors for assisting us in our quest to raise awareness for the On Point Foundation. A special thanks to Ronny of Odyssey Adventure Sports for teaming up with us and making so many of these races a reality for us. To our competitors – thanks for always making this entertaining! It is always a pleasure to race alongside the likes of EMS, Technu Extreme, SOG, Trakkers and all the other teams we were fortunate to see out there. Michigan Racing Addicts – you were lifesavers with the food up at CP 15! To Doug and Chris from American Adventure Sports – challenging course, unforgettable views, and a great opportunity for a multitude of navigational choices- thank you!
A quick overview of this Rogain style race: Bike a few hours with a small bit of footwork; paddle 17 miles on a lake; portage a few miles; paddle 13 miles down a river; trek about 8 hours; bike with a lot of footwork; orienteering section; bike; rappel; bike; and finish.
The first bike part went well, and Charlie crushed the nav. This paid dividends and we jumped into the top few teams fairly early on. By the time we got on the water we were in the top three overall, and 1st of the coed teams. We paddled to points, and for some were out of the boat for a while bagging a point. Again, Charlie was navigating with laser like precision, and our route selection was excellent. From the second paddle point until about 7 am the following morning we lead the race! Paddling was a strong suite of ours, and we capitalized on it. Throughout the entire lake paddle, we stayed in synch very well, and our spirits were especially high. Mom and my wife would be proud – we were vigilant about reapplying our sunscreen! Paraphrasing Dave Ashley from Trakkers, this was the most incredible paddling, blue-green water, surrounded by gorgeous mountains with the sun shining on us.
The out of the lake and onto the portage we were moving fast, but only had 15-20 minutes on EMS. Down to the put in for the river section and CP8 was missing (7 had been missing too, but a volunteer was at that point). 20 minutes burnt looking for it – time to go. Heard later one of the Park Rangers may have been the culprit – pulling them down?!?! Again, smashed the paddling – figuratively and literally. There are dents in my patch from a race last year, and layers of patched fiberglass are missing. Our speed on the water was paying off, and we only had to do the last hour of the river in the dark. Out of the water with only a few teams in front of us, and they had all skipped the 10 mile out and back paddling point. After about 12 hours of paddling and portaging we know EMS is hot on our heels, so a quick TA and we are off.
Trek, trek, trek. From around 11 pm until 7 am. That was a long night. Again, kudos to Charlie on the navigation. We banged the points right out. Probably pushed a bit too hard on the paddle, because we weren’t running some of the roads we should have been around 5-6 am. But, humming along nicely. Picked up all the CPs, dropped down to CP 13 and the TA to our bikes. Still leading, and 5 minutes later EMS rolls in – nuts! Rolled out together, and off to some bike points.
This part didn’t go so well. We didn’t fully comprehend the ruling on getting points in order or out of order, especially the “sub” points (example CP 14, CP 14a). We incorrectly believed we had to get point 14 before we got 14a. This was a game changer. EMS bagged 14a then 14. We dropped down off the mountain, punched CP 14 and then began a several hour debacle to get CP 14a. Hindsight being 20/20 – ask if you are not sure! We finally got 14a, but expended a lot of time and more importantly a ton of energy. This segment had us taking turns in the “hurt locker”, and I was spending more than my fair share of time there. We biked up, up , up to CP 15 and our TA to trekking the orienteering section.
Arriving there, I was smoked! We realized we were no longer anywhere near the lead. That is when my favorite part of the race occurred. Realizing we were no longer in contention to win, we reevaluated our race goals (race the best we could, have fun and enjoy the race) and completely came together as a team. Coming into CP 15 we were bummed out. Coming out and onto the orienteering course we were again smiling and gellin’ like Magellan!
This lasted for several hours and most of the O course. By the time we were on the last points, my goose was really cooked and my teammates were putting up with my drunken like antics. They got me back to the CP. We ate, drank and I racked for an hour. We were up and out of there by 2 am. At this point, we were sure we had 4th wrapped up and 3rd required clearing the rest of the course and one of the teams in front of us not clearing it. We assessed there wasn’t time to clear the course, and the risk wasn’t worth the gain.
The bike back to the Boys Home and the race finish went relatively quickly. There were a few gut check hills, I tried to sleep, my teammates wouldn’t let me, and we were there. Yee -Haa!
We ended up 4th in coed elite, and 3rd in three person coed. After a 3 plus hour nap, we crushed the awesome buffet Doug and the Boys Home had set up for us. Feeling better already. Great awards ceremony, good byes to all our friends and time to drive home.
This was a great race, we learned a lot and really came together as a team in the face of some tough race adversity. Charlie and Sara, you’re incredible teammates and I cannot wait for the next race!
See you outside!
Shane
