ActiveSteve
Stories from an athlete, adventurer, and lover of life
ActiveSteve
Race Reports

AR Season Closer – Bark Lake

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Howdy all! Well, this past weekend marked my last official adventure race for 2006. I took part in the 14-hour Salomon Adventure Challenge Canadian Champs, held in Bark Lake Ontario. Although I’ve made it back, I sadly haven’t had time to write up my race report yet. Sorry. I caught a bit of a cold, and have been wrapped up working my 2 jobs. First priority was getting all my gear cleaned up. As you can see to the left, I’ve also got a bit of a problem. My Simon River Sports Shark paddle sadly suffered an ugly fate, and now lies in 6 pieces, rather than the 5 it is supposed to be in! Yup, I snapped a blade! Yikes. I really love that paddle. I’ve contacted the company in hopes they can help me out, and I’ll let you know what I hear back. They’re a great Canadian company, and I plan to use their paddles exclusively next year while I’m in New Zealand. I also managed to rip my almost new Outdoor Research Gore-tex Pac-lite jacket in this race! Turns out the free entry that I won to the race ended up costing me heck of a lot more than a I bargained for. Not to mention the challenges of getting to the start line… (but that’ll be in the full story). Till then, stay cool!

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Tale of the Tape: Tactical Triumph
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Ahhh, Adventure Racing, the sport of kings. Well, perhaps that’s too glorious a title. More fittingly, I suppose it would be the sport of fools. Still noble in the king’s court, but for different reasons. After all, we spend countless hours training in a multitude of disciplines, spend countless amounts of money on equipment and race entries, all in order to suffer countless injuries and endure pain in races where the outcome is determined by much more than the money and training invested :-). In this post, I’ll take you through my first adventure race of the season, the 2011 Frontier Adventure Challenge 8 hour race that took place in Huntsville. As the title implies, I had a tactically (and physically) very strong race. Unfortunately, as is often the case in AR, it was all for not, as a bit of difficulty in the last section took me from 3rd place overall to a ranking of 66th!! And that is no indication of a tight race with everyone jostling for the finish line. This is all about strategy, tactics, when you got to the finish line, and how much of the course you completed! Parsing how that ranking was calculated, as well as the full story of my race, which I contend was one of my strongest ever in spite of it, is what this blog post will be all about. Read on for the whole story, and don’t forget to check out some of the shots from the weekend as well. No GPS race map to share, so I went old school and snapped photos of map!

Oops… I Did it Again!
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Britney Spears said it best I think, with that catchy little tune. Why is it that every time I have any money in my pocket, it seems to burn a hole? Case in point: the skis you see in the picture on the right here. Not just any skis. Fischer Superlight Wax Cross-Country skis. Yup. I bought ’em. Mind you, I got them used, but they still put me out over $300 when all was said and done! And that doesn’t include buying waxing and maintenance equipement for them and learning how to do that properly! Why, you ask, did I buy skis? Well, I’ll be participating in the Winterlude Triathlon this year, and also plan on racing in a winter adventure race with Raid Pulse. Both of these events required the use of cross-country skis. I could have just as easily rented skis for those two events, but predictable me, I went the extreme consumerism route and decided I might as well have my own. On the plus side, these are gorgeous skis, and really light (they have an ‘air core’). Also, new, these babies would have been over $350, bindings $80, boots $180, for a combined total of over $600+tax! So, bargain hunter Steve couldn’t turn up the chance to buy these lightly used skis for a third the price. The great part is, now I have skis, and I can go whenever I want. That leaves me with about 1 week to learn how to ski before the race! Ha. That should be worth a chuckle.

Opening Bell of Winter Race Season
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Opening Bell of Winter Race Season

Almost time for Start

Howdy folks! Sorry for the delay in getting this blog post out. Although the race I’m about to write about occurred 2 weeks ago, I’m only now able to get anything written down. Sadly, the motherboard on my main PC died suddenly, and I’ve not been able to get the system set back up yet, so getting the pictures done and writing the post took a backseat. Of course, it’s a little sad to write about this race anyway, as unfortunately, due to a finicky mother nature, we were unable to get the snow we desired to make the race a success. The race in question? The first Mad Trapper snowshoe race of the season. How does one have a snowshoe race with no snow? Well, it basically turns into a trail race, doesn’t it? And that’s exactly how it went down. Have a look at the few pictures that were snapped at the race, then read on to find out how my hard-fought 5th place finish played out.

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