Welcome back readers! This past weekend I managed to kick off my adventure racing season in fine form at Raid Pulse, an 8 hour adventure race in Bowman, QC. I’m assuming most of you are familiar with this local race series, since I’ve been racing in them for years! At any rate, I was racing as a solo, and also filming for the magazine (See video below). When the results were all tallied up, I finished off in 3rd place in the solo category and 12th overall, in spite of not fully ‘clearing’ the course (but only the top 3 […]
Adventure Racing
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The invitation came exactly 11 days before the big event. I got an innocent-enough sounding message asking if I was interested in joining a U.S. team to race at Untamed New England, a well-known American adventure race. I was immediately interested, but also scared. Untamed is traditionally a multi-day race, and although I’d always wanted to tackle it, I wasn’t sure 11 days was enough prep time! However, this year, the race was actually being run as a 24-hour event instead of multi-day. For that reason, it didn’t take me long to respond in the affirmative that I’d join the roster! I was to be a last-minute replacement for an injured team-mate, and was recruited on James Galipeau’s recommendation (ironically, he was another replacement racer). All I knew was that I’d be racing on THE Untamed New England team (there were 2), and it would be a fast team looking to podium! What follows is the tale of that race, a tale of struggle, suffering, and success. Read on!
I truly am a big fan of alliteration. That, and palindromes. Although, I’ve always wondered why exactly the word palindrome itself isn’t a palindrome. But I digress. The point of this post is obviously to tell you all about my latest race, not of my grammatical proclivities :-). This time I’m writing about the May Raid Pulse race, an 8hr adventure race. Note I’m calling this an 8hr race, and not a 5-8hr race. Thierry, the race director, does an impressive job at ensuring most racers are out there for the full duration, so it does, in fact, end up being a solid 8 hour physical effort. For this race, I teamed up with the formidable James Galipeau, a seasoned multi-day international adventure racer, so you know we were planning to go for the win! I was also covering the event for Get Out There Magazine, which meant I’d have cameras in tow. With that in mind, there are of course a nice little folder of pictures to check out in flickr, as well as the full video review at the end of this post. Now read on for the exciting tale!
The vision in my mind was clear. The start is called, and off I go, paddling hard and efficiently at the front of the race pack. I nail all my navigation challenges, bag all the CPs, and have quick transitions, to cross the finish line first, with no one even near me. Well, as you know, vision is often different from reality, particularly in the adventure racing world. So goes the backdrop for my start to the 2013 ‘Summer’ race season. I found myself once again in Huntsville, at Deerhurst Resort, for what may ultimately be the final Frontier Adventure Challenge. This was slated to be a 5-8 hour adventure race featuring all the fun of a classic adventure race in a manageable format. I was covering the event for Get Out There Magazine, and the lovely Deanna also joined me as a volunteer / race photographer. Good thing she had a brand new camera to try out! As a result, I’ve got both a video to share, as well as a whole folder of pictures that Deanna took. Now read on!
Off the top, no, the power napper was not me. However, this was going to be absolutely necessary to ensure finishing the race as a TEAM. That, my dear friends, is what adventure racing is all about. Doing the right things at the right times as a TEAM in order to get to the finish line. Of course, I’m reporting to you all on the 2012 Wilderness Traverse Race. This is the 3rd time the race takes place, and the 3rd time I participate. Also, for the third year running, I ended up racing with a completely different team. I figure as long as I keep racing with new people, I’ll eventually get ‘called up to the majors’, right? Every race more than 24 hours is a unique challenge. This one would prove so more from a mental standpoint than a physical one, but more on that later. This year, I was invited to race on a a variant of Team Spirit, a team that has been around since nearly the dawn of AR! Two of my team-mates (Dave Hitchon and Mike Popik) have reams of experience on the international, expedition-length circuit (think Eco-Challenge, Primal Quest, etc.). The third member was actually the 16-year old son (Will Hitchon) of our captain. I was also covering the event for Get Out There Magazine, and it seemed like it would make a pretty cool video to follow this rookie in his bid to complete his first ‘overnighter’. This was so true, that I ended up making it a 3-part video (See Part I, Part II, and Part III). I also took loads of pictures on course. Now read on for all the gory details!