Training Log Archive: britty327

Here's where the race gets interesting/amazing/terrible for us. Sarah was sleepy even though we had just stopped to sleep and kept nodding off on her bike. We had this great net downhill section that had to be about 20mi of mostly downhill. She crashed once and was ok. The 2nd time, she landed on her head and shoulder. I think she had a slight concussion, and she was in a lot of pain with her shoulder. Nothing to do but keep moving though. Susan was still having GI issues and was stopping a lot to take care of business. It became our mission to keep these 2 awake and on the road because we had too much mandatory distance to cover and no more time to sleep. Our pace slowed to a crawl for a few hours, and I grew increasingly worried about the cutoff. We hit the turn for Circle Drive around sunrise and started climbing. Everyone was tired, and I was taking a towing break to recover. Circle Drive seemed like it would never end, but finally we caught site of the intersection to Muddy Mountain. I chatted with Chris Radcliffe for a few and decided we had a chance to make the cutoff. It was 7:36 when I left that intersection, and our cutoff was 11am. A fairly heroic amount of teamwork ensued on the 8K slog up Muddy Mountain. I would ride up past everyone, drop my bike, run the last person's bike past mine, and keep going like that, alternating pushing and towing. It was amazing. The team put the hammer down and made it their one mission. We made the top of Muddy in under an hour, ran through transition, and dumped everything out of our packs that wasn't mandatory. Screamed down Muddy (Sarah's shoulder didn't appreciate the plethora of washboards) and started the ascent up Casper Mountain. I kept waiting for it to get heinous, but the climb was so much shorter than Muddy. It was even paved towards the top. Susan felt awful and even fell over at the top, but she never complained and kept pushing. Some old man offered to let us come into his house at the top. Thanks but no thanks! From the top, it was literally all downhill from there, and we kept the rubber side down all the way back into Casper. We crossed the finish with 30min to spare and finished officially to earn our belt buckles. Final placing was 18/36. Woo Koa Wahine!

C • Way to go! 3

Harris Park cont'd

Lots of rolling hills on the way to Curtis Gulch. Dusty hadn't slept yet, so she was battling sleep monsters, and we stopped a few times to lie down on the side of the road. EVERY TIME, a team or race staff would stop and ask if we were ok. No sleep for Dusty. At one point, Susan scooped and treated some questionable water in cow country, and this may have led to her GI despise the rest of the race. Chatted with our friends from Happy Mutant for a bit. It was hard to enjoy the downhill into the Curtis Gulch TA knowing it was an out and back and we would climb right back out in a few hours.

We were still making our time estimates, so we had a few hours to play with on the O course. We considered doing a shorter CCW loop that included the 2 reentrants to the E, a high point, and the ascent/rappel. With rope gear packed, we set out. Tagged the first reentrant, then apparently didn't go high enough in the next and never found the CP. We took a look at the high point, but it didn't an obvious safe attack from below. We figured if we went to the ropes section from TA it would take 2+ hours roundtrip, and we couldn't afford the time. Disappointing to only get 1 CP here, but it would allow us a bit of sleep that night and (hopefully) not put us on the edge of our time cutoffs.

Back on the bikes! My ass hurts. The wind picked up, and we had a fierce headwind out of Curtis Gulch. As evening approached, we were greeted by this gorgeous sunset with crazy clouds in a cool canyon area, made even better by the fact that everyone was hallucinating various things in the rocks. As we neared the La Prele guard station, a lightning storm hit right on top of us. Knowing that it was only 1-2K away, Susan took off for shelter! At the CP, we were told we couldn't use the convenient cabin for shelter or a place to sleep. No worries because the storm passed a few minutes later. We found a field a bit off the road and stopped for an hour. No one came to check on us until we were packing up to leave, so Dusty finally got some shut eye. Chilly wake up, but it was warm enough once we got moving. Rolled right through TA9 in the early morning hours.

Reservoir cont'd

We headed in to Glendo State Park for an MTB-O, our favorite section of the race. Started on the S trails and went CCW to the N end. Punchy, technical trails with a couple exhilarating downhills. Chased some cows and even saw a crawdad sitting in the middle of the trail with his pincers up. The course was straightforward, but I'm happy we did it in daylight. The trails claimed bikes and body parts from a few teams. We decided before the start of this section that we weren't going to the optional paddle because it wasn't a good move time-wise for us. We chose instead to clear all 8 CPs from this MTB-O then head straight to TA6. However, we didn't realize there was a 10am cutoff to be out of the bike TA and came in at 10:53. Our penalty was straight time for our overage, so essentially we had to finish the race by 11am Sunday. No harm done, and we still got to ride ALL the singletrack :) Now, back to the gravel.

We took the route straight to TA6 via Horseshoe Creek Rd. This seemed like an innocuous ride for about 2/3 of it. Then we started a looong ascent through Medicine Bow that never seemed to end. A bit hot and bothered, we rolled into the Boy Scout camp, where we learned a racer had broken her hip on the road, and one team sunk their boat in the reservoir overnight. The casualties were mounting.

The wheels fell off a bit for us here overnight. Started with some spectacular views of Laramie Peak on our way down to Roaring Fork Creek Trail. After sunset, we got off of the creek to the E and lost the trail. We had been warned the trail disappeared in the middle. Unfortunately, we couldn't find it again. There were so many cow trails we didn't trust anything that looked like a trail. We also couldn't triangulate on features well at night because the key features were smaller than the surrounding peaks and didn't show in the skyline. Looking at the tracker, we crossed the trail more than once, and Sarah even made a comment about something being manmade at one point. An hour before dawn, we chose to sleep while Dusty studied the map. At first light, we located the 2 small peaks adjacent to the trail and were quickly back on track. We were long out of food, and TA was a welcome sight. It was a very frustrating night, but at least we stayed patient and worked through it. We weren't alone in our overnight wanderings!

Event: Cameco Cowboy Tough 3.5-day Expedition Race
 

Woo! CT2016 in the books.Times/distances approximate until I get my other tracker back. As most of you know, we started the Koa Wahine team this year and raced as a 4female with Dusty, Susan, Sarah, and me. Race started with a 7mi peloton ride out of town, then a road ride to the paddle put in. Sarah dropped her chain shortly after the start, so we spent the majority of the ride passing teams and not getting much benefit from group pace lines. We did, however, find our team's pace line worked really smoothly.

Down the North Platte. 4 ladies is a bit of a disadvantage in canoes, but we knew what we were getting into. Stopped at Fort Fetterman for a challenge where we each hauled a bucket of water up to the cistern and back. Just a gorgeous day on the water and lots to chat about to pass the time.

In the town of Douglas, we had an urban O where we went in an old passenger railcar, drank my first shot of whiskey, and visited a POW camp. Good break from the boat. Stocked up on Gatorade. Somehow we were already hearing stories of boat carnage.

Continuing downriver. Still enjoying the paddle, even though the current disappeared as we neared the first reservoir. Lots of wildlife and cool birds. We almost flipped towing boats over a set of rapids. That put an end to the tow.

Short Glendo O course. Started in the middle and split the trek in 2 halves, choosing to do the longer east side first in daylight. Gorgeous views from the top at sunset. Lots of teams here with us, and Ben from BDAR even pulled our boats out of the water. Always the gentleman.

We continued through the canyon until it opened up to the main reservoir. As soon as we turned into the widest section of water, we got slammed by the wind. Big waves and winds that wanted to turn the boats. We thought we could push through it until I started watching the shoreline and realized we were literally being blown backwards. We paddled like hell for shore and made it. We sheltered out of the wind for an hour and tried to nap. You could see the lights of other teams doing the same at various spots along the opposite shoreline. Mark said that they were watching the trackers when the wind came up, and everyone looked like cockroaches scattering towards shore! After an hour, the winds subsided enough to get back on the water. It was quite a slog through the reservoir and difficult to see. There was almost a coup at the end of the paddle, with people thinking I was sending us over the dam (which was not close and in another direction), but we made it to the marina around dawn and were greeted by Sandy and Susan and their dogs. They came down just to cheer us on, and it could not have come at a better time. With portage wheels attached, we began our 1mile uphill portage to the TA, which gave us a chance to dry out and warm up.

Mobility, core, etc

Commercial fire at a garage full of cars and parts at the junk yard. Oof.