Rogaine race (Snowgaine) 8:19:49 [3] 28.81 mi (17:21 / mi) +2746ft 15:55 / mi
shoes: Salomon XA Pro - Light Blue
2017 Snowgaine with Brent and John Courain. We look forward to this race all year and I love doing it with these guys.
The race was based out of East Pharsalia, NY. There were 50 checkpoints in total, each with varying point values, and we had two days to get as many points as we could. The RDs told us that they'd worked hard to make this year's course unclearable, and they succeeded.
We had about 25 minutes with the maps before the start so quickly added up the point values in each of the four quadrants and decided on a Day 1 route that would take us south and east, then sweeping back up north and west to the finish, with a couple bailout options.
It was 60 degrees when the race started, with very little snow on the ground, but there was a storm predicted to roll in around 12pm, sending temps plunging about 30 degrees through the afternoon. We all took a bit of a risk and went super light on clothing (I wore t-shirt and tights to start, with an ultralight rain jacket in my pack), figuring that we'd always be close enough to civilization that if something went wrong, we'd be able to get it sorted out. It was true, but there were also a few dodgy moments toward the end of the day.
We moved super efficiently for the first six hours. Brent's nav was spot-on, our strategy and decisions were working out really well, and our pace was strong, running as much as we could, including long stretches off-trail through the woods. We also spent hours trudging through endless marshes and swamps. I was in up to my waist twice, which was ok in terms of air temperature, but the water was all snow- and ice-melt, so super cold.
The Snowgaine has a unique system where, in addition to punching at each CP, you also have to sign an intention sheet indicating what time you arrived and where you're planning to go next. It's mostly a safety mechanism, in case a team doesn't make it back to the finish, but it adds a fun element of strategy and gamesmanship because you can get a sense of the route other teams are taking. With our plan for the day, though, we didn't see any other teams and were getting to most of the CPs before anyone else, so we had no idea what others were doing.
At 1pm, a strong thunderstorm rolled through, close enough that we could feel the electricity in the woods. Pretty scary, especially when we were in and around so much water. It passed relatively quickly and for the rest of the day it alternated between soaking rains and showers.
With two hours left on the clock, we paused to reassess our route. We were heading north on the easternmost side of the map, and still had a couple northeastern CPs to collect before making our way west to the finish. Brent did the math and thought we could make it back okay. I wasn't so confident that we could cover that much distance, but we decided to go for it. We hit the first CP cleanly, but the area was much messier than the map indicated and travel was slow. We then made a push for one more but somehow got pulled west instead of north and popped out of the woods far from where we thought we were.
Sometime during last bushwhack, my lungs started to seize up and by the time we got to the road, I was in the middle of a full asthma attack - I think due to the dramatic temperature shifts and being wet all day. Not sure whether an extra shirt would have made a difference, but in hindsight it was foolish not to have brought one. I took my inhaler (first time I've had to use my emergency inhaler in several years), which did its job in stabilizing my breathing, but I was still gasping and wheezing into the finish.
We also realized at that point why we'd had some discrepancy about our ability to get back to the finish. Brent had his map folded in such a way that the finish was just out of sight, and it turned out that he thought it was about 3k further east than it actually was. By that point we had roughly 15 minutes to cover 5+ kilometers, so we knew that we'd be late coming in. We were all pretty demoralized when we got to the finish 20 minutes late, and it took me a solid 45 minutes of sitting next to the radiator with 3 jackets (thanks, JayXC!) on before I warmed up.
We were surprised to learn (unofficially - they won't share scores mid-race, but it's what we gleaned from talking to people) that we were leading on points at the end of Day 1, but we had a 1-hour penalty going into Day 2, and I wasn't sure how my lungs would hold up on Sunday, especially with temps below freezing.