Training Log Archive: angelsimpson

Sea to Sea Adventure Race

This was my first Solo AR and first Expedition Length Race. This race report was written with a heavy heart as I relived all the experiences of this event and what happened at the end of the race. I was hesitant to share this race report as I continue to process what happened, whether good or bad, I've decided to share it.

We received the maps first thing in the morning on Thursday when we boarded the buses around 5:45am. I found a seat next to Barbara’s team and settled in to reviewing the maps. Immediately I started highlighting CPs and road routes for the CPs/TAs. On each map I also noted where they connected to the previous map. There were 29 maps in total, it took a long time to get through them all. Then I went back through and wrote the CP clues on each map, and at that time I realized my highlighters were not really working well on the maps. I could hardly see the paths I had highlighted. I then had to go back through and notate the turns with a red pen on every single page. Frustrating! Once I got through re-noting the routes and writing the clues, I then started to measure distances for key points/turns. I was not able to get through all the maps to measure though, I ran out of time. Also during this time I took pictures of all the maps as a ‘just in case’.

We arrived at the start a little before 10am, behind schedule. The race was supposed to start at 10, but I think it ended up being around 10:30 before we started. Once the horn sounded we all filled the first half of our sand bottles with sand from the beach of the west cost, then we were off on our 5k run to the bikes. It was already hot and this was a straight road run on pavement, kinda brutal. My first snafu of many in this race… I arrived to the bikes and they were all on bike racks, but not in any order, one long row of bikes. I started from the front and made my way all the way down, no bike. WTF. Started making my way back down the line in reverse, really started to panic that my bike wasn’t there. Finally, near the front of the line I found my bike, with my bike number hanging on by one zip tie. The whole time I was looking for my bike number instead of focusing on my bike. It didn’t help that this is a newer bike, all black and with no real distinguishing features/colors. Next time I’ll do something different for that. Sigh. So now that I’m frustrated with wasting so much time finding my bike, I swap my shoes, get my maps on the map board and take off down the road. The very first CP should have been easy, or so I thought. I had only measured the distance to a key bend in the road instead of directly to the CP, first mistake. Second mistake, trusting where a bunch of people stopped instead of paying attention to where I was. Third mistake, trusting the map was accurate (this becomes an issue throughout the race). Anyways, I was sucked into thick nonsense and wasted a good 15 min in the wrong spot, but I didn’t know I was in the wrong spot. I decided this is ridiculous and bailed, I didn’t want to skip a CP already, but this was taking too long and didn’t seem right, so I bailed to my bike. Just a little bit down the two track and there was a pull off and a couple teams over near a sign, it looked like a tourist stop, I thought this was a little odd, but went over there anyways. There I heard a team say, “it’s just down that path”. Ugh. Unbelievable. So I stop and run down to get the easiest CP ever. Can’t believe how this race is starting. I tried to reset myself at this point. Focus on what I was doing, ignore everyone else and just follow my maps. Things went fairly well through CP 4 and to TA1.

At TA1 we had three leg options; a paddle, a mountain bike and a trek. We could do them in any order, so I chose paddle first because my biggest concern for this race was paddling at night by myself. So I prepped for the paddle and made my way over to the paddle start. There were two CPs (5 & 6) to the south and two to the north (7 & 8). I opted to go to the south first, they seemed easier and a good way to get a feel for being in a boat since it had been a while. The first CP was straightforward, the second one ended up being hung on the wrong side of the river. Thankfully I happened to arrive at the same time as another team and we worked together to find it, luckily the other team magically spotted it on the other side so we made quick work of that. On my way back I started doing the math to figure out if I should try for any more paddle points or just drop them and switch to the mountain bike section. I decided there was no way I could get them all in the daylight so I opted to head back and try to get at least one point in the daylight on the bike. That didn’t quite workout, I just entered the mountain bike area at sundown and the trails were very confusing. I thought I knew where I was when I came in, but the trails weren’t lining up. It took me a while to figure out where I was, once I did I had to adjust my plan for which CPs to get, skipping 15 and heading to 18 and 16. It was slow going in this area with the “roads” being mostly thick sand and of course single track at night trying to follow the trail and make sure I didn’t miss the points I was going after. After I got 16 my plan was to just head back to the TA and do the trek, I had been out there much longer than I had planned for just 2 CPs and felt like I would make better time on the trek. On my way out I ran into another solo racer, he wasn’t sure exactly where he was, I shared where I thought we were and then since he wasn’t convinced I offered to head to the next main road to the east with him where I would head out to the TA and he would try to get 15. Well, that did not go as planned. I think we ended up hopping the wrong trail and were way off from where we had planned to come out. We then ran into another team also looking for 15, at this point, since they were all wanting 15 I decided to stick with them to get it after all this time wasted. So after a few back and forths and working out the trail system, we eventually found the CP. Hooray! We got back out to the main “road”, and finally I parted with the group. I didn’t want to waste anymore time out here for a couple more CPs, I was confident I could move faster at the trek. I eventually made my way back to the TA, switched my gear for the trek and headed out. Other than a little bobble by following an unmarked trail, which I figured out quickly, I managed to clear this section with little trouble. I found myself taking longer in the TAs to swap disciplines than I thought I would, but being that I had already started dropping points and that my number one goal was to just finish the race, I wasn’t overly worried about the extra time anymore. I needed to mentally prepare for this long overnight bike alone anyways, but eventually got myself out of there and on my way.

For the most part, other than being mostly alone and checking my maps way too often to make sure I was on the right route, I made my way through this section without too much trouble. It was pretty lonely at times, and there were a few times on the busy roads that I was nervous, but I rode sidewalks whenever I could and that helped ease some of the concerns. CPs 20-27 were fairly straightforward, my next mistake was thinking I could then head to CP 30 directly. As I made the turn to head east I found myself scanning my map and as I got close to the entrance to 30, I realized that there was a mandatory waypoint off to the north and I wasn’t allowed to enter the park at CP 30. Sigh. I had to backtrack and added close to 6k to my route because of that mistake. Oh well. The waypoints were supposed to be clearly marked access points for entering/exiting park areas, we were required to follow them. So, as I reached the waypoint and discovered a closed/locked gate, I was not super happy about it, especially after I passed an OPEN gate on my way to this waypoint. Argh. Thankful for my new and light bike, I lifted it over the gate and then scaled it myself to be on my way. At this point I was getting a bit tired and really just wanted to get to the TA, so all I planned to do was collect the points that were only on my way to it. The trails were again a little confusing in here and didn’t quite line up, but I knew the general direction I needed was west/southwest, so I found a trail that seemed to be going that direction and I got on it. Thankfully it took me right to CP 31, finally something felt a little easy! As I was looking for 31, 3 teams came up behind me in there as well. I was very thankful for this because the next mandatory waypoint was coming up and it was a river crossing. I had no idea how deep it would be and I was a little nervous about it. I let them lead the way and I followed as closely as I could on a very rooty trail that I hoped would not be very long. We came up to the waypoint and as one person tested the water we discovered it was about chest deep. Ugh! Everyone took off packs and planned for a double crossing. As I was trying to decide whether to take my pack or my bike across first, one of the teammates from the other teams said “hey solo, do you want help with your bike?”, I immediately said “I would LOVE help with my bike, thank you!!!”. What a lovely, lovely person, who I later learned to be Shelley. I saw her several times later and she was always so wonderful and offering any kind of help I might need. Amazing! After the river crossing we had a significant bushwhack to get to another lovely sandy road to take us to TA2. There was no shortage of sand along this course, but I have to say, I felt like I was getting pretty good at it by now. I stayed with this small group of teams as we headed to the TA, it was nice to be around people for a change and other than wanting to get to the TA as fast as I could, I welcomed the distraction and slight break from constant navigation.

TA2 was a huge area in a park, there were tons of teams here, they had food, bathrooms and we had access to our bins and tents to rest, etc. It looked amazing. I was so tired at this point and planned a little rest before doing one of the three trekking sections that were part of this TA. As I found my bin, took off my pack and started pulling out a few things from my bin to relax I thought maybe I’ll get my maps ready for the next sections and went to grab them from my pack. My heart sank. My extra bag of maps was gone. I just stood there, completely dumbfounded, confused, disappointed and devastated. How did this happen? I don’t lose things. The smaller bag with my instructions and clues was still there, how did I lose the larger map bag. Ugh. I was on the verge of tears. Now what? I slowly walked to the check-in to find out what my options were. I learned that for only 1 penalty I could get a new set of maps. That wasn’t so bad… so I took the penalty and then headed back over to my bin to sit down and go through the remaining 20+ maps to re-plan the rest of the race. My brain wasn’t working well at this point, I was really still so upset with myself for allowing this to happen. I felt like I needed to eat but I was also battling some mouth sores and I didn’t actually want to do anything. I also started thinking about what comes after this TA, the really long paddle, and based on what time it was right now, I realized there was no way I could get away with not paddling at night. This was so terrifying to me, I just felt completely at a loss of what to do. I couldn’t eat anything, I was so upset with myself for my current situation, I was mad that I was so afraid of paddling at night. I just wanted to quit. This was the lowest of low points for me during this race. I felt helpless, worthless, pitiful. It was bad. This was worse than I felt during R3 last year.

I don’t really remember the order of what I did next. I ran into Joe and chatted with him, told him what had happened, we talked a couple more times in this TA, he was very supportive and I was thankful for a friendly face. A volunteer who could clearly tell I was struggling had talked to me and told me there were options, I could even skip the paddle and bike straight to the next TA if I wanted to. At some point I tried to rest in one of the tents. I also called Steve eventually to… I wanted to just quit, I wanted him to tell me it was ok to quit. I knew deep down he would never tell me it was ok to quit though, and of course he didn’t. He said all the right things, told me I could do it, said to just try for one CP on the trek, just get back out there, wait till morning to start the paddle if I have to… he was my life saver. Even after I hung up with him I wasn’t convinced I would stay in the race. But, I did get myself organized enough to go out for at least one trekking CP. I managed to get 2 CPs and then headed back to the TA. I was still battling this major fear of the paddling at night and I didn’t know what to do about it. There had been a solo guy near my bin at the TA who I had chatted with several times while I was there. His plan was to rest a couple hours and then head out on the paddle. I dropped a couple hints that I was afraid to do the paddle at night and alone. I really wanted to ask him (Erik) if I could join him, but I did not want to hold him back on his own race, I could never ask someone to do that. So I didn’t, I just stayed nearby and kept trying to figure out what I was going to do. I thought about trying to find Shelley, but with it being well past dark I really had no idea if her team was even still here. I didn’t know her team number so I couldn’t even ask the volunteers. Erik was all packed up and ready to head out on the paddle and he came back to where I was, I thought to just say goodbye, but out of the blue he asked me if I wanted to come with him. My heart jumped with joy! Omg, this is my chance to get through this with someone else. I immediately got up and starting packing up my bin as fast as possible. Now I was kind of kicking myself for not having done some of this prep work earlier. But, I moved as quickly as I could and Erik waited patiently as I got myself ready to go. As soon as I was ready to go we started the mini trek over to the Paddle Launch area, added our glow sticks to the boats and ourselves and then were on our way. I did my best by helping Erik with what direction we were going whenever needed and used my spotlight to show the path of the river when necessary. We were able to get the first paddle CP without too much trouble, but after that it was a bit of a struggle bus to find CPs. We thought we were in the right places, but sadly never found any of the other CPs. I was totally fine with that though, still thankful that I had the opportunity to paddle with someone else and not have to do it alone. We finally reached the Paddle Out and I was so very relieved to have that section finally done. A quick switch back to trekking shoes and packing up the paddle gear, Erik and I decided we might as well work together on the next Trek as we headed to TA3. These points were fairly straightforward, 49 was through some really thick areas which required pace counting, we struggled and couldn’t find 51, but then the rest were fine.

Once we got to TA3, Erik and I went our separate ways, I thanked him again for allowing me to come with him, he truly saved my race! At TA3 I decided I needed a little more rest before the next long bike ride. I was feeling pretty tired and hadn’t been eating well since before the paddle. I got some food from the TA and then found a quite/shady area to nap for a couple hours. I didn’t sleep completely, but it felt good to rest anyways. I headed back over to my bin and worked on getting myself ready for the next bike section and then finally checked out of the TA. The first bike point out of the TA was along a road, very easy. The next two were also very straight forward, which was very nice. The next one was a mountain biking trail system that required you to take 3 pictures at 3 different locations along the trail in order to collect a single CP point. I decided to just skip this, I didn’t think it was worth my time for just 1 point. Also, at this point my goal was to meet the minimum commitment I had made to Steve, get at least 1 CP from each section, which I had already done. So, with that being said, I took the shortest/fastest route possible on my way to TA4. At some point about halfway through this section my sit bones were really struggling, I couldn’t spend more than 5 minutes on my bike seat at a time. I had to keep standing up to give it a break, it was pretty awful. Eventually I came to a corner store where a few teams had stopped, I was still struggling to eat so I thought some liquid calories might be a good idea for me. I picked up some chocolate milk, gatorade and a coke. I chugged the chocolate milk and half the gatorade and took the rest with me. I also had a brilliant idea to help my butt situation, I folded up my raincoat and wedged it between my tri-shorts and capris to try and give me a different pressure points/padding to save myself. It wasn’t perfect, but it did the trick and allowed me to sit longer on my seat and maintain a faster speed overall. I was so thankful when I finally made it to TA4, I was finally confident that I was going to make it to the finish of this race.

After checking into TA4, this trek section was a little unique, there were CP#s that were A and B, you had to get BOTH A and B for it to count as a single CP. Argh! So for every two checkpoints of the same number, you got just one point. As I was getting organized at the TA I thought I might just immediately go out and get my 1 point. I happened to run into Michelle, another solo female, who was looking to go out on the trek as well. She asked if I wanted to join her and go together, I immediately said yes! Why not! So we went out with a plan of getting 6 points, worth 3 CPs, but the result was that we got only 3 and therefore ended up with 1 point. Again, my goal was 1 per section, so I was completely content and satisfied with this! The trails were not all mapped accurately and we did a lot of pace counting, but still struggled a couple times. When we got back to the TA we found fresh pasta awaiting us, yay, more real food! I had started to feel very tired on the way back to the TA so I knew I needed to sleep a little bit before getting back on the bike to head to the finish. Michelle felt pretty good so she packed up and headed out. I settled into a plan of a 2 hour nap, I think I might have fallen asleep for a little bit, but eventually I just kept waking up so after about 1.5 hrs I just got up and decided I might as well just pack up and head out. I put on my biking shorts which I saved for the last bike leg, lubed up and went to get my bike ready. As I was working on my bike I heard my name in the distance and Barbara’s voice say something about being said that she missed me. I hollered out, I’m right here Barbara! LOL It was SO GREAT to see her. That gave me a little boost as I was getting ready for this final push to the end. We chatted for a few minutes and then I let her and her team stay focused while I finished getting ready to leave. I checked out with the volunteers, said goodbye to Barbara and headed to the finish.

There were only two CPs remaining for the final bike leg, neither had an actual flag, we just had to take a selfie at the location and text them to a phone number. Easy enough! As I got on my bike and headed out I could not believe how great my butt felt in my bike shorts! I should have put them on much sooner, haha! It was as if I was sitting on a pillow, I felt fantastic! This was a really fast ride, I felt great and it was all pavement, yay! I picked up CP 71 at a fishing pier, almost fell off my bike trying to get back onto the road, I think it was here that I lost a bike bottle, bummer, but whatever. The next CP was at the beach where Barbara and I had been several days before, so I knew exactly where I was going. I kept plugging along and made my way to the familiar beach area, filled my other half of the bottle with sand from the east coast, took my selfie and headed to the finish. I was again thankful that Barbara and I had been out here several times because I knew exactly where I was going to get to the finish line. I felt so great and such relief to know that I was almost done. As I pulled into the finish chute I could see another team there celebrating, oh wow it was Richard’s team with Jeff, the RD! How cool that I saw them at the finish and that someone I knew was there when I crossed the finish line for my very first Expedition Race, and done solo(mostly) at that! I was so proud of myself for managing to push through this race and actually cross the finish line. I was so very thankful for the teams that helped me along the way as well, I could not have done it without them. A huge thank you to Shelley and Eric for their support, and of course to Barbara, Brenda, Joe, Mari, Richard and others who I know were thinking of me during their race as well.

After I crossed the finish line I dropped my gear by the car, changed into dry clothes and crawled into the car for a nap. My plan was to sleep a couple hours and then check in on Barbara’s team on the tracker to get an estimate of when they might finish. When I woke up a short time later I checked the tracking site and it wasn’t working, that was odd. I got out of the car and walked over to the finish line tents, it was kind of quiet. I wasn’t seeing any teams come into the finish, and there weren’t many people around.

Not too long after that my phone was ringing, it was Barbara… what in the world? why is she calling me? did something happen to her or her team? I answered right away and like a punch to the gut, she told me that a racer had been killed and the race was cancelled. I was speechless, devastated, numb. I could not believe what I was hearing. I can’t even explain the roller coaster of emotions that we were all feeling at that time and in the days to come. I came to find out later that I had been only 20 minutes ahead of the team that was hit, on that very same road, all by myself. It could have been me. We recognize the dangers of the sports we participate in, but I think we sometimes forget it as well. This was a reminder to me that even though we can follow every safety precaution out there, it's not always enough, things happen that are out of our control. I wish the very best to my fellow racers and friends, please be safe out there as you continue on your future adventures.

Such a tragedy.

My heart goes out to the friends and family of Troy Manz, may he rest in peace.