Training Log Archive: Mona

Race for the Booty - 14hr AR - team Fracture w/ John

This was definitely one of the least prepared races I ever have done. Therefore I should just be happy I was out doors having fun, but somehow I'm not very happy about it. To start with I did not train for a while, due to injuries, sailing classes and other fun things which obviously took priority. Then we got there 45 min late with one hour of sleep. The lack of sleep however did not seem to affect me at all. And we did not read the instructions carefully, which as you read later on, it will prove very important. So we missed the meeting, and we got a 30 seconds briefing on what to do.

There were 3 main sections: bike/nav, paddle, paddle. We chose to do bike/nav as I figured it was cooler early morning. So, it took me a while to figure out where the nav maps were located in the actual terrain, and obviously I was planning a sweep, as that seem mostly doable to most other adventure races. Well, till we hit the woods, with mosquitoes ready for attack, brambles and greens as thick as you can imagine, John missing his long pants, let's just say it was challenging. Maps (topo) were not very the plus on this either, as they were the vaguest maps you can imagine, humongous depressions missing off the map, and controls placement and description also super vague. But everyone had the same challenge, so... So, we swept first map, and we were kind of surprised that all points were marked optional, but kept on having fun with it. Then we hit very deep woods, with blackberry bushes, tons of mosquitoes, and to top it a bee stung me on my knee, right on a scar I had from couple years ago MTB in CO. Wow, that hurt!! I was really upset by then, and only John';s persistence kept me going, cause I just about had it. After a while we kind of realized sweeping was out of the question, and John said he would like to do some paddling too. So, we went to the MTB section, got a couple points and then got the only mandatory marked point on the map.

A bit tired now, we head back (1hr+ of road bike) so we can paddle a bit. We get there juts short of 2 hours from cutoff time, and have been informed we would not have time to get the points on the paddling section, which were apparently mandatory, but we're still in good mood and decide to do the fun challenges. So, first time in my life went across a beam at about 25 feet up in the air!! That was scary, but we had something to hang on and I made it, by not looking down at all. I also noticed everyone was kind of freaked out by it. The zip line was fun, I just jumped off that platform. Then we had to climb a wall, and John was hilarious, when he hit this window in the wall, half his body went in the window that everyone who was waiting for their turn asked what's on the other side :) Obviously, there was just John :)

And now comes the bogus part, we got back and we were about to hand in our passports with all the hard work we did in the super awful woods, and crossing the beam and such... Well, it appears that because we did not get the mandatory points, he did not even care to look at our passports and we got DNF. I was so bummed!! So I had no peace till I pulled out the instructions and sure enough, one paragraph (in bold!) was mentioning that 3 points were mandatory and 2 of them were on paddling sections. That's one mistake I'll never do again! Oh, well, so I'm trying to think of positives, and besides going across the beam, the fun on the MTB trails (love those new loops at Greenbush) and John butt hanging out the window with everyone wandering what's on the other side, can't think of much else...

Event: Seattle Rock n Roll Marathon