Saturday Jun 30 |
 | Adventure Racing 5:00:00 [3] | |
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| C • RTNX 4 |
Friday Jun 29 |
| Adventure Racing 15:00:00 [4] | |
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| Back on the mainland at Prince Rupert and after an overnight ferry ride we gathered for the start of the final stage of the race - 24 hours around Prince Rupert. Starting with a run we pushed the pace to the boats and were in the water with team Dart-nuun. We worked with them on the paddle and arrived at the "portage" with the leaders. Now comes the fun part. We had a 8-10km portage to the next channel on what we thought would be a trail - WRONG!!! This was the most heinous experience of my life. We bushwhacked 2 60 lb. inflatable boats (like we didn't hate them enough already) and a huge paddle bag for 6 1/2 hours through a severely overgrown trail (wouldn't even call it that now) and then through old forest down to the water. 6 1/2 hours to go 8-10km - you do the math....it sucked although we do have a great memory of the Hominid launching the Tomcat into the air and then laying the boots to it......aahhhh the memories.. We worked our way down the next channel, which was absolutely stunning, with team Spirit. Onto the bike the Hominid set a blistering pace and we arrived at our last paddle in second place. The final paddle and trek were okay as we were anticipating the finish. We got passed by a peppy team Helly Hansen on the trek and crossed the line 3rd on the day at 5 am.......we did have lots of rest though so we had more energy than a lot of the other teams....more later. |
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| C • Congrats! 1 |
Thursday Jun 28 |
| Adventure Racing 6:00:00 [3] | |
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| After the climb to Mount Moresby we opted to head out on the bike rogaine course and skip the 42km paddle that would have been more like hell on earth in those stupid inflatable boats we were required to paddle. One of the perks of being unranked is opting out of the "unfun" stuff. So off we went riding on muddy trails with slippery logs on them....Phatty nailed the nav in here and 6 0r 7 hours later we were once again reunited with our Tomcats!!! Sleepy and cold we paddled toward the lights of Skidegate only to realize once we approached shore 2 1/2 hours later that we were 2km north of where we should have been. Oh the devastation of having to paddle another 2km in those boats. The Hominid and I slowed to a horrendous pace of about 1 1/2 km an hour and cried our way all the way back to the Haida Heritage Centre and the finish line. A good section for us but of course we had more rest than most teams so when there were people cheering at the finish line it felt a little awkward. I am glad we went back out on the course (the thought of not doing so never crossed our minds) and were able to see some more highlights of Haida Gwaii.... |
Wednesday Jun 27 |
| Adventure Racing 17:00:00 [4] | |
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| Back out on the course I started to feel better. Heading back to base camp and being unranked so early was pretty depressing. Paddled the pig Tomcats before heading up to Mount Moresby for a stunning trek and super fun snow slide descent. We ran the 12km to the trail up to the mountain and were up and down in under 6 hours so we were pushing despite being out of the race. We kidded about ruling the unranked course and had a lot of laughs along the way....at least it isn't just about the race for us as I think we would have been more depressed than we were had that been the case. |
Monday Jun 25 |
| Adventure Racing 18:00:00 [4] | |
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| Start of RTNX. It started off great for our team but quickly took a turn for the worse when we got cliffed out on the first trek.....too many emotions to write about and this one will sting for a while. We made a decision to turn back based on safety and I know I should feel good about that but I can't right now. We ran out of food which isn't really a big deal except when you are thinking about taking risks that require good reflexes and coordination. |