Training Log Archive: Harps

Suited up with Phatty to take another stab at a 24-hr rogaine. Last year Phats and I had a good time at the Dakota Rogaine, so after hearing some great reviews on the EEC from Tiny and M&M, who competed last year, we locked into this one a few months ago.

In the months leading up to the race I had found myself battling a hamstring/piriformis/lower back injury resulting from what I had thought to be a strain, later diagnosed as a bulging disc, then again re-diagnosed as 70% likelihood strain, 30% disc. In any case, my training leading up to the race had basically gone to sh*t for the last month trying to heal in preparation for this and more importantly, the APEX race in May. My pain had subsided quite a bit over the past few weeks with just swimming and yoga so I was happy to be able to compete with Phatty out east, also joined by the all-female stud team of Bash/Crash and the ever-strong navigators of MBR (Tiny/M&M).

An AC flight delay had us in 2 hours over the expected arrival time so by the time we arrived at 09Man’s house (who very graciously offered up his place for us to stay), it was near 2am. A few hours of sleep later we were off to registration and then to Tim Horton’s to go over our route.

We decided on a counter-clockwise loop, plotting to clear the approximate 70km course, which seemed reasonable over the 24-hr period in relatively flat terrain, although featuring a significant amount of bushwhacking, maybe half the course I’d estimate. There was some plotting, an aerial photo and a “walk the line” of about 1km, half bushwhack via few features on a 1:50000 map (umm… okay….).

We decided to be pretty conservative at the beginning of the race, recalling some walking on a flat road (shame!) at last year’s Dakota course due to fatigue. We wanted to make sure we’d be running… errr… shuffling I should say … all the roads through the entirety of the race.

I armed myself with a 15L packvest loaded with a 2L bladder, a Gore-tex raincoat, toque, spare socks, a small first aid kit, Nightlightning Mini-blast with medium battery (2500mAh) and about 2400 calories in various types of food – hot rods, powergel blasts, honey stinger waffles, soldier fuel, etc – most of it was expired leftovers from last years races :) Even this amount of food ended up being overkill for me, and I brought back almost half of it back. I do need to learn to eat more, especially in crappy conditions, like what we were about to face.

We blazed through the first part of the course, including the sat photo part very well, trading spots quite frequently with MBR. For almost the first 1/3 of the race, they were pretty much the only team we would see consistently. All went very well for during the first day, with us nailing almost all the CP’s without much issue. By the time we donned our headlamps at 9pm, we are well over half of the expected course-clearing distance, rounded the bend at the top of the map and feeling pretty good about the race.

Unlike the pretty good (sparse) vegetation on the eastern half of the course the western half seemed much worse (thicker), and it wasn’t due to the lack of light or now wet conditions (a steady rain was now falling, along with the temperatures). We had our first little bobble of the race shortly after sunset while trying to locate a clearcut and likely lost 45mins whacking around a clearcut instead of through it. We then ran into Bash/Crash where we wasted almost an hour to locate a cliff CP which was a mere 75m or so from the trail adjacent to a stream. Perhaps in the daylight this one would have been easier but given that all the “cliff-top” CP’s of similar value had been very obvious and easy to locate, this one was extremely frustrating and we decided to drop our first CP.

We continued on through the cold rainy night steadily after the few previously mentioned hiccups. The remote shelters provided welcoming volunteers, clean water and sometimes a warm cup of chili (sooo good!). The highlight of the night was when Phatty led us right to a remote knoll CP on a bearing for 700m through some extremely thick vegetation. That spike was a huge boost as I figured it would be our toughest CP especially at night.

As the sun rose we found ourselves nearing the “walk the line” section. Given the few features the “line” went through it had to have been on/near/in one area – a copse, one of a few treelines, a creek or a road. We spent more time looking around these areas than other trivial sections but by the time we made it to the end we had not found the CP. Since it was a 1km walk and time was dwindling we didn’t bother going back again on a reverse bearing and decided to drop the walk the line CP, even though it was a valuable 100 points.

As previously strategized we had left plenty of CP’s near the start and we kept plugging away at a slow, but steady pace. We were looking good to clear the rest of the remaining course until we got misdirected attacking a cove CP, losing another 45mins likely. Around this time also my left knee was really bothering me from all the contorted, unstable and wet clearcut walking and our pace was pretty slow for sure.

We located most of the remaining CPs en-route to the finish but knew we’d have to drop a 2 more out and backs along the way. We shuffled into the finish with about 6 minutes to spare. We felt good about our race but knew the course was definitely clearable if raced cleaner.

After a cleanup at the local Tim’s we were off to the banquet in the community centre where we were treated to a delicious turkey dinner. Mmmm! Awards were given out and the Ontario crew had a great showing where MBR placed 8th, Bash/Crash 5th and Phats and I took the win. We thought we probably would place top-3 but winning was a nice bonus. The ride back was looking great too as Tiny had charmed the AC employees into bumping Phats, Tiny and I into executive class. The free drinks and food went down very well despite our semi-conscious state. Unfortunately this highlight was short-lived as we had another delay home and my bag never arrived (still MIA – foock!).

All in a great trip with some great folks. It was awesome to meet 09Man and the rest of the Maritimer AR crew. Always good times racing with Phatty and enjoying the company of our great AR community. Time to start getting jacked for APEX now!

C • Congrats on the win! 8

C • Upgrade 15

Event: Eco-Endurance Challenge
 

2 x (100m fr, 100m br) wu
600m fr
8 x 100m pull on 1:45-ish (target 1:30-1:35)
2 x (50m br, 50m fr) cd

Tried to maintain a program but ended up just doing mainly a bunch of 100's.

So nice out, would be great to ride :(