Training Archive: Bash

Note

Online race coverage - including GPS tracking - will be posted from Aug. 21-24 at:
http://www.coastraid.com

Adventure Racing race 7:36:00 [3] **

Coast Raid Day 1

We had the team presentation ceremony last night, along with speeches by local dignitaries and the race director.



The volunteer support for Endurance Aventure events is truly amazing. As an example, the race emcee is a CBC broadcaster who uses a week of vacation time to come. The volunteers all got nice waterproof-breathable Coast Raid jackets, and many of them seem to be related to one another, including some little kids having a terrific time.

We all slept at the high school in Blanc-Sablon, then piled into a school bus this morning to drive to the village of St. Paul's River. Before the race started, we inflated our kayaks for the first time and put on our cold water paddling gear. Fortunately, the organizers had allowed plenty of time for this!







The Advanced Elements kayaks were pretty good for inflatables. They were stable, tracked well and moved at a reasonable pace.

With a crowd of locals and volunteers cheering us on, the Coast Raid started with a kayak section - about 11 km including a portage of several hundred meters.





Our team remained happily near the back of the pack. Tiny had promised an adventure vacation to his wife Pixie, and 'Bent and I had agreed to approach the Coast Raid in that manner. So there was no pressure, although we did hope to finish the Raid. Anything beyond that would be gravy, so we took hundreds of photos with the 3 waterproof cameras on our team. On land, we often made brief stops to pick blueberries and bakeapples.

We dropped our kayaks in a bay and trekked up a steep hill onto a plateau. It was our first exposure to the boggy ground, fragile sphagnum moss, invisible deep holes and patches of tangled tuckamore that made the treks more challenging than one would expect on relatively open land.



After locating a couple of checkpoints, we descended to the water for several kilometers of awesome coasteering that led us to a ropes section, then ultimately back to our kayaks. The water was warmer than expected - 10-12C, so the coasteering was chilly, but not deadly. Most of the complaints came from the boys, who whinged about shrinkage. According to one guy, "I've got an inny instead of an outy now!"







We hopped back into the kayaks for a short paddle to the village of Old Fort, which is where the highway from Blanc-Sablon ends. There are a number of villages to the west of here on the Lower North Shore, but they aren't accessible by car. The one local team in the race had come from Harrington Harbour, and it had taken them 13 hrs by powerboat to get to Blanc-Sablon. This was their first race - impressive!

We went up to the local school to pick up our bikes for some orienteering in hilly terrain with spectacular views in gorgeous late afternoon light. We ended up dropping our bikes and hiking through a lake to get to one CP, and we had a fun ride through shallow water along a pebbled lake bottom to reach another CP. Basically, we were wet all day!





We made it back to the finish line an hour before the cut-off for the Extreme (i.e. advanced) section. We'd agreed earlier that we wouldn't do it today, so we took the 4-hr penalty and let a couple of other teams move ahead of us. This event isn't about results for us, so that was OK. All the teams built little forts in the school gym using chairs and bags, and - with judicious use of ear plugs and eye shades - most of us slept *very* well!

C • Love the pics 3

Event: Raid International Éco EnduranceAventure
 

Biking 55:00 [3] 18.9 km (2:55 / km)

With our bikes freshly assembled from their boxes, 'Bent, Tiny, Pixie and I rode to Labrador with our new South African friends, Phillipe and Jeremy. We got a taste of the steep climbs and descents as Hwy 138 follows the coast. I suspect the hills will feel a lot tougher in a few days - and they already felt tough today!

Note

Several hours in a school bus from Deer Lake to Ste. Barbe in Newfoundland, then 1 hr 45 min by ferry to Blanc-Sablon, Quebec - just a few kilometers west of the Labrador border. The kayaking conditions here would be a tad rough, but fortunately, our race took us through more protected waters!





In case you're uncertain (I know I was!), here is where Quebec's Lower North Shore is:
http://www.tourismlowernorthshore.com/villages.asp

Trekking 4:15:00 15.5 km (16:27 / km)

Climbed Gros Morne with 'Bent, Tiny and Pixie. Phatty, Leanimal, STORM and AndyCam joined us at the summit, and we all hiked down together. Great views except when we were on top and clouds rolled in temporarily. We saw several caribou and a *big* moose. We got chatting with another hiker who asked, "Where are you all from? A place called Salomon?"

Note

Went to Gros Morne on a rainy day. It was still beautiful there, but we weren't inspired to get our race clothes soaked by hiking in them. It cleared later in the day, and we watched a fantastic sunset with crashing ocean waves at the Lobster Point lighthouse. We stayed in Rocky Harbour and hosted Team Salomon Suunto for an Olympics-watching night.

People in Newfoundland are soooo friendly. We went into a small craft shop, and the owner mentioned that he knew two families from Ontario. We just smiled politely since there are *lots* of people in Ontario, but it turned out that we did know one of the families. They live in Caledon, and he had sold them a house just down the road from the craft shop. (They're involved with whale research.) Small world.

Note
(rest day)

Flew to Deer Lake with Phatty, Leanimal, Tiny, Pixie, 'Bent and a big pile of AR gear. The Air Canada agent got snippy when so many of us appeared with bike boxes and large gear bags. Phatty & Leanimal got a partial break due to his Elite Aeroplan status, but the rest of us were charged $275/person for travelling with bike box ($75), overweight bag ($100) and oversized bag (same bag - another $100). This is only a 1-way fee, so we'll see what happens at the other end. Good thing 'Bent and I were travelling on an Aeroplan ticket, but this sure doesn't encourage us to fly to adventure races in future!

Nice birthday dinner with the gang at the Irving gas station restaurant in Deer Lake. 'Bent surprised me with a fantastic cake baked by Crash. Thank you!

Note

Got everything settled with our house and dog sitters, fine-tuned our packing one more time, and we're off in the morning. This is the 2nd time I will have spent my birthday travelling to an Endurance Aventure event. Hopefully I'll have a nice day-after-birthday, because a day spent with airlines can rarely be described as fun.

The new excess, overweight and oversized baggage fees implemented on May 15 might stop us from flying to future adventure races - on Air Canada, anyway. We've already been billed part of the fee, but if we get billed "by the book" for our large hockey bag + bike box each, it would cost 'Bent and me over $1100 in baggage fees for the return trip. Glad we're flying on points - that's just crazy!

If you're interested, you can follow the online coverage as the Tree Huggers and Team Salomon Suunto race. In our case, I use the term "race" loosely, as we have agreed to approach this as a low pressure event, taking advantage of this amazing opportunity to explore a fascinating corner of Canada while doing some of our favourite outdoor activities. I've been tapering for about 6 weeks, so I am, like, totally ready.

Coverage will be at http://www.coastraid.com/en/index.html from Aug. 21-24, and we'll be carrying GPS tracking units that should show where we are at any time. As I've already told some of you, if you notice our little dot drifting out into the Atlantic, please alert search and rescue personnel!