A little catch up.
Two weeks post race. I'm still eating like there's no tomorrow. My metabolism is still amped up from the training leading up to and through the race two weeks ago. I'm eating like 5 times a day and not gaining any weight. My sleeping habits have changed as well. I need 7-8 hours or I'm not going to function normally. Maybe it's some work related stress contributing. I can't say it's a bad thing - being able to fall asleep fast, waking fully rested and having the ability to eat like a pig while not gaining any weight.
Oh, the race... It was so bad I did not want write up a race report on it. It was so bad I will never do another 24 hour adventure race. It was so bad I was cussing out the race organizers while hiking some steep sections. The race was basically this: Start off in Yucca Valley towards palm springs and climb up to big bear lake on bike and foot, once up there kayak another 10 miles on the lake. 11 thousand feet in elevation gain, 95 total miles. Lots of UP and Lots of DOWN, the more UP again.
It ended up like this: 30 teams. 15 finished. We were not one of them. The fastest team finished in 19 hours. The bottom of the 15 that finished were done in 30 hours. The rest of the 15 DNF'd. We went about 17 hours before we realized that a couple costly navigational errors kept us from going further. We finished at 11:30 p.m. (was a 6a.m. start) in the cold (40 deg) dark somewhere near Big Bear. We realized our bike light batteries were dying fast and we could not bush-whack descend down some steep cliffs in the dark. So we got on the emergency phone and had our support crew pick us up. Our race was over.
There was a lot of hike-a-bike sections where we had to carry/push our bikes up steep sections. We never made the kayaks. It felt like the 50 or so miles that we did complete was mostly hike-a-bike. I hate hike-a-bike. Bikes are for riding, not for carrying, not for pushing. The course was extremely demanding and our team was in a bit over our heads on this one. The navigational errors sealed our fate. It was too long of a race to be off course because 1) the extra expended energy of climbing the wrong route at altitude. 2) the wasted time being off course and trying to become "un-lost". We spent too much time second guessing the maps and our choice of routes while trying to figure out where the red "You Are Here" arrow was (sarcasm).
I'm sticking to 12 hour and under races from here on out. It's too hard as a family guy to prepare for a race that long and to be gone all weekend.
Next race, Oct 21st Desert Rage in San Diego County somewhere - 12 hours. This time I hope we make it to the kayak section. At least I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life and I can hang for 12 hours.
posted by LouiSurfer @ 11:49 PM
0 comments
