Training Log Archive: escondido

Event: Storm the Trent
 

Matt and I teamed up to compete in the highly competitive male team of 2 at Storm the Trent as team Cool Runnings. This is our second year of racing AR and our first attempt at STT. The day started cold as my sleeping bad did not insulate as well as planned! Camping was cold but we quickly warmed up in the morning as the day proved very warm.

First thing was a ~7km run from Tweed back to Trudeau Park and the transition area. With the sun shinning hard we quickly learnt that it was going to a hot and could have done without the tights. We were just behind the leaders and completed the run in ~35 minutes.

Onto the ~7.5km paddle which consisted of 3 CPs arranged in a triangular fashion on the lake. Due to a mixup I brought the wrong ends of the kayak paddles: two female paddle ends does not work and we were thus relegated to canoe paddles. Our question as to whether kayak paddles offer an advantage over regular canoe paddles was answered and we lost a few spots to other teams on the canoe section.

We vowed to improve our transitions this race and we did very well on that front. We quickly changes shoes and were out for a ~40km bike. We did not refill water, which would later come to haunt us - lesson learned. We excelled at the road bike portion of this leg of the race. Once we hit CP3 we moved over to trail riding. We lost some time here as other better riders passed us. Our team will be working at technical riding over the next few months. Once back on the road we continued onto CP4 where we were in search of water and found it at a fast flowing river! A quick refill of fresh cold water, how satisfying.

We had to drop our bikes at CP4 and find 3 CPs on foot, ~2 km. We decided to keep the bike shoes on for this section and it worked out well. My hamstrings started to cramp really badly half way up a steep hike. I downed eLoad, munched on crispers, hit my muscles, crawled in hope of continuing up the steep incline. I just did not want to stop. The pain/muscle cramps lasted 5 minutes and then passed. We hit all three trekking CPs and jumped bakc on our bikes for the ride back to the finish (while picking up another 2 CPs on the way back).

Once again our strong road riding kicked in. We had 2 other team of 2 males in sight and I quickly made it my goal to beat them to the finish. With our strong legs and good navigation we overtook those 2 teams and caught another 2 teams on route as well. One of the CPs on the way back to the finish line was tricky as you had to keep an eye on the map. At one T-intersection there was an arrow pointing right. But many teams didn't realize that there was a CP just to the left of the T-intersection at a bridge. We saw a couple teams cycling back because they missed the CPs. Matt and I kept an excellent pace of 28 to 32 km/hr at this late stage in the race. With 1 or 2km left till the finish line I noticed my front tire was flat! Not now, not now! I put my weight back and carried on full blast to the end. It worked and I rolled in with not much pressure left in the tube! Whoo!

What a great race. Lots of fun. It really pushed our endurance as we gave it our all. Thanks to Matt for pushing me through the run, and also thanks to Matt for putting up with me pushing hard on the bike. Also thanks to Squirt for cheering us on at various points of the course. Couple takeaways include improving our trail technical riding and paddling. Official results put us at 8th out of 33 Team of 2 Male Trek - we are supper happy with that result.

Thanks to STORM for a very well-run event. It was like clock-work. The volunteers were amazing and the atmosphere was excellent. Will update once we get our offical timing tomorrow.

C • Great report and race! 6

Climbed 21 stories.