Training Log Archive: Work4justice

Tried to very carefully walk out a Line O. And the first few were OK, and then the mosquitoes, and an errant streamer got me so frustrated. I was out for about another hour and got to 9, but then realized my watch bumped probaby from waving my arms from the mosquitoes. Hard to concentrate and stop and study with that, so I bailed and going back Saturday.

Did Simon Says with the kid, go out to the sand quarry and I have to hill repeat any hill...of course most of them were sandy or bushwhacky.

I'm in for Wilderness Traverse! Going with the Speed Bunnies. AliC, I promise to make it back in one piece to officiate your wedding!

C • Hurray! 7

Crazy how much I got done around the house this weekend. Cleaned garage, made some super tasty cherry jam (MI cherries of course!), a lot of cooking and cleaning and laundry. All good stuff.

C • If I bring you some homemad... 6

What a nice paddle with ccmarie, mr dubs and byrnedfish. Quite lovely really.

"I think we'll miss the storm..." Famous last words.

C • I wondered how you made out... 2

Yeah, that 190 is off and when this loaded it was weird. Having AP issues.

Humbling and helpful.

Event: Thunder Rolls 24-Hr AR
 

Thunder Rolls! Despite many character building snafus, I think we did well. More later! Met simpy, Escondido, and rocky 33. And as always, great to see silkychrome!

UPDATE:
Teamed up with Andy Brown for my 3rd Thunder Rolls. As always, organized, great venue, and a great experience. Started with Friday night plotting, way finding and map prep. Always nice when that goes smoothly! We had a midnight start with a road run I think ~4-5 miles which did not make the map attached, I forgot to start my tracker into the paddle. Ran to the paddle put in, and we found our night rhythym pretty quickly and found ourselves passing 3 teams. My bright beam on my headlamp was great until it dimmed, I swapped the battery, and then immediately dimmed. WHAT? Thank goodness for the lightning at the end so we could see. I think we came out of the water in 6th and the paddle was about 12ish miles. There were some huge log jams to get over holy smokes.

Once we got on the bikes, it had been thunderstorming for about an hour maybe. All the dirt roads were messy. We had to hold back on some of the descents. Got the bike points, and got to the O-course around 6. We were about 1:15 behind the leaders. That felt good, but I knew the O would be tough for sure.

There was a lot, lot, lot of foot nav on this course. We started with having to self plot (100m circles) one map, then we could go back for a second map at the Mississippi Palisades. I started the nav section in superior fashion in that as we ran to the rappel, I slipped, turned my ankle and went flying like superman. Ankle hurt, but pressed on. Andy isn't as familiar with LIDAR and after we got to and finished the rappel, he asked that I take over foot nav. At that point I am surprised I rolled with it and just moved on. Nav is not my strength these days. And the mosquitoes were bad bad...so many bites standing and looking at the map.

We planned a route to clear the section. I focused on big attacks, slow and steady, pace count and features, if I didn't see what I wanted quick, we retreated. #17 was awful and we went at it ALOT. Turns out we were one of the few teams to get it which tells me in hindsight should have let it be--spent waaaaay too much time and I approached from the wrong direction in the first place. Once we got there, Andy realized he lost the passport en route! What a bummer. It was no question we would continue on, but that stunk.

Went back for the second map, and got quite a few there too. And was more judicious on what we chose to do. Had to wait a smidge on the ascent, which has gone much much better than in the past.

We left here around 6ish, and went for the bike points, which en route was 1:24 foot section. We only did 2 points on that being worried about time, my bike was grinding up a storm, and I was worried about my nav. Got those in good order and headed to the last bike points and the last o at the finish. Got about a mile from the camp and my chain seized and on further inspection got very jammed, and had to walk and when I could, coast in--ugh! Got the last map and turned out it was an all or nothing deal...and we decided to get the one mandatory and call it a day. In retrospect, wish I had pushed to go for them, but I think at the moment my brain said no. We were 3 points behind the lead in our division and 16 (!!) behind the winners overall, Top 3 were WEDALI, Rib Mountain and Alpine Shop.

Felt good about a lot of things, and had some serious character and experience building moments. Glad we did it despite all. As I understand from the volunteers, this was the hardest...and I think that WEDALI and Rib finished within a few hours of when they finished nationals.

Things to remember:
-First time my feet were utterly destroyed-just so bad from being wet all day-should have changed socks
-Keep up with pack training
-Get a pole that won't dissemble sticking in the mud
-Add weight training

C • Those hillls tho 2

Easy trot to check the shins. Feeling good.

With cris on Igors map...she didn't want to get wet sooooooo....shin splints lots better.

C • but he offered such a lovely swamp crossing 7

Chased Tone and his buddy Charlie.

C • respectable climb total 3

I think I have a mild case of shin splints on my lower left leg. Kinda strange, bothersome, but not taking chances. Advice is welcome! Using a compression sleeve, arnica gel, ice and elevation. Ice cream helps, right? :)

C • Not running 4

Chasing Shrekfeet and JayXC. Fun.

Mr.Wonderful and I chasing Shrekfeet and JayXC.

C • thank you for organizing 3

Dirt road ride with ShrekFeet and JayXC.

Event: MID-AMERICA XTREME ADVENTURE RACE 12 HOUR
 

Mid-America Xtreme 12 hour Race
Quick details, wettest and smallest race I have been a part of, first one teaming with Andy Brown. In the first bit had the lead, and then a bike route choice error and nav error sealed third by an hour behind first, Brenda and Joe. Highlights are white water kayaking, and the navigation was challenging with a couple of swims. And, here’s a first, tubing! Not the biggest race by any stretch of the imagination, but some things to really remember and learn from.
Longer version…teamed up with Andy Brown for this, and a few more races. We have bumped into each other quite a bit in the last year or so. Got to talking, and thought to give it a go. First we talked about Thunder Rolls, and a couple of others came on the calendar. Heard he is a great teammate from some fragiles.
We headed to Crystal Falls on Friday. We got one ginormous map on arrival, and then at 7p we got the points and 9p was the pre-race meeting to go over any questions. We had a 5a start on Saturday. We learned there were 6 teams in the 12 hour and 5 or 6 in the 4 hour.
When we were transferring the points, we asked a lot of questions about features, timing, gear carry, protecting passport, etc. The race was intended to start with a quick sprint at 5a for directions, then a bike, then a run to the tubes, tube a Wisconsin/Michigan river, bike to the O course, 4 points plus a rappel and a fair bit of swimming, then a trot to the white water kayak, then bike to finish. Andy seemed to have had more luck with navigation than I, so he was the navigator.
Turned out we needed to carry everything except for paddles. That was a surprise. So, fortunately we were rather creative with our packs, and was able to take less food because we thought it might take us 8-9 hours to do the course. Our packs had required gear, climbing gear, pfds, shoes, and eventually lights. The RD said he wanted us to have an “expedition” feel. It was not going much beyond the 70s that day so I went with long pants and long sleeves. We were well advised about PI and deer flies. (Funny, never saw either!)
We were ready to go at 4:45, and decided to head over to the start. Hmm, there wasn’t really anyone around. So, we waited. A few minutes before 5 we saw the RD and people gathered. We started at 5:05. It was a dash to get directions and then onto the bikes for about a 10m ride to the river. I don’t ever remember pushing so hard at the beginning of a race, but that’s not my comfort level and I want to be better with a faster start. We passed one team and then eventually Brenda and Joe caught us. That motivated me for them to not pass us again. Got to the location, dumped bikes, and had a 2.5mish run to the tubes on a beautiful rail trail. Going in to the tubes we had a few hundred yard lead…but Joe and Brenda were smart and went further up river to put their tubes in so we were in alignment for a about a 100m then we pulled ahead. Nothing like it being 50 degrees out and sitting in a tube at 6:30a. I got us some webbed gloves to help move us along. Since we were the first on the river, saw a lot of wildlife.
We got off the tubes and onto our bikes and well on our way before anyone else. We had decided on a southern direct route on 2 tracks to get to the O section. It was great until the 2 tracks disappeared. At that point, I had the feeling that any lead we had was lost. We bike whacked out to the main road, and we were told to avoid it, so we found a two track going in the general direction we wanted, and it petered out. So, we bike whacked. A lot. I was glad we hit the creek because the road we wanted was just north. Came out to the road and hit it to the O section. Two teams were ahead of us.
Ran to the rappel. We had to wait our turn, which took about 15 minutes. Then we just let it rip and ran off to do the other points. Andy navved quite well…even though we had to swim about five to six hundred meters I believe! I felt so slow, but we had caught up to both of the teams in front of us (Joe and Brenda plus guys from Peoria, IL—they usually do T-Rolls) which was nice for a while! We had to take a different route for one the points to shake the Peoria team. The islands we went to were so nice. Just beautiful.
Then, the error we made that sent us back again. We had about a 1200m trek to a point, and Andy and I have not raced together before and in hindsight we should have had me hold the bearing and pace count and he have the map and watch the features. We got to a hill, and thought it might have been the corner of a large depression that we wanted. We got totally turned around. Andy handed me the map. We went north and made our way from there. If we had only realized it was the hill, we were about 4-5 hundred meters from the point and we were precisely on bearing. Lost 40 minutes there. After that point we went to the kayak, that was A LOT of fun. They said it was Class 2? 3? Sure felt like a wash tub.
Then, back on the bikes. I suggested that we consider another route. He felt convinced we could make it work on the way back. It didn’t. Back to the power lines. Then back to the S/F.
In hindsight, the RD did say there was a small part of a road to the north that we could use and neither of us picked up on that as a hint as an alternate to our crazy route on bike. We think we lost a fair bit of time on that. And, then, when I looked at our tracks, realized we lost 40 min on the trek. On the way home, we talked about how to improve, and decided that 1) need to listen to the RD more closely, 2) longer treks need to be broken up and pace counted, and 3) don’t do a terrible route twice. Just probably doesn’t get better especially if it’s two tracks in Michigan!
Overall, had fun and felt good about how I felt through the race. I need to reach out to the race director and share thoughts about the passport, the advertised length of the race, and maybe considering consolidating gear. But for the most part, he’s got a great venue and amazing terrain to work with. I hope he stays with it.

C • Inner tubes on a river....w... 2

Strap does not like this shirt...felt like z2

Bump around to shake out the legs. Pretty excited for the race this weekend. All packed and ready to go...

C • Have fun in the northern wo... 1

Wonky HR...pooch got pooped. Guess it was pretty humid...turned around early.

10 min warmup on treadmill before.