Training Log Archive: LosDobos

Event: Logs Rocks and Steel - A Multisport Adventure
 

*This is longish - you have been warned*

After the disappointment of injuring my back halfway through the last day at the Ultimate XC earlier this summer, I decided to enter LRS to give me some new training goals.

I had been having a good year thanks in large part to T.Rex outsprinting me for the win at the Giant's Rib Raid this spring. I had two awesome team-mates in Charlotte Vasarhelyi - ultra diva and now end-to-end record holder for the Bruce Trail - and Benoit Letourneau, who is just a phenomenal athlete and adventure sport racer - witness him teaming with Getawaystix to win UNE and earn a trip to the ARWC in Spain. The only thing keeping us from the win was fat-ass slow-boy, namely me. I resolved on the drive home with Benoit to do something about my diet and weight and training.

Fast-forward to LRS and I'm 15-20 pounds lighter and have done more training than the past couple of years combined. Still far from perfect, but big huge steps in the right direction. LRS was going to be a test to see how far I'd been able to come in 4 1/2 months.

Looking at the start list I immediately saw that it would be a race for 4th, as FrankenJack and Benoit and Bill Wells looked to have the podium sewn up on paper. I was hoping to be able to mix it up with local triathlete and AR guy Stephan Meyer as well as FB and Phatty. These are all people who have routinely kicked my ass all over the place, although I had had some epic duels with Phatty at the various RTH and GRR events, thanks largely to team-mate and bitchin' orienteer Eugene "can I buy a vowel" Mlynczyk.

With LRS being on the last summer long weekend we were pretty much guaranteed shitty weather. Although I really hate being cold and wet and hypothermic, it's still better than 40-degree humidex which is what we had in the week leading up to the race. One easy 2 hour run in the park showed me that I'd be in heaps of trouble if it was still this hot on race-day. As such I was probably less bummed than most when the weekend weather turned cool and wet and shitty.

Speaking of which, I almost missed the start as my body produced an unexpected sequel to the morning dump during the pre-race briefing. After sprinting out to the start in the windy, cool drizzle I quickly spotted Phatty and FB and got in position behind them. At the word "go" everyone took off hard in order to get to the single-track bottle-neck in good positions. I found myself a few runners behind FB and could see Phatty zooming off into the distance ahead of him. OK, Phatty's either in wikkid shape or he's going out stupid-fast. Given his experience, I'm leaning toward the former, so I let him go and focussed on FB.

I managed to pass the 2-3 runners between us and then tried to settle into a hard but sustainable pace. I have a finely-tuned and extremely precise system for doing this: 1 beath per 3 steps on the flats and 1 breath per 2 steps going uphill. If I'm breathing any harder, my arms start to go numb and I know I'll be a stagnant puddle of lactic acid in fairly short order. The problem was that at this pace FB was slowly but steadily pulling away.

OK, just hold the pace as best as I can for the 16 km and limit my losses on the run. I figured I could reel FB in somewhat during the paddle. I spent the balance of the run pushing hard with a guy by the name of Trevor yo-yo-ing behind me. It was good to have him there as it kept me pressing the pace to try to snap the elastic, which I finally managed to do in the sweet bush-whack section. Shortly after this I caught sight of FB and that was good for a couple of litres of adrenaline.

As I caught up to him I noticed Stephan Meyer just in front of us. This was a huge boost, as Meyer is a very strong runner and I had not expected to see him again during the run. I entered the kayak transition with those two, getting out just after FB.

After the first couple of portages we got out to the first real body of open water and I saw FB, Tarnopolsky and the lead woman a couple of hundred metres out front. At this point I ran into troubles with the footboard and nearly dumped a few times whilst trying to adjust the bugger. During this time Meyer and Trevor caught and passed me. This was not how the paddle was supposed to go.

Once the footboard snafu was fixed I could actually focus on paddling and dropped the hammer. This is one of the few disciplines in which I actually posess a hammer and I quickly caught, passed, and then dropped the five boats in front of me. FB was - predictably - in a boat that matched his nickname: FB = fat boat. He was still able to power it along at a good clip just cause he's so freakin' strong. Meyer and Tarno were in fast boats that they had spent about 15 minutes in prior to the race and it showed: both of them had their knees scrunched up almost to their chests and were spending equal parts energy staying upright and moving forward.

This was more like it. I kept my lead through the next portage and was feeling good despite the strong winds and at times heavy rain. The next portage put a stop to all the feel-good crap. It was a trackless bog/marsh/swamp with a beaver-dam thrown in for good measure. I was scanning around trying to find the portage trail-head when my rudder snagged on something. I stepped out of the boat in order to pull it over the obstacle and promptly disappeared into bottomless swamp water. Turns out I had snagged on a log floating submerged in about 1000 feet of water.

I managed to haul myself and the boat out onto some floating marshy tussocks and stood there looking desperately for the portage trail as said tussock slowly sank beneath me. I started dragging my boat across the marsh in what I hoped was the right direction, occasionally plunging in up to my eyeballs. As I was trying to get back in the boat after finally finding some open water I spotted FB calmly paddling through the section where I'd hung up on the log and took my fist dip. BIG MENTAL NOTE: upgrade to over-stern rudder ASAP. I would have been fine with one of those, or a skeg or no rudder at all.

I tucked in behind FB as we came to a beaver dam separating our swamp from a slighlty shittier looking one on the other side. Of course, the portage marker was on the far side of this quagmire. FB and Trevor both cruised through this, but with my rudder there was no way I could paddle or float my boat across it. I spent a horrible 5 minutes up to my chest in mud trying to haul the boat over and around logs and rocks without holing the hull. I managed to find every submerged rock with either my left or right knee-cap and honestly thought at one point that I had fractured the right one, but the knee still held my weight and bent when I wanted it to so I figured it was good to go. Another boat - the lead woman - passed me before I finally managed to get out of this hell-hole and I could see Meyer pulling his boat over the beaver dam in hot pursuit.

Time to try to make up for lost time. I hauled ass as much as I could on the ensuing portage and paddle, passing the woman and putting in to the last paddle with Trevor in sight. The last section was a longish bit of open water, but was so windy that I had to really shorten my stroke and focus on staying person-side-up. I could just see FB through the driving rain ahead of me, but he once again had a fast transition and was nowhere to be seen as I hauled myself into the bike paddock.

Being completely waterlogged and with the wind blowing as it was, I was feeling very cold trying to transition onto the bike. My fingers were numb and it took forever to get the paddle gloves off, the bike gloves on, the trail shoes off and the bike shoes on. As I was pulling out Phatty JR yelled at me from the volunteer station that I had the perfect bike for the conditions. Said conditions were wet and muddy, and with zero derailleurs and a bomb-proof Rohloff SpeeHub I was indeed set up for a sloppy ride.

I had no idea how far behind FB I was starting off the bike, likely something on the order of 5 minutes. As with the run the order of the day was go as hard as I could without crashing or blowing up. I saw Phatty as I was starting a small loop on the course: he was finishing it up so I knew he was well and truly out of reach unless he had a mechanical. The early parts of the course were extremely muddy and rooty and I found myself wishing I'd gone with more aggressive tires. Shortly afterwards my rear brake pads burned through and the problem became stopping, not going.

Heading into the infamous briar patch section I still had some front brake, but not lots. It doesn't take much of a downhill to get moving at speeds way beyond your ability to control or bail out. There were a few near-disasters and a couple of moments of sanity when I walked the bike down some steep sections that I would normally have ridden. The time lost doing this was peanuts to the time I could have lost plastering myself all over the landscape and/or trashing the bike.

I passed one poor guy busily single-speeding his bike after snapping off his rear derailleur. I asked him if he had everything he need, and he asked me if I had a spare derailleur. I resisted the urge to tell him that I didn't even have a derailleur, period, and would he like to see a Rohloff sales brochure. This guy deserves huge props for finishing the course, running and scootering his bike the last 25+ kms - his chain finally broke and disappeared into the mud somewhere.

About 10 minutes after this I caught sight of FB up ahead. Awesome! We were on some muddy double-track with hefty mud-holes scattered around and I saw that I was slowly catching him. As I got within 10 metres we were coming up to another all-encompassing mud hole, and FB had a brain cramp. At the last second he decided to scoot up the berm and try to ride beside the pool. Of course his front wheel slipped sideways and he went down with a resounding splash. I slowed and asked if he was alright, but he was laughing almost before he got his head out of the water. He said he was fine so then I put my head down and, with a clear conscience tried to bury him.

I rode hard for the next 20 minutes, looking behind and not seeing him. Once out on the gravel road I knew I was nearing the finish. I kept remembering something from Phatty's LRS race report from last year, where he beat FB by a couple of seconds. He had been behind FB going down the last hill but geared up and hammered in case FB freewheeled it on the downhill. With this is mind I kept pushing, even on the downhills, and looking over my shoulder. No FB, but the bloody gravel road was going on forever and I was really starting to feel it.

I emptied my Eload bottle and sucked back Perpetuum as much as I could stomach. My paranoia paid off as at about the 80th shoulder-check I saw FB a couple of hundred metres back. M@therf#cker!! Almost immediately I hit the steepest and longest climb of the race. I was in my smallest gear and weaving from side-to-side. At one point I thought I'd have to step off and walk, which I did NOT want to do. If FB smelled blood I'd be in big trouble. So I stayed in the saddle, coughed up both lungs and was slaloming up the last and steepest part of the climb when I saw FB, looking strong no more than 50 metres down the hill.

Right then I thought I was f@cked. Of course, he looked so close because we were both hammering along at about 4 kph but it was still gut-wrenching to see him coming up that close behind me. I figured I was in 5th place and I really wanted to hang on to that. Once over the crest I went into time-trial mode: locked out the forks and got my hands out onto the bar-ends. I kept it red-lined all the way out to the pavement, at which point I finally thought I had it in the bag. Geoff Langford had driven past me near the end of the gravel road and told me that I'd manage to gap FB to the tune of about 1km.

Riding into the finish I almost destroyed the bike and myself trying to weave through a couple of unexpected cement parking dividers. Recall that at this point I was on slick pavement using Fred Flintstone brakes. Once that last hurdle was cleared it was a sweet ride down to and through the finish. I confirmed that I had come through in 5th, which was great. FB came in a couple of minutes later and we congratulated each other on a terrific race.

Chatting later over post-race FB beers, a couple of notable results cropped up. Benoit had nearly been able to catch back up to FrankenJack on the bike section, coming in a scant 3 minutes behind him. Phatty really had been in great shape and chased Bill Wells right to the finish, less than 1 minute behind. Bash came through the line at this time, claiming the top solo female win and the entry into the C2C race in New Zealand. Seems that 49 is the new 20, or something. Leeanimal hit the podium in the Frost race (1st place in the team of 1.4) with her and Phatty's child being the youngest ever participant at the age of -3 months.

Great race course and organisation - as expected - from Getawaystix. Thanks and give 'em hell in at the ARWC. Spain owes you one!

Raced Logs Rocks and Steel for the first time. Got wet and muddy and cold and tired and banged-up, so pretty much what I expected. Finished 5th overall, which was about as well as I ever hoped to do.

Up next: FAR Fall Classic.

C • Congrats! :-) 8