Training Log Archive: Mr Wonderful

Within range of two cars fitting in the garage. Gotta get roof box up towards ceiling, then I have a real shot. Exciting.

Registered for Badger 2-Day. I will do a solo run on red/blue-ish, then go out with brother and youngest nephew to bomb around on orange-ish.

~~~

We need an A meet just to have a sprint at EMU. Used the Amazon pickup locker, saw dozens of c sites, nice buildings and terrain mix on that couple minute walk.

C • Badger meet sounds tempting... 1

WT estimates, slowest full course, vs. us, with TAs binned to following leg:

Paddle:

6-10 hrs: 6:35, 8

Trek 1:

3.5-8 hrs: 5:00, 10:30

Bike 1:

1.75-3 hrs: 3:30, 5

Trek 2:

0.75-2 hrs: 2, 1:45!!!!!

Hints at running and biking as focus areas perhaps

C • Trek 2 1

Event: Wilderness Traverse 2019
 

2019 Wilderness Traverse with BNM, BCB, and Shane

tl;dr - use this comment as an easy copy-paste into this and other entries of mine.

Buoyed by false hope inspired by a successful Traverse City edition, I thought I would be okay. I was not.

Pre Race

Ever since my first WT, where I rode a 29er hardtail but desperately missed my 26" full suspension after getting pummeled by hydrocut, I thought it would be more fun on a full suspension. FB marketplace to the rescue - a well maintained 2015 Specialized Camber Comp popped up. When the guy mentioned he worked about eight minutes from the house, clearly that was a sign! 110 mm front and rear. I picked it up on Monday the 19th, converted the front to tubeless on Tuesday, bounced it around the grass next door Wednesday, and raced it Saturday. Seller's inseam was the same, so I didn't even touch the seat. I've done dumber things, but this panned out well.

I was even well-packed! Almost everything organized, checked off, and where it needed to be.

I created my best Jenstimates, where I pick paces that get us to 29:30. Paces seemed feasible. Then we got the cut offs, which were much more aggressive. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo (Note to self, make the targets far more aggressive next time....)

Portage (and occasional paddling)

Being an elite four person coed team, we were assigned (1) nice Kevlar boat and (1) red plastic canoe. This red barge would prove to be the bane of my existence.

In roughly comparable shape last year, I schlepped a white boat over far more rugged portages, solo and without much trouble.

This year, that red boat...even on the nicest portages I've ever had at WT, it was grueling. I could not find comfort. The best option was to push the boat up and forward. Or backward? The yoke was backwards so at every take out and every put in, you got to do an extra half rotation. Cherry on top!

We also mussed a few portages - should pay more attention to how we expect they should work pre race. Also I can't navigate while carrying a boat, something to work around next time.

The portage strain and paddling wore me out. I told Brenda she should take me behind the next TA, and old yeller me with the flare gun in order to have any chance at full course. I wanted to curl up in the bottom of the boat and stop doing anything. I was miserable.

Trek 1

Despite our troubles, we did hit our original 8 hour goal, AND we TA'd in 10 minutes I think.

We marched up the road, and saw Lost Arrow break off to shoot a bearing cross country. I wanted to use the trail longer, and then lead to use finding a team who turned onto an unmapped trail, with rumors that they had found it went most of the way during their research. It was certainly easier than brush bashing so we took it, although at times it started going not great directions, we had been on it a while, so we decided to abandon it and brush bash. By sheer luck rather than skill, this occurred at the south end of the correct lake, so we could hear and see the CP. Phew!

We elected the direct swim route to 5. Since we paddled past it, I had scouted a short swim option, and we successfully got there and I only had to swim maybe 5-10 meters between being able to touch.

The next part went fine, but then at the end where we were supposed to cross a creek and find the road...the pace and bearing were good, but we must have been a little short and turned just enough to unknowingly cross the N/S creek instead of the E/W creek. Climbed a hill, found roads not doing what we wanted. Assumed we had gotten west, bashed east, found a lake, guessed what lake, heard campers, asked campers what lake, were surprised, got nice chicken skewers, potatoes, and deet bug spray spritzes, and went back to the n/s creek and brute forced it up. We were so close! I was crestfallen. If I can't be fit, I should at least be good. Team didn't give me any grief. I yielded the map, since it was a a straight shot with minimal topo so I wasn't going to be helpful anyways and I could get a break for later. That final bushwhack started fine but towards the end slowed a lot. I think the final "100 meters" took 15 minutes and involved lots of up and down, thick veg, and Tyler getting stung (had fallen in with Lost Arrow after the first 1 km of the bash).

But BCB and BNM were on the case and we got to TA2.

I was feeling tired and delicate and chaffed heavily by the stupid tri shorts I did last WT in successfully, so I forewent by 10 minute TA target and took my junk behind a van and changed base layer in private. TA was slow, but cut offs were out of reach anyway, so F it was kind of my mental state.

I had also thought about dropping out here, but figured I brought the new to me bike out, may as well ride it a bit.

Bike 1

Opening paved was no fun, I hate biking while tired when BCB is chomping, I just feel bad moving so slowing. Lock out worked nice though.

One day we will get the trail numbers onto our race maps. We overshot the second turn by a couple k, but BNM sorted it out very well and we had some of the best WT biking ever for me - dry and lots of fun undulations. The Camber ate it up, so comfy. I never checked or set the suspension, so I suspect the rear might be a shade soft and the front a shade firm, but certainly close enough for comfy work on those trails.

Unfortunately at CP 5/7, Shane got off his bike, laid down, and was done. Thankfully, BNM talked him into eating and walking bikes and then pedaling a bit. She is excellent at managing and caring for people and getting the most out of them. Upside: he would be our bike limiter instead of me, which kept me slightly further away from the bottom of the well.

We elected to use flats rather than clips to not carry shoes, and I also liked it, and would probably do it again, since it would be a thousand times easier on any rainy year to not crash and also bike push.

On the final approach to CP8, pushing our bikes around on a cliff edge was not anticipated!

Trek 2

Give me a map with usable topograpy and I perk up. Once again we ran into Lost Arrow, who was TA'ing at a leisurely pace. We quickly got away from the TA, leaving them, and scrambled up the steep slope. We used the trails to set up the attack to 9, pretty straightforward. I gave BCB paces just to stay in touch, and they came up so much faster than the 1k bushwacks from Trek 1! 10 was the tricky one of the bunch - I was slightly under it on the first pass, found another reentrant with no flag, decided that was the next one, doubled back and was a bit high but could see it. Final one was straightforward - follow trails to saddle, climb a hill. We had a comfy 20-30 minutes to the departure cut off.

Bike 2

We knew were really short coursed - to have a shot at Trek 3, you needed to be through 13 by 3 am, and it was approaching 6. ARGH. And in true WT fashion, a short course means: a lot more of something you've already been doing. Exiting the o course via bike was fun. The final road to 13 had "washout" signs. I was picture a 3' deep rut. No, more like 15-20 feet, and 30 feet across. Massive! Thankfully there was a worn in path so you could skirt it a bit.

BCB really wanted to bike to 14 for fun, but we convinced her of the short course and headed for the barn. We figured we were roughly locked in position (I think the other team skipped some portion of the o course), so it was a survival ride. I got tired and had to walk some hills, almost more mentally not ready to spin up. A few full course teams flew by - so fast! Had a nice chat with Stark Raving Mad for a bit, great people.

Todd and Joe were waiting at the finish - highly recommended, saved us a 5km bike to HQ. Also, we didn't have to worry about sleepies on the drive having these guys handle that chore.

I really don't know how to find the five hours. Two hours of errors ish still leaves three hours of fitness...that hurdle seems insurmountable at the moment, for me. I think BCB and BNM could make it. Shane probably could on a different day.

Sixth times the charm or pick a nice CP to camp at? One idea I've had since is using Cannonsburg in June - if I can't be within close pace to MRA, then there's no chance at a full course and adjust from there. If I can, then there's a shot. That's a huge part of the WT charm - it obliterates you and then you start to wonder what you could do differently, and the next thing you know you are asking people to race....

Fun Arb race. Some interesting legs, I generally tried to avoid climb. Great time and will super miss Tom.

Tested some swim solutions - the safer swimmer buoy should do the trick for WT.

Then dodged weeds in Kent Lake in BNM's new boat.

google hangout to watch Sydney together at 4 am tomorrow anyone??

Syd at 4:04
Greg at 4:31

C • Maybe 2

Portage practice with BNM.

Interesting with her cool new boat, which is super light so you can cheat technique, but which is also harder because Au Sable portaging is done by using front and back handles, not on the shoulder, so the yoke area is just a bar which slides around easily and doesn't lock on, also, the balance doesn't seem as refined as the WT rental boats have been.

Super fun campus run by Tom. I had the added puzzling of minimizing staircases as I pushed Mr Harvs around in the jogging stroller. Grabbed a copy of the other loop to run at a later date.

Sprint1 - Splits

Today's my day!

Thank you Mr. Wonderful, I like you too! @kevinolearytv @CNBC pic.twitter.com/8n5qcTVSp2

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2019

C • What did you say 3

Nice hike in Cuyahoga Valley with Ed en route to pick up daughter in PA.

Event: Michigan Adventure Race: Traverse City (8 or 18 hours)
 

Traverse City Edition w/ Cris C

I had a simple wish - to possibly get back the 3.5 minutes or so I lost to BCB and BNM at Silver Lake. Or put enough pressure on the Top Five to crack it.

Pre race bracket:

1. MRA. 70 miles of gravel w/ Tony, extensive experience, how can you argue against them?
2. Sparks & Jorden. Insane fitness, and Richard's been doing well navigation wise. Any bobbles will be compensated by SEVENTY MILES OF GRAVEL
3. Kiwis. I originally left them out of the Top Five, because they have unusual variation on their performance. And are as likely to stop at a backyard bbq along the way as hammer along.
4. BNM + Voit. Voit is a top notch navigator, I enjoyed my master class studying his technique at WT 2018. BNM has 210 mile gravel fitness, and this has 70 miles of it.
5. BCB & JB. BCB has the tools to navigate, any bobbles would be offset by SEVENTY MILES OF GRAVEL

I originally had us top five, but bumped out when I added Kiwis back in.

I was well prepared for this race. Not perfectly, but things conspired so the car was mostly packed on time, I had all of Friday off. That was nice.

The race started with a quick sprint to the bikes. I did fine, but took too long to get going. And everyone TOOK OFF. People were flying. We had to have been bottom 10% within five minutes. Also, my bike, which everyone insists is garbage but I insist is adequate, decided to be 1x6, so 16 mph @ 90 rpm top end. Oof. Hi, people passing us downhill. I would later discover this was not the bike's fault, but mine, because I am an idiot.

So there were a lot of bikes at the paddle put in, but we switched fast and had the best boat parking. There were nicely a lot of little out and backs sprinkled through the course which were not grating but rather gave one a chance to gage position. We saw a lot of strong teams ahead of us making good time. Gibbard and Steve smoked the paddle, and I feared that my thoughts of them dark horsing someone who screwed up at night were furthered.

My odometer was reading off, despite being within a percent or two on my last ride, so the bike nav was going to be unnecessarily tricky, but we made our way to the awesome single track (so smooth!) and got through it. One wrong move after six, but trusted compass and let another team do more single track

At the first trek, we elected to take a very conservative route. I modified my normal predominantly terrain-based daytime technique to have a lot more bearing and pace, and tried to tell Cris what were doing because that keeps me honest. We were really clean, banging them off. A funny bit: thought one was really steep, but that was in fact a road to it, sorry for unnecessary bushwhacking, Cris. 12 was the trickiest one, tried to read a soft spur at night far from anchor points, with bonus trails and headlights in random locations. I finally caught the valley that locked it in, boom. Saw Richard a hill west and may have given him a hint.

Surprisingly, we came out of the trek in second! Fastest split! MRA was ahead by 12 minutes (15 by the time we left).

So we expected to be 3rd or 4th at the next TA, given the Kiwis would run us down and Richard and Jorden cracked the sound barrier pace lining by, but MRA had taken a sandier route and we were still second!

14 and 15 went well, but for 16 I discounted what would be the correct two tracks as nothing significant, esp. as a another nearby road was so much stronger. But it was the wrong road. Trusted compass and stopped. Tried to bushwhack it straight, but misread bowls and it was thick. Bailed to correct trail and converged with Kiwis. Cris thinks 30 minutes lost, I think slightly less, more like 20? Well-saved I think.

We were with or yo young with the Kiwis for a long time, finally splitting up on the bike to Kalkaska. Mark billed it as a refreshing break, and it sounded boring beforehand, but it was welcome to not be in sand!

A couple hours later we made it to the third trek. I thought I took a conservative choice, but was a little sketchy to our first, struggling to read very soft spurs. Plus we moved slowly, so despite a short 400 m, it felt like forever and I thought I would end up in the lakes. But we pressed on, and nailed it. It was a good reminder to be precise on bearing and pace to make those feature corrections easier. We were super tidy for the rest of them, loving the one between marshes.

Despite Cris's best wishes, I persisted with my idea that we would skip the two track maze north of 33, but instead park, wade the Boardman, and hike the 400 m each way to the point. The Boardman was only waist deep, and quite refreshing, so it worked well.

I was now all out of bike power. I longed for Cris to have a tow. We slowly made out way, fearful that BNM or BCB were about to reel us in. We stopped at the wrong oil rig until realizing it should be around a bend. By the time we got to the last trek, I was in rough shape. We suspect I was overheated a bit, having not much shade on the last bike. The good news was that even in my degrading state, I was still good on the map, mumbling a lot but with accurate guidance and bad jokes as Cris towed me around the course.

We ended up...again! with the Kiwis at the final foot point. They ran to the paddle put in and got out ahead. I wanted to chase them to the hard one. They arrive first but didn't see it. We had lost the instructions at this point, and couldn't remember the clue. We scampered up and down the bank. Where?? I spotted it, waved a thumbs up to Cris, and then lost it! Argh! Finally I spotted it again and gave Tim a whistle as that seemed fair. We got into the boat first and had a tiny margin.

En route to our second to last point, some single bladers came roaring up. OH NO! BCB and Joe caught us! I was heartbroken. Cris called for us to keep up, but how do you keep up with super paddlers when you are spent? Thankfully, after our last point, we realized they still needed the other one...and the trek. Phew!

We sprinted for the finish for third, having oddly managed to hold off the Kiwis, perhaps because of trying to stay with BCB/JB. Woo hoo! And totally MRA'd it, showered and presentable by the cut off.

Satisfied, although still apprehensive about WT because my strength here was not in stamina.

Results (Seed)

1. Sparks & Jorden (2)
2. MRA (1)
3. CC & JC (6)
4. Kiwis (3)
5. We Will Survive (5)

C • Good write up. 3