Training Log Archive: Mr Wonderful

Nice paddle from Dawson up to just past Milford and pack. We need a group outing from the ILRA beach up to Milford for lunch, then back.

I had to buy large shirts and I wept.

noooooooooooooooooooooo

might have class that precludes the fall kentucky meet's Friday race. :( :( :(

C • learn to be a student again! 2

I ran back to the car repair place to pick up the Mini I left when I picked up the now-working truck.

Holla if you also pre-plan responses in cases the people you notice on your run decide to become assailants.

I experimented with the key lock on the Fenix and it seems like it should do the trick. For the part of the race I did record (at 1 minute sampling in ultratrac), go back to Saturday's session

One or two odd jumps. Nine minutes to change T's flat.

It would have been a great bike ride had the start not been a car repair shop where the verdict is "probably can look at it tomorrow".

More ammo for moving to Plymouth, since today is a little short on time for the ~35 miles to Dearborn.

Cleanest race ever for us results in 2nd 4 person coed, 4th overall (third separate entity if you combine Shoppers). Not too shabby for 3rd from last to leave the first section, at least an hour behind first to depart Camp Benson. Team was phenomenal; first race with Matt but he fit like it's his sixth.

We finished 11 cps down to the other two entities, so the funny part is even if I was at race weight and fit, there's still no chance to win, so we are getting good bang for our training buck.

Feet are tender; hopefully they feel better for the Lucky 21.

Section 1: Ropes / coasteering

Well, our navigation was pretty good, but our strategy had issues - we thought we'd head pretty quickly to the ascenders, detouring only for the tiniest of flag retrievals. We got to the ascenders and then I personally didn't touch a rope for almost an hour. I was getting chilled. Then the groups came up behind us that had completed everything else! So we finally ascended, then got the last two cps in that section, and left in a disappointing third from last. So...many...teams....ahead. Well, I guess that's how we generally do things.

Section 2: Bikes

This went well. It was relatively straightforward, we had good distances measured via scalex, so we gained on some teams here through efficiency and not fitness. I should really bike more.....

I was tempted to try to go out and around from 9-10 rather than up and over - one day I'll have to test a similar hill avoidance for speed.

If we accidentally cheated on a bigger road after the 11, 12, and 13 loop, it was out of ignorance 'cause what roads names are even on USGS?

Section 3: Paddle

Wow, epic! We were going to have Matt and T tow Maria and I, which worked fine to #18. Then heading to #15, anytime we hit a deeper channel, the waves and chop conspired against keeping the lead boat straight since the towed boat was pulling it wrong. So we unhooked...but T and Matt's superior paddling power destroyed Maria and I....like comically gapped.

But we eventually got to #15, which set up a nice brute force for the Elk entrance. To slow down T and Matt, I gave them the map, and T nailed finding that entrance. Once back in river, we rehooked, and towing there was AWESOME! We ripped up to the points, and then got to see some surprising faces on the way back. BDAR may have had some troubles since they should have had a nice gap after the ascent. And we saw Niess May Carlson Brown! I was wondering how their direction Elk attack would fair - it looked harder to me.

Exiting the Elk, it was crazy how far away you could see the antenna near the takeout, and then how far away you could see the rvs. I think we saw the rvs for over an hour!

Section 4: Short bike

We had a pretty good ta out to the bikes. We had noted the trail on the way in, so we got on that. I had one minor 50 m hiccup misreading a sign, then good to go. We had a decent distance measurement and I was eagle eyed to spot the gate. Bang for 19. 20 was harder to spot. I thought the rules were to continue on the two track, but there were not many tracks so I suspect some went immediately back to the trail. On that trail, I think T pinch flatted, and shortly after we were back on the trail, we had a tire change. But we ripped into it, new tube, lock and load. Nice teamwork again, a consistent theme for this race.

I wasn't sure if the marker was on the rail trail or the main road, so I paused a bit, then we rode slowly and spotted it. The climb up to the o was brutal; I should really fix my granny....

Section 5: Orienteering

My time to shine! Only I was about wiped. So I did the first two, then Tizoc took the map and rocked it out with his ridge based approach. I don't know why I default to reentrant/valleys - perhaps climb avoidance - but it sure doesn't work here. So he crushed it - easily his finest navigation performance. Matt took my pack while I was zig zagging drunkenly up a hill. Eventually I perked up, right on time as T started to crash.

It was heartbreaking to leave the last one on the south map, but it had a bit of climb, and with no idea of the density of the north, we hoped it would be okay.

And it was the right call. My wife will probably want an affidavit attesting that I can be reasoned with....

North section was stymieing. So far apart...so much climb....hard to link. So we just jammed up the road, got two without elevation change, then picked up one near a campground that wasn't too high up, and used the last one for us to get back up to TA elevation - it was farther, but it was really easy to climb the road.

Section 6: Bike to Camp Straightforward. T's energy wobbles are hilarious - one moment he's taking a food break near puking, then four minutes later he's doing a standing sprint up a monster hill.

Section 7: The final coasteering O.

We aimed to be conservative again. We got well bunched as other teams also converged. Eventually we were were BCB/BNM/JB and made our way along. The finale cp was way around another side of a spur, so we desperately tried to figure out a way up and over. It didn't look good at 54 so we decided to go down to the first bend - yes, just enough scramble.

Only during the scramble, it moved us west much more than I ever imagined (adjusting from 1:24 to 1:5 is something!) then we got confused, T was right, I and I eventually could be reasoned with (and embarrassed to be wrong in front of Barbara), so we finally got correctly down the spur, then reached the river, stared at the CP, couldn't find it until BCB spotted it. Then done. Hooray!

Lessons:

Still not sure what to do about redline starts to avoid clumps - it seems silly in a 24 to go 185 bpm at the start to beat a few other teams. But it could have been an hour of time savings. :/

Always measure - helped on the bike

Should have looked at logistics - I didn't need to carry any bottles for the first three sections, and could have staged more at the canoe. This would have saved like ~7 pounds for the first 6 hours of the race!

Having a mule was really nice - Matt's pack taking was a huge relief

Canoe towing is great on calm flat water; in chop or wind shuffle paddlers to achieve parity.

My canoe map board design needs improvement!

C • Wow 7

C • 'cause what roads names are even on USGS? 1

C • Section 4 bike 1