Training Log Archive: Mr Wonderful

Event: Michigan Adventure Race: Silver Lake
 

8 hr Michigan Adventure Race Silver Lake Edition w/ CC

LiveLox courtesy of Steve!

The last time I raced here, I had been prepping the old house for photos. On arrival, Maria noted, "You've never looked this bad", and I proceeded to make 20-30 minutes of errors on what should have been a 30 minute leg. Not a great start!

This time the opener was much easier and I did much better, only veering slightly. We were even able to return a passport to a team. I found it leaving #3 headed to #2, saw a team, starting yelling their team number at them, they were kind of WTF then we asked if they lost their passport..."no----yes okay". So we said it's here! Dropped it on an open area and took off. Good deed done, no more needed.

We were worried about a queue at the paddle board, but there were ample on arrival, despite the non mixed teams having a 10 minute head start. Biking went well, just a minor bit of concern as it felt like a seasonal road came up a little fast, but the topography was plausible so we took it and it was right.

The second o section was awesome. Runnable woods, but low visibility, really great terrain. The biggest challenge for me is sorting ridges - what looks like it should be up up up up is really up up down down but USGS is stingy with ticks. I had a minor meander but sorted it, then was asking for 35's description headed to 33 (the printing and my bad eyes conspired against me), but we got that and did great and picked up a lot of spots I think, seeing several male teams heading out as we shuffled back to the TA.

We thankfully had scouted the 24th straight shot road as "nope" on our way to the second o section, so we took the longer but paved scenic drive to the one point en route to the third trek, which was the right call from what the Simpsons said about the straight shot road (multiple bike pushes).

The final trek was a monster, especially for an 8 hour race. And so many hills, at least for an out of shape fellow. I've never had this happen before, but en route to #12, each of my quads was pulsing on each side of its respective knee cap (so four pulsing zones). I feared an eventually lock up. Electrolyte consumption went way up.

We got through there mostly clean, other than ending up one hill too high for #14, for ~five minutes lost confirming and descending.

The biggest time loss was yet to come on the easy section. I was just too slow slogging up to dune height on the sand and not moving well. It was a nearly guided section, with points visible from far off, but I was down.

I perked back up for the harder final section of the trek, just in time miss a perhaps undermapped point (22). We paused immediately, tried to crudely assess our position based on contours, and went in the right direction and thankfully hit another team shouting they'd found it. Phew! Especially as BNM/BCB/JB offered no guidance as they slid past us while we were backtracking. (We would later return the favor at 26).

We were clean after this, and then I've found that the more I practice, the luckier we get, as I was started to lose contact heading to 26, and was ready to bail to the Jeep boundary and then come back, when we hit converging five hour teams. We got this shortly before BCB/BNM/JB who had overshot. But they were too fit and they passed us heading to the sand boarding.

When we got to the final TA to switch to the bike for a last mile or two back to the start/finish, I found that I had in fact flatted. No time to mess around, so I just rode it back flat. Cris encouraged me to get my weight backwards. I agreed this was a good idea, however when I tried it my legs went into insane fist size cramp balls everywhere, so I left the weight on the saddle. Turning was a pain but I think we did okay on time.

Oddly, the tire pumped up fine with a floor pump after the race, and is still holding right now.

Fun times, looking forward to Traverse City.