Team Mud and Flesh Wounds
Race Reports |
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BEAST #1 RACE REPORT April 12, 2006 Team Nuun, Mud and Flesh Wounds, Mike Chan and Jonathan Church, finished the first race of the season in 5th place. With an unprepared start, we met up the first time for the 2006 race season at the race, and the loss of the team’s navigator, Martin Buhr, who was also the one common link between the teammates pulled out of the race due to an illness, the strong finish was very exciting and encouraging for the season ahead. The BEAST race series is an after work sprint adventure race series that are 3-6 hours long. The first of five races was held at Soaring Eagle State Park in Sammamish, WA. This was the first time the park was open for an adventure race and we were excited to see what type of course they put together. We would also quickly see what shape we were in after a wet Seattle winter. There was a short orienteering section out of the parking lot to find 3 checkpoints to separate the competitors before the bike leg. Mike and I had never raced together so we started conservatively trying to feel out the team dynamics and find an agreeable pace. Following the “swarm of bees” we collected the 3 checkpoints and jumped on our bikes with the main pack. Mike had agreed to take on the nav The final section was tricky. Instead of being given a map with the checkpoints marked, we were given a map to the first checkpoint and told that we would have to answer questions to get the next check points. If we answered a question incorrectly we would have to find additional checkpoints on our way to the finish. Since I was training for a marathon, I ran out in front and took over the navigational duties. Sounded like a good plan until we hit the main road - which meant we had taken a wrong turn. Luckily we weren’t far from the first checkpoint and quickly found it. The question at the checkpoint was a brainteaser that was made even more difficult by the other teams there reading it out loud. Luckily our brains were still working and we took the most direct route to the final checkpoints and the finish.
2006 RAID Eco Endurance Aventure A couple of weeks ago, the nice folks down at PDX Adventure Racer posted a message offering to sponsor a team to the 2006 RAID Eco Endurance Aventure near Quebec. After scrambling around a bit, I managed to put together a team consisting of Matt Hayes, Chris Bark, and Misha Lee. A flurry of emails ensued as only Misha and I are in Seattle (Matt lives in Kitsap, and Chris lives in Ottowa). After much agonizing and many trips to REI, we packed up and flew off to Montreal. Misha had the luxury of getting in on Wednesday evening, while Matt and I arrived with our respective piles of gear the following moring after flying first to Denver and then to Boston.  We were soon met by Chris, together with the two kind souls who had agreed to do support for us, Justin and John. We then drove to the local UHaul to pick up the team vehicle, a '96 Ecoliner van with 250,000 km on the odometer, known variously as The Mystery Machine and The Beast (depending on who was driving and how tired they were). We then swung BACK by the airport, picked up all Matt and I's gear (together with Matt), and then picked up Misha and HER gear before heading out of town. Having just gotten off a red eye flight via four different airports, I unrolled my trusty Thermarest in the back and got three hours of shut eye amid the shifting gear and gas and exhaust fumes. We rolled into St. Raymond at a bit after 2:00pm in the afternoon, and after hitting the local grocery, parked The Mystery Machine at the hotel where race checking-in was taking place and began to unpack and assemble the bikes.   
Team Sole, one of the top teams in the sport, stopped by to chat with Misha, who had previously attended one of their fine adventure racing camps.
 
We then stopped by the local theater, where the race organizers gave a bi-lingual spiel on the race
     
After driving up to the campsite which would serve as the start point for the first day's festivities, we pitched the tents and crashed out for seven or so hours of sleep. Day 1
The next morning, we arose bright and early to get a bite to eat...   meet the locals...
and get a race briefing from Daniel Poirier, our cruise director...
We then suited up and loaded into the van for a drive up to the race start at a beautiful little lake about 50km north of St. Raymond in the mountains.
 
After the usual pre-race fanfare and frantic preparations, all the race participants plunged into the water and made their way out to the first CP (Check Point) near a yakak in the middle of the lake.
       
On the far side, we got out of the water, deflated the mat, packed our flippers in our packs, and put on our trekking shoes.
The next leg involved bushwhacking up the side of the mountain you can see in the background of the lake pictures above to CP2.
     
After a bit more jogging on the fire road, it was off into the bushes again for a climb up a stream bed to CP3, which la at the outlet of a small lake (there are lakes EVERYWHERE in this part of Canada).
 
We then bushwhacked down to another fire road and followed it around to a somewhat larger lake. There, we put the fins back on, inflated our two surf mats and set off to get CP4, which was in the middle of the lake.
 
After getting the CP, we paddled to the edge of the lake, repacked our gear, and set off again.
  
After hiking along in the shallows a bit, we bushwhacked uphill (predictably) in search of an old fire overgrown fire road.
which we were fortunate enough to find With the end of the first trekking leg in sight, hit a fire road and jogged to CP5 which lay out the outlet of another (surprise!) small lake
  
We road a long loop through the hills around the loop, some of which involved fairly steep pitches.
On of the points involved getting off the bikes and trekking and bushwacking around the edge of a lake through some fairly mucky water
  
We then had a long ride down the the main valley, roughly following a river. At TA3 near a campsite, we dismounted, switched to trekking shoes for a hike across a suspension bridge and up the to a waterfall.
 
The view was pretty spectacular in the twilight (it was getting on to evening at this point), and Misha and I were able to take a few minutes to rest while we waited for Matt and Chris.
Once Chris and Matt rejoined us, we hustled back down to TA4, where we loaded into two canoes and set off down the river at around 8pm. It was now dark by this point, so we were forced to navigate around rocks and other river obstacles using our headlights, and increasingly (as our batteries died) by feel. The latter part of the trip was punctuated by cries of "ROCK!", often followed by the sound of a canoe grinding around boulder in mid-stream. We finally reached the campsite where we had started the day at around 11:30pm, where we gorged ourselves on the warm spaghetti John and Justin had waiting for us, prepped for the next day (loaded our packs, plotted the CPs, determined our route, and did some basic gear maintenance), and finally got to sleep at around 1am. Day 2
We arose at around 6am, got a bite to eat, and mounted our mountain bikes for a 7:30am start.    
We were finally able to re-mount our bikes an hour and a half later just after finding CP11, and   
We then went over the summit and down to a CP13 which lay on a small island near the end of a lake.
   
We then quickly changed into our paddling gear and lugged a canoe down to the lake. The weight of all four of use brought the gunnels dangerously close to the water as we paddled around to CP14. There, Matt and I had to jump off a small cliff into the lake (Matt executed a graceful 360 on the way down) . We then paddled down to the end of the lake where Chris and Misha rappelled down a dam at CP15. They had to then swim back the length of the lake to TA6, 
We peddled out of the TA just ahead of several teams and wound our way back down to the campground where we had started the canoe the night before. We arrived at around 7:30pm, and had to wait a bit for our support to crew to join us (they had made a run into town to get more food). Night Leg We were informed that we would have a night leg that would kick off at midnight, and that we would be leaving at 10:45pm to drive up to the start point. The night course involved trekking down a valley to the head of a lake, getting CP20, swimming the length of a lake, trekking further down the valley, and then swimming to an island in a second lake to collect CP21. 
We then would swim to the end of the lake, where we had staged dry clothes, and mount the bikes for the long downhill ride back to the campground where we had started.
We ran into problems with the hike as Chris, Misha and I could have pushed harder given the shortness of the course. We had dropped to near last by the time we hit the point where we should have started bushwhacking into the woods to find CP20. This is the point where we should have all just shut up and listened to Matt, our very compitent navigator. Instead, a debate insued which resulted in us bushwhacking back out to the road in hopes that it continued around the lake. Instead, the lake ened 300m later, and we had to climb back down to the lake and start our swim dead last. In the process of bushwhacking out to the road, Matt's swim mat got a puncture, such that he had to swim in the chilly water while the rest of us kicked on our mats. The upshot was that he was mildly hypothermic by the time we climbed out and put on our trekking gear. We were now hustling less to catch up to the pack than to keep Matt warm. We finally reached the second lake, and kicked out to the island to get CP21. We finally reached the bikes dead last, and had to figure out how to load all our wet clothes, swim fins, and deflated mats, into our small race packs. Thus burdened, we set off downhill to the finish, arriving at around 3:30am. We managed to get to bed at around 4am for two hours of sleep before getting up at 6am to start the final day. Day 3    
    
After some hunting, we located CP25, and then headed back down the road to the TA, where we were greated by happy race staff (as the last team, they got to pack it in as soon as we cleared the TA)
 
We were soaked, cold, tired, and so ready to be done that we could all feel the finish line pulling us home.
 We now had a ten mile, deathmarch sort of ride through the rain and mud to TA9. The releif we all felt in getting there was indescribable. We waded the river while our bikes where hauled across on a traverse line.
 
Our total time for the race was 42:34:56, and we finished 16th out of 22 teams dispite our last place finishes on the final two legs of the race.
We numbly collected our congratulations from the other races and race staff, and then headed off to our hotel for hot showers (cruelly, this involved peddling up one last hill). At the last TA before the finish, Chris had asked Justin to buy an ungodly local concoction of french fried, cheese curd, and gravy. Needless to say, this tasted damned good after I'd scrubbed three days of grime off my body...
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igation responsibility and his decision making would soon separate us from the pack. The biking section required us to find 7 checkpoints in order along a well-marked trail network. After finding the first checkpoint we passed a number of team who had stopped to look for a turn/check point. The going was slow due to the large amount of rain that we had received in the previous weeks (maybe the lack of mountain biking had something to do with it also) and got slower as darkness approached and we had to switch on our lights. But we didn’t make any navigational errors. We didn’t see many teams out in front of us as we got back to the transition area (TA) feeling strong and ready for the run.
