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The year’s MNOC AR ended up being tough for 24SEVEN. The course was well designed and thought out, but the harsh terrain up there can get the best of almost anyone if you’re unlucky.
The race started with a great little O-section around Loon Lake which Andrei and Kelly flew through while Brandon and I tried our best to keep up. My heart rate hit 178 on the way home, so we must have been moving quickly. We came in a few seconds behind Orion and a few seconds ahead of Wedali, but we left the TA a seconds after Wedali. We had a slow TA but I’m not too sure why.
The next bike section was the beginning of the end for us. Kelly fell very hard after catching her bike tire in a mud hardened rut on the north side of loon lake. I felt terribly for her as she struggled through the rest of the bike on the way to the paddle. Andrei and I had a very miscommunications on the way to the paddle, but overall we did well and I don’t think we lost much time to any team. We didn’t gain any either.
The paddle on Big Sandy Lake and a nearby area was fun through the tall thick grasses! They appeared to be impassable but after giving it a shot it turned out that they hardly slowed the boat down at all! Very fun. The mistake we made here was not putting the dipper in the faster boat. Brandon and Andrei were at least 10% slower than Kelly’s boat, she was crushing the paddle. So instead of having her go punch quickly while the big strong men caught up, we had to wait for them. Bad strategy by me. I just assumed that our boat would be equal to or slower than Brandon and Andrei’s boat. After asking them about it, they could not figure it out either. So it goes.
We came out of the water 15 minutes after Wedali and 3 minutes behind TMMAR. The next bike section was tough, lots of bumps harsh terrain, and horse flies to punish you if you stop for even a second. I was navigating. I did well until I got to a four way intersection north of CP 12. When I got there I took a right at the four way, as showed on the map. However, the right I took was ACTUALLY the “straight ahead” shown on the map! It turned out to be a costly mistake and I did not catch in time. Andrei briefly second guessed me but after I checked my watch to see I was headed south, I was sure I did not “go straight”. But I was wrong. So wrong. Kelly was hurting and I was taking us east, the wrong way. When we finally realized it, Kelly was falling over in pain. We got her hooked up with the EMT’s and Andrei and Brandon and I headed to get 13, 14, and 15 on our own. I felt so badly for Kelly, who has never not finished a race she has started with only one exception, the day she ruptured her hamstring her sophomore year on college. She was devastated. I tried to assure her that being safe and dropping out was what we all wanted her to do, but it was hard.
We finished the bike-O section quickly, passing teams who had made the correct turn at the 4-way as we progressed. That felt good to be peddling fast again. It felt like I was racing for the first time since before the paddle.
We came into the O-section in different moods. I was upset for Kelly but otherwise energized by the faster pace we were carrying. Andrei was pretty beat up and complaining of a headache and Brandon was somewhere in between, doing very well for only his second race ever.
I asked Andrei how much water he had on the day and he said his bladder and his water bottle, so I figured about 90 ounces, probably not enough for the 6 hours we had done in the heat, but not grossly inadequate. I figured he was probably good to go. Then he checked his bladder and saw that the bladder hose was routed such that he could not get any water out. So I think he probably had only had 40 or 50 ounces. Then I knew was likely severely dehydrated. I think he even gave Kelly the last half of his bottle! He is a tough guy, so when asked if he could go do the O-section with us, and he said that he’d rather stay in the shade and drink, I knew to listen.
I was totally ok with that, as we were already rolling as an “unranked” team. Brandon and I went and did the O-section. Again, really fun but very difficult terrain. Thick, uneven, and tons of bugs. I made one good sized parallel error but otherwise it went perfectly. The water crossings and control locations were fun, and I was happy to give it a good effort and do some more navigation.
Overall it was a very mixed day of highs and lows. Although we had a lot of lows this weekend (including a blown head gasket on Andrei’s beautiful Honda civic!) it was a pretty fun weekend.
Also, the camping was really good. Awesome weather, great fire, not too many bugs (do they spray the camping area?) and pretty lake-side setting.
Hats off to Jerritt and Molly and Ian and the MNOC crew for another great AR event.
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