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WILD AR Hot Summer Night Race.
I’m pretty sure it was 80 degrees at 5PM and 87 degrees at 8PM yesterday. That was a not awesome way to welcome a night of racing. Fortunately the race started at sundown with an awesome swim across the St. Croix river on the way to CP2 which was on the southern tip of an island.
Our team consisted of the usual studs Andrei 3000 and Crusher, but this the first time I successfully roped my HS friend Scott into racing with us. We met in 7th grade because we have similar last names and therefore had lockers next to each other. We raced MTN. bikes in college. He has not worked out since we lived together in Salt Lake City as ski bums in 2002-2003. The island was thick and nasty. Although we were merely fast hiking, we were losing fluids really fast trekking through thick Razor grass, buckthorn, and wildflowers with our PFD’s zipped tightly beneath our race packs as we picked up four trekking CP’s before we headed out on the bikes. The humidity was high and the cold front that would bring rain later in the night had not moved in.
We came out of the first trek in the lead, with Blind Squirrels, Orion, Beautiful People, Rick and Pete, and WEDALI within a few minutes behind us in that very approximate order.
We were out on the bikes in the lead with Blind Squirrels but that only lasted a very short while. I had Kelly on tow but within a few minutes she was off tow and Scott was on for the rest of the bike section. Don’t get me wrong, he did great and raced is behind off, but since I knew Kelly would be really strong on the last trek, we were 100% focused on saving as much energy in Scott’s legs as we could to ensure he’d be able to finish the race the way we wanted to.
The bike section was fun. 31 miles of mostly paved, a little gravel, and a little doubletrack in the area south of William O’Brian and north of Stillwater. This is an area I know quite well because I love the Square lake triathlon that takes place right there. I’ve done both the Olympic and the half Iron-man triathlon there. Also, Kelly recently won the Stillwater triathlon on the same roads just a few months ago! It was fun to recognize where we were from time to time on course.
About halfway through the bike section we had gotten passed by 4 teams in total and we had settled into a pace we could sustain, hoping to perhaps pass some teams on the last trekking section. Scott fought hard on his old steel hardtail and we finished the bike section with a clean run with the exception of one attempt I made at a short cut that did not turn out and cost us about 10 minutes.
We arrived at the last trekking section in about 6th place overall, but not far at all behind any team, 14 minutes back from the lead. Beautiful People we learned was dropping out there due to a combination of really bad bee stings on the first trek (sorry Ellen!) kids at home and the impending storm. So that meant that we were two minutes behind Orion and 14 minutes behind WEDALI in third place in our division. There were two two person teams ahead of us as well.
We had a nice fast TA and passed Orion in the TA! Andrei was on the map and we were knocking out the trek at a good clip. Kelly had Scott on tow and they were really moving!
By the halfway point the rain was sheeting down as hard as I’ve seen it. The drops were both large and heavy as well as misty and windy, like at the bottom of a waterfall. This effect may have been from the water blowing out of the leaves in the trees, not sure, but it was cooling and refreshing. I felt like a kid playing out in the rain.
Then, lights up ahead. Andrei noticed them first at the bottom of a large reentrant, far up ahead. We picked up the pace slightly. Then they were gone. Five minutes later, we saw them again. Andrei decided to bushwack a section. These lights up ahead (which appeared to be two teams, both with two people) veered off to the south. Andrei confidently stayed the course. He knew we had passed them.
I didn’t know what place we were in as we ran quickly the remaining few miles back. When we arrived at the finish I was shocked to find out we were the 2nd team overall to cross the line. We passed 4 teams on the last TA trek, so that was a great end to a hot and stormy night. WEDALI had some hiccups along the way, and still came across the line 14 minutes ahead of us.
Andrei rocked the navigation on both trekking sections, Kelly was amazing towing Scott on the entire last trek, and Scott pulled an athletic achievement normally reserved for those who workout 24SEVEN, or at least with regularity, out of nowhere based on nothing but guts. Success!
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