A Comedy of Errors

After a wonderful summer race in Vermont four years ago at the Bitter Pill, I have been eying GMARA’s annual Frigid Infliction for years. A host of factors kept team GOALS ARA away; CNYO’s fantastic two day rogaine in the deep snows of upstate New York offers two days of racing, a substantially easier commute, and orienteering pricing, which always beats an adventure race. The two races either fall on the same weekend or within a week of each other, so CNYO is, in short, the easier option. This year, however, we determined that this would be the year we skipped the Snowgaine to head further north and east into the snowy Green mountains of northern Vermont. To say we had a great time would be an understatement, and I for one can say this went down as one of my favorite racing experiences to date. If half of the races in my lucky seventh year of adventure racing are as fun as this one, I will be far happier than I was in 2011.

A wonderful race at the USARA National Championship aside, 2011 was a low point for me. Having started graduate school last January, I found it all but impossible to balance full time work, grad studies, training and a stable home life, and training was the odd responsibility out. Our season started off with a whimper as I physically let my teammates down at the 24 hour Rev3 Epic, and I fared no better at the 10 hour Yough Xtreme. While I managed better at the Longest Day, Abby suffered through that one due to some health issues, and from what I heard, the Cradle of Liberty was a struggle for the team as well. After a disastrous trip to Costa Rica, I took the rest of the summer off and focused on getting myself into better shape for Nationals. Oh and then there was the vomiting. My last two races of the year saw me vomiting in each. Going into this year with the hardest race schedule of my life and a desire for some redemption, I have managed to find more balance in my life, and as we toed the line for the start of the largest winter adventure race in the country, I felt in better shape than I have had at any point going into March.

That said, GMARA’s winter race is no normal race, and Philadelphia’s only snow this year was before Halloween. So while the team was ready to go, we hadn’t been in real snow for over a year. Some of our conditioning would be negated thanks to the snow, but that was fine by us. Slow and steady is alright for the first race of the year! For the inaugural race of the 2012 season, Abby and I teamed up with long-lost teammate Tracey. Abby had essentially never been skiing, Tracey downhills but isn’t very experienced on cross country skis, and I have done relatively little of anything in the snow outside of snowshoing. With that in mind, we had relatively modest ambitions for the day and were really looking to get a new race in and have fun in the fresh feet of snow that had fallen in the week before the race.
As it turned out, we managed better than expected, but a host of issues plagued us from before the race even began. Normally, I’d probably want to forget about a race day with the issues we had, but the fact that I still can say I would go back next week if they set up another course and I’m already looking forward to a return trip to Bolton Valley is a testament to GMARA and the event.

The troubles began with the fact that Abby and I had to drive from Philadelphia to Burlington, VT, close to the Canadian border, and needless to say, after a full week of work and school, we were not exactly ready with our gear, food, and clothes. We got in late, threw things together, and after chatting with Tracey and Dave, we crashed for a few fitful hours. We awoke to slick roads at 3 AM, piled into our respective vehicles and set off for the ski lodge. A wrong turn, 15-20 minutes of lost time and another five to ten minutes of gear swaps (we couldn’t drive our car up the mountain to the start in the snow and rain, so we piled into Dave and Tracey’s 4WD) all compounded by slow roads meant we got to the start and registration with about 30 minutes to go before the race start. We did the best we could to deal with papers and repacking, all the while trying to absorb the pre race briefing, peek at maps and rules and east some breakfast. By the time we walked out into the frigid, blustery blackness to step into our skis for the opening leg, we were excited, eager and just a bit overwhelmed.

Well, the gun went off, and I think it was then that we realized how woefully unprepared we really were. Not only had our pre-race logistics been a disaster, but as teams skied off into the misty snow, we watched as we fought with bindings, unable to even get into our skis. Before long, we were the only team left, everyone was out of site and we just shook our heads. This wasn’t a normal start for team GOALS. We gathered ourselves, reminding each other that the goal for the day was to laugh and enjoy racing with each and nothing more. Maybe try to pick it up on the snowshoes, something we’re OK at, but otherwise not worry as much about the race as a race. So we set off, and after five minutes, Abby gave up on the skis; having never skied before, she was a bit overmatched on the first section, which was a long climb up the mountain on back country trails with significant elevation gain. After giving it a go and realizing that we would never get to the first TA, she decided to posthole up the mountain. Once she elected to carry her skis, we made decent time and even began catching teams. Before long we found ourselves at a hut, the first TA, where we stripped off the skis and set off for two quick postholing CPs.

To my surprise, we clearly had made it to the TA before a significant number of teams, and I was even more surprised when we reached one of the two controls before anyone else. Breaking snow to the control was brutal, and eventually we gave up on trying to walk, instead electing to crawl through the snowy woods. Since teams could do either point first, I assumed everyone else would be coming along behind us, having already hit the first point, but we soon found ourselves alongside Dave Lamb, Jason Urckfitz and Molly Houseman from team Untamed New England, and it seemed that we all were headed to the second CP in the lead. We elected to attack it on our own rather than following Untamed, and after we both converged on it at roughly the same time, a number of other teams rolled in.

“Did you guys find CP1?” someone asked me. I paused, my heart skipping a beat.

“Um, yeah, wasn’t it at TA1?”

“No. There was a CP on the way to the hut.” I don’t think I have ever skipped a control in such manner. I simply had NO idea there was a CP 1. I frantically thought back to the morning briefing, and I clearly remember hearing that teams would start by skiing to TA 1. Somehow in the course of the briefing and in my quick glance at rules and maps while screwing with my gear I missed that there was one control along the way. It took a while to mentally recover from that one, but as it turned out very few teams found CP1. Many teams blew by it as we had, but many others simply couldn’t find it, so in the end it wasn’t the end of the world, and thankfully the race format did not DQ teams for not finding points.

After returning to the TA, we bombed through a four-point Snowshoe section, climbing to cloudy mountain vistas, traversing snowshoe trails and bushwhacking down a mountain side when we might have been better served by sticking to the trails. As we came racing back into the TA, we had a few minutes left to get our skis on and get out before the 10 AM cutoff. Teams leaving before 10 would be allowed to head for a bonus CP which offered a 60 minute time credit. With the horror of the morning in mind, we grabbed our skis and frantically started working on getting our toes locked in, and with literally a few seconds to spare, I finally got my second ski locked, and the volunteers let us go. Unfortunately, while we were off for some of the best fun of the course, our race took a decidedly negative turn at this point. I was not clear on the directions for the bonus CP, and after discussing it with race staff we set off thinking the point was worth 60 minutes AND a CP toward the overall CP count. As it turned out, there was a misunderstanding, and we later found out that while we did earn a 60 minute bonus for our effort, we were not awarded a CP toward our final CP count. But more on that later.

From the TA, we set off for a downhill ski on backcountry trails. Tracey and I set off, whooping and wobbling, falling and crashing, but all the while laughing and joyous as we made our way down the mountain. Abby laughed with us, and while she didn’t have the fun of skiing, she was probably the smart one considering that there were a number of close calls with wrenched knees and near misses with tress. When we emerged at the bottom, we talked Abby into giving the skis one more go now that we found ourselves on nicely groomed and relatively gentle terrain. She stepped back into her bindings and the next thing we knew, all three of us were happily “skiing”. True skiers would likely have questioned what right we had to say we were actually skiing as we lurched along the trails, but we made decent time and soon we found ourselves at the base of the trail to head up to the bonus. Abby popped out of her skis for a trip to the woods, and here was the fourth blunder of the day, though this time it was no one’s fault. After climbing out of the trees, Abby came back to her skis to sadly find one of her bindings had given up for the day, so she glumly returned to postholing. She had skied gloriously for fifteen or so minutes, and the next hour would be a slog and a disappointment for her, to say the least.

Still we continued on, bagged the bonus control and set off for the final TA, a Tyrolean traverse to the final section, a big snowshoe back to the finish. We reached the Tyrolean and found three lines and a backlog of teams, always a bummer when the clock is winding down but also part of racing. We stood in line for the two “easy” ropes, but as no one was trying the “hard” one, I elected to give it a go, figuring it would help us a bit with time even if it took me longer to make it across. Well, “hard” wasn’t hard, it was near impossible (for me). I’ve done a fair bit of ropes work, but this was without question the hardest physical thing I’ve had to do in any race, and for several minutes I really didn’t think I would be able to pull myself up the final twenty feet or so of rope. I have no idea how long I hung there, swaying over the rocky creek below, but I would not be surprised if I spent more time on that rope than anyone else. There was a reason only two teams had tried it before me, and I hope few others tried after listening to me moan and watching me grapple with trees, trying to find any bit of relief possible. Thankfully, Abby and Tracey stuck to the easier ropes, and after stashing gear, we set off for the mountains once more, this time climbing and traversing the maze of downhill ski slopes to find three more controls. The volunteers had sent us off from the Tyrolean telling us to only get two, but we felt strong on our feet and were determined to get the third point. Doing so would give us ten controls, and by our estimates this would give us a good shot at the podium with our 60 minute bonus. As we expected we comfortably nabbed the three points and returned to the finish, running in alongside several other teams, a great first race behind us.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, our confusion over the bonus CP ended up hurting us in the end. Instead of ten controls, we were only credited for nine, and whether it would have made a difference in the standings or not, we were bummed to realize we had chosen our strategy not realizing the full implications of our decision. This disappointment aside, I can honestly say this was one of the best, if not THE best, single day race I have ever done. This was in part due to the novelty of the snowy mountains, but it was also because of the challenge, the well designed course, the fun of skis, snowshoes and crawling through four-foot snow drifts in remote New England forests. Even the Tyrolean was a blast, though I was about as humbled as I have ever been in a race. The GMARA folks did an excellent job and were great support on the course, and the post-race banquet rivals most multi-day or big ticket races. I’m not sure what more one could ask for from a day out in the woods, and while we would have liked a second chance to decide on going for that bonus CP, we felt like it was a great success considering the comedy of errors throughout the day and the fact that we really had no idea what we were doing while we were skiing. Congratulations to our friends from Pain Syndicate for a GREAT race and a nice win and to everyone else who was out for some winter fun that proved all too elusive this year. Now it’s on to warmer things as Abby and I will be racing with Chris in South Carolina in two weeks, another one of our favorite 12 hour events. Already, the first month of the season is shaping up to be far more fun than last year’s!