After months of emailing from different corners of the Atlantic (Mark in Virginia, Jen in Florida, JD in Germany, and me in Philly) we finally converged in Cardiff for final preparation, packing, and strategizing. Abby, Zoe and I had been in southern Wales for a week already, and Abby and Zoe would be volunteering for the duration of the race. And now for perhaps my longest race report ever...though hopefully the pictures will suffice you are bored by my prose...
The Prologue, Cardiff Bay:
The prologue took place two days before the actual start on a rainy, cool evening in Cardiff Bay. We'd run a 7 mile loop around the bay with a stop at the Cardiff Whitewater Center. Teams would be penalized 3 minutes for each minute behind the winner of the prologue, with an enforced stop sometime during the race to serve the penalties.
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| JD's video camera would become popular and famous during the race. |
Mark looked happy as we ran around the bay. The camera and media coverage of the race didn't tell the whole story, however. Mark had been feeling quite ill for a few days before the race, and while he knows how to smile for the camera, he was anything but well as we started the prologue. Two days later when the race really began, he had not improved, and for the first three days, he was touch and go. Our goals for the race quickly shifted from being relatively competitive to simply surviving and keeping Mark going.
Shortly after the halfway point of the run, we hit the whitewater center. Two racers from each team had to jump in an inflatable kayak, paddle to an automated belt which lifted the boats to the start of the whitewater course, paddle through the rapids and finish by punching at a CP before returning to the start. At this point, the other two racers would jump in the boat and do the same. When all four racers had completed the course, teams would then be free to run the remaining course back to the finish. Honestly, I anticipated nothing short of chaos and frustration when the prologue was laid out for us, but it turned out to be a model of efficiency and the paddling was a blast. The 7 mile all out run, on the other hand, was not so fun, and Jen and I both suffered for days afterwards with cramped calves.
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| Mark on the lift |
Ultimately, we finished about nine minutes behind the leaders and eventual winners of the event, Adidas Terrex, meaning we would serve a 27 minute penalty sometime later on. Considering there were 10 or so world-level AR teams at the event, we were happy with our finish (13th team to complete the prologue).
The Start, Caernarfon:
The race kicked off on Monday morning from within the towering walls of the Caernarfon castle. After some opening words and waves to the drone flying high overhead, we all shuffled through the castle grounds to a small door, more of a cattle-shoot than anything. After we all made our way outside of the castle, we ran two loops around the heart of the town before launching our kayaks into the Menai Straits. Mark once again tricked everyone into thinking he was feeling better with his smile and steady pace, and I donned the one piece of Odyssey gear I own…a hunting cap…though I think it was more useful in identifying me in pictures...
Leg 1, Paddle on the Menai Straits:
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| Launching boats beneath the Caernarfon Castle |
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| Notice the current ripping around the marker! |
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| The new TA at the Bangor Pier |
The shortened paddle meant we'd have a new biking leg to Conwy. We were instructed on how to proceed and were sent off. While it may have been an alternative, back-up route, it was one of the most beautiful rides I've done in a race as we climbed our way up and over several ridges with sweeping views of the ocean, dotted with lofty clouds and shimmering in the sunlight. The hillsides were wide open and encrusted in vivid purple and yellow flowers, and our destination was the spectacular castle in Conwy; what more can a racer ask for? We knew we were in store for an amazing journey through Wales, and the race was only a handful of hours old.
Special Section, Conwy Castle:
We arrived in Conwy to find a bustling town, and after dropping our bikes, we followed a mandatory route up onto the old town walls, which we had to traverse for the first official CP of the race. Afterwards, we continued along the castle walls and entered the castle proper for three more points before returning to our bikes for the first true bike leg of the course, a 40 km leg to the start of the first trek in Snowdonia. Needless to say, the castle was sensational and the short stop in Conwy was one of the many memorable locations in the course.
Leg 2, Mountain Bike to Snowdonia National Park
With the exception of the stop at Zip World and the spectacular last few kilometers afterwards to the TA, the ride was relatively uneventful. That said, Mark's struggles became more apparent as we learned that biking would be especially taxing for him. Still, we made decent time, climbing over windy passes with more gorgeous views of the oceans and hills all around us.
The highlight of the leg was surely Zip World, home to the fastest zip-line in the world (just saw that their own record was recently broken with a recorded speed of 125 mph!). When we arrived, we were told we would first serve our penalty from the prologue, which worked out perfectly as there was a small grill. With burgers and egg sandwiches in hand, we hunkered down in the wind to eat and rest, and when our penalty was over, we began the 30 minute trek to the top of the old quarry. The zip started at a hut on the high rim of an old quarry and the line plummeted down over numerous terraces before the ground fell away in cliffs ringing a turquoise lake of water. We made fine time trekking up and then settled in for an hour plus wait at the top. This perhaps was my one complaint for the entire event: With the first cutoff the next day, losing 1-2 hours this early in the race was a bummer. But alas, not much to do except get a bit of rest before the fast ride down.
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| A view from the top |
While such rides don't do a whole lot for me, this one was rather spectacular, especially in the moment when you fly off the final terraces, the ground falls away in a split-second and you are hundreds of feet above the lake flying at 100mph. Then the winds hit you in this massive void and you wonder if this whole thing was a good idea as you are buffeted about above the water…and then before you can answer those doubtful voices you are sailing onto the platform and done. In short, the delay aside, the whole experience was sensational.
Leg 3, Trekking in Snowdonia National Park:
After a breathtaking ride up the valley to the base of the high ridges and peaks of Snowdonia, we started off on our first trek, a 40 km leg across the park. All of the race staff, every racer familiar with the terrain and trails, and seemingly every other person in Cardiff warned about how tough this trek would be. This left us more than unsure as to our strategy going into the leg: do we short course ourselves early? Or do we go for the fortune and glory and try to stay on the full course? The issue was, if we blew it we'd likely miss the first cutoff of the race which would make us unofficial, and from our experiences in Stirling when we should have dropped a point or two earlier, we didn't want to be too stubborn since experience suggested full coursing this one would probably not be in the cards (and indeed, despite the stellar field, only six teams made the full course, four of whom were British).
That said, we were within our estimates still, despite Mark's struggles, so we set off for the first point with an open mind. The first point was the toughest of the Leg, and maybe we let that get to us a bit. A couple of kilometers out of TA, we turned up a rocky "trail" that turned into nothing more than a scramble up a couple thousand feet of elevation. For all intents and purposes we bouldered and climbed straight up for the first CP as sunset illuminated the mountains and lakes around us. While the point didn't make sense strategically (more on scoring later) it was one of the most sensational points I've bagged in nearly 100 ARs over the year. The climbing was wild and exposed, you were regularly reminded of your mortality as you climbed out over ledges and drops, and the prolonged sunset around us lasted for nearly the whole climb. When we finally reached the summit, well over an hour after beginning the climb, the wind was roaring, knocking us off balance as we prepared for the first night of the race before beginning our descent.
Once down off this first peak, we faced our first big decision: stick to the full course with what appeared to be a long, slow night of mountainous terrain, or skip through this first Leg to the next TA and assure ourselves a comfortable cushion with the cutoff. RD James Thurlow made it clear that pushing this first cutoff would mean you'd have to skip things later, so we played it safe at this point. Additionally, with some concern for Mark, it seemed like the prudent decision.
Unfortunately, the short route through this leg meant that we skipped all of the remaining CPs on Leg 3. Many teams elected to do this, but it was a tough decision this early in the race. It was a long slog south, with some surprisingly tough nav to navigate the network of trails heading to the TA, but we made it through cleanly to find ourselves the third team into TA. Winners Adidas had blitzed the course so far, and one other like-minded, short course team had done the same as we had, moving quickly south to bank more time for the rest of the course.
Leg 4, Estuary Paddle to Port Meirion:
After a rare two hours of sleep on the first night of the race, we awoke, hoping Mark would be feeling better. Sadly he wasn't showing much progress, but we set about readying ourselves for the next leg, another shortened paddle. We were supposed to paddle down an estuary to Portmeirion, a rather bizarre vacation retreat, walled off from the world and built up in a fairy-tale-esque, Italian style unlike anything I've ever seen. There we were to run a short orienteering loop before settling back into our kayaks for a long paddle down the coast to the Barmouth TA. Once again, tough wind and tides forced the RDs to make a change in the course. We would be paddling to Portmeirion, but from there we would paddle directly across the estuary to take out, build our bikes and launch on another alternate biking leg to Barmouth.
The paddle started off well enough, but after an hour or so, we found ourselves battling brutal tides and winds, and before long we were forced to tow our boats along the shore. We did so to the mandatory portage around a major construction zone, and then it was another short but grueling paddle against the elements to Portmeirion.While we only covered a handful of miles, the leg took a couple of hours and was quite a challenge physically as we pounded against the moving water and winds, pulled our boats along behind us, and ferried across strong currents on a few occasions.
When we finally arrived at Portmeirion, we knocked out a quick but fun orienteering loop around the surreal hamlet before being told we would be timed out for at least a couple of hours. Another unrelated boating incident on the estuary and continued rough tides and waves combined to push the RDs to decide to wait for the water to drop before allowing teams to cross the channel to the take out and the bikes. After some food, some naps, and some anxious waiting, we finally were allowed to gear up for the final stretch of "paddling". This entailed a few short stretches of strong, rough water interspersed with some long segments of wet sand, across which we had to drag our boats and kit.
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| Yes, there was a checkpoint in Pet Cemetary... |
Once again, we launched on an alternate bike route which was gorgeous and tough on the legs all at once. We had to take it easy here as Mark was suffering through his lowest bit of the race (I think), so we enjoyed some stops for blackberries along narrow country lanes and a tea break in a small town along the coast.
Leg 5, Trekking up and over Cadair Idris.
When we arrived at the TA in Barmouth, I think we all privately knew that we stood at a crossroad. Thus far, we had skipped large numbers of checkpoints to make forward progress. We were all concerned about Mark and it seemed a real possibility that he would have to stop racing. I for one was actually somewhat surprised we were still an official team of four after 4 legs considering how tough of a time he was having mentally and physically, and when we entered the warm gymnasium serving as the TA, Mark finally opened up the dialogue with the medics as we all quietly listened and went about our business.
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| JD stealing a few zzzzs on the trail. Comfy? |
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| The summit of Cadair Idris; the trek up was fantastic, though the thick layer of clouds and mist hid the surrounding mountains from us. Additionally, we had to fight against some decent (and cold) winds. |
In short, the medics could find nothing that allowed them to stop Mark's race themselves, so we discussed our options and settled on a plan for Stage 5 and Stage 5 only: while the course had been beautiful even without the many CPs we had skipped, we all agreed that another direct slog through the Stage wouldn't be much fun. Mark was keen on trying for the summit of the mountain, Cadair Idris, and we all knew that this might be the last bit of the course we did as a full unit. We wanted what was best for Mark in regards to his health, but we also wanted to do something that would allow him to mentally engage and have some fun, so we set off for the the summit.
And our race began to turn around.
Not dramatically as we still had to skip a couple of CPs, and we had our first navigational adventure of the race as we traversed a bizarre set of trails and roads that just wouldn't quite line up in the early hours after the sun had risen on day three (thankfully we still made forward progress, and the narrow creek-side trail and woods we traversed were stunning), but Mark began to feel just a bit better, better enough that we decided to continue on with the massive biking Stage. We arrived into TA in good spirits, though the skies began to open up for the first significant spell of rain, and leaving TA was none too easy when it came time to depart.
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| Getting sleepy; dawn of Day 3 on two hours of sleep and one 10 minute catnap |
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| Our unmapped "trail"...it wasn't what we were looking for... |
Stage 6 (6A, 6B, and 6C): Biking through the Center of Wales, Orienteering, and Waterfalls
Stage 6 was broken into two massive bike legs, split by an orienteering stage in the middle with a short foot section to a waterfall in the first half. While Mark was seemingly on the mend, we all agreed that this was relative and we came up with a strategy that would hopefully allow us to finish officially and maybe, just maybe make up ground and time on the last four stages of the race. We would essentially dump a number of CPs on this bike to get to the TA as fast as possible. Hopefully we would make good time and have at least a few solid hours of straight sleep, which would theoretically allow us to rest up for the last two days. If Mark continued to feel better, who knows how we would do after a good sleep.
The first half of the bike went well, aside from a stretch of drenching and chilling showers. The short route still allowed us to nab a few checkpoints, most notably a massive waterfall that required us to enter a small walled-in park after which we had to traverse a short loop trail that plummeted to the base of the falls. The hike back up was welcome as it helped us warm up (we had been riding through saturating rain for a while and were all rather chilled), and we then settled in for a hot meal at a nearby restaurant. The rest of the ride went well with an absolutely gorgeous ride through the Elan Valley. Towering ridges, cascading waterfalls, glimmering reservoirs, and imposing relics from a past full of mining made the ride go by quickly, as did Mark's rebounding health and energy. Still, we decided to stick to the plan, so we bypassed the short foot section that broke up the ride and set off for the second half.
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| The Falls; it wasn't so sunny when we arrived... |
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| "Eating" a hot meal after the waterfall hike. |
The second half of the ride turned out to be a fair bit more interesting in regards to nav, at least at the start. Sometime after dark, we set off along a track that was to bring us to a short stretch of trails, leading us onto more roads that would take us to the next CP. The trail system quickly dissolved into a maze of hedged-in fields, and it was clear that several teams had been through this mess before us. I had been struggling with sleep for a bit, but thankfully this woke me up, and we worked steadily through the various hedges, gates, walls, and fields, finally popping out on the other side of the farms to find another team coming from the opposite direction on the road. I quickly led the gang off on a high speed ride through a network of roads to get some distance from this other team, and from that point on, we were more or less on our own, save for a stop to help a team with a sick teammate.
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| One of the impressive dams in the Elan Valley |
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| Look what I found; better than any checkpoint! |
We eventually rode into the silent town of Builth Wells, punched a CP on a statue of a bull and began the final, straight-forward ride along the River Hay to the TA and sleep. Except it wasn't so straightforward. First of all, we all began struggling mightily with sleep. I probably fell asleep on my bike 15 or 20 times, Jen wound up in a hedge, Mark and I fell asleep in unison, startled in unison to some random noise and barely missed a collision, and JD tried to manage the three of us even though he too was a bit sleepy after nearly three days of racing.
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| Jen took on a hedge. The hedge won... |
Second, the obvious road on the map actually stopped at one point, and we had to backtrack a bit to find a bike trail that would help us continue on. It was a brutal, tedious, turtle-slow crawl to the TA and our sleeping bags, and we were so grateful to finally climb off the bikes and set up camp. We probably should have arrived an hour or more earlier, but we still were able to lie down for five solid hours of sleep, the most I've ever gotten at once in an AR by far, and we were only the third team to roll into TA. We headed to sleep, hoping our strategy would pay off in the morning.
Leg 7, Paddle on the River Wye
We awoke to find that many teams still had not arrived at the TA, and even with five hours of sleep and another chunk of time TAing before and after sleeping, we were somewhere around the 10th team to get on the water. Teams were allowed to get on at 8 AM (Day 4 now) and we elected to sleep an extra hour and jump on after we woke up at 9. Our goals had shifted again, now away from simply staying official and keeping Mark going to being more "competitive". We knew that we had fallen way back in the rankings due to the large number of CPs we had skipped, but we also knew that we could clear the course from here on out, we were now well rested compared to many teams going out on these last four legs of the race, and we could make up time and spots by finishing as fast as possible. And now we felt we could move relatively well. We made decent time down the lazy Wye and pulled into the urban-O section at Hay-on-Wye in good spirits.
Here we had a short, 3-point loop around town. Abby and I had spent a few days here after arriving in Wales, and this helped me quickly orient to the old 19th century map of the town which we had to use to navigate the town's narrow streets. 13 minutes or so after departing, we were back at our boats, meaning we had passed a few teams along the way. We then passed a few more on the final paddle of the race and found ourselves the fourth teams out on bikes after the TA.
Leg 8, Biking through the Black Mountains:
In great spirits with Mark feeling better, our five hours of sleep, and the fact that we passed at least half a dozen teams on Leg 7, we set off at a decent clip on the bike leg. We had three or four points to hit on the way to the final trek of the race, and we made good time through the section, hitting a CP on a summit before finding another near an old, neolithic stone circle. We also managed to catch and pass two more teams by the final CP of the stage, and when we rolled into the next-to-last TA, we were an hour or so behind Adidas, the only team out ahead of us. From what we guessed (that they had launched their boats right at 8 AM) we assumed we had made up even a bit of time on the leaders (though to be fair, I'm not sure these all-world racers were racing at this point since they had built such a commanding lead).
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| A neolithic stone circle near one of the bike CPs |
Leg 9, Trekking through the Brecon Beacons:
While this leg predominately revolved around trails, and later on roads, there was still some decent nav involved in the darkness and with the blanket of mist and clouds that enveloped the ridges and peaks across which we trekked. We moved at a steady and fast clip, never running much (Jen and I were both nursing bad ankles from before the race had even begun) but trekking at a solid pace, and we knocked off the various CPs on peaks and ridges in fine time, the highlight being the off-trail assault up the steep, grassy side of a relatively trailless peak, from which we were rewarded with a clearer view of the dark valleys and twinkling lights of various towns in the far distance.
After descneding from this final summit, we trekked mostly along roads to a short caving section. My shin was beginning to suffer as we descended to the roads, a lovely case of tendonitis kicking up. While my ankle had been bothering me since the prologue, I was able to protect it with constant vigilance to where I stepped, but this new development quickly escalated into a rather painful nuisance that had my leg buckling at times by the end of the race. Thankfully, I was able to get through the rest of the trek before it really tightened up on the final bike.
Back to the caving...we hit the caving, still holding somewhat steady with Adidas. We were allowed to drop our gear, and they gave us a map of the cave with a route to follow, warning us not to miss the exit as we would surely encounter "Death, death, death!" Mark took the lead here and we had a fun 15 minute or so scramble through the cave, ducking low at times, crawling under and over ledges, making one wrong turn before realizing we were headed into the depths of who knows where, and at one point being waist deep or so in a dark pond of water before reaching the exit. Once again, the special section was well-placed and designed, and it was a fun stop before the final kilometers of trekking.
Two more points awaited before the bikes, and we quickly found ourselves in a beautiful but somewhat confusing warren of trails that did not show up on the map. After 15 minutes or so of orienting and exploring, we found our way to the first CP, located on a beautiful creek with impressive cascades. We then set off for the final CP at an even grander waterfall before running out to the TA and the final ride back to Cardiff.
Stage 10, Bike to Cardiff and the Finish:
Our spirits high, we TAed efficiently and set off for the final ride. We had a mandatory route to follow out of TA and then a mountain bike section before a long road ride back to the finish. The mandatory route out of TA took us up a very steep road, and it seemed that the route then somehow crossed a major, out of bounds road. On our way up, a car came up on us before stalling out on the steep incline. The driver backed down and disappeared as we continued climbing.
A few minutes later we heard a roar, and we tried to get off the narrow drive as the car came screaming up at us once again. Mark and I managed to get off the road, and we watched in horror as we were convinced that the woman behind the wheel of the car (same car as earlier) was about to bowl through Jen and JD. Thankfully she didn't, but this time she got out of her car and made it rather clear that we were headed toward private property and that there was no way through.
Convinced that we still should continue on, we did so, but an hour later, we found ourselves back at TA. We had explored extensively, thinking we would find this mandatory route on the map, but we hadn't succeeded and now our enthusiasm, energy and good spirits from doing so well over the last few stages was rapidly evaporating in the face of supressed physical and mental exhaustion. Miraculously, no one had passed us, but we lost even more time (and more importantly momentum) in TA as we waited for word on what to do. Finally, we were rerouted and sent on our way.
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| Waiting for word on how to proceed; rather demoralizing and a major blow to our adrenaline and momentum |
It was a long, tired ride up into the hills, and we next found ourselves exploring a narrow set of overgrown trails that were supposed to get us to the mountain bike course (we were back on the mandatory route at this point). Our maps were 1:50,000, and the maps had us on a trail that crossed a dirt road and continued on directly across it. When we hit that junction, there was a gate, and another gate directly across from it, and on we went. As it turned out, what was lost in the small scale map was the fact that the trail we wanted actually jogged across the road 50 meters or so from the junction.
Thankfully we figured it out, and many teams, from what I heard afterwards, actually stuck with the faint trails and bike-whacked up the hills to the end of the mandatory route. Once we found the real trail, we picked up Adidas' tire tracks and pressed on. We finally emerged at the end of the mandatory route and set off for a couple of CPs on the beautiful Skyline Trail, a narrow single track trail that runs along an exposed ridge. Such riding is not my strong suit, especially five days into a race, but we moved steadily along.
Unfortunately, more frustration arose as one team finally caught up to us. It wasn't surpising since we had lost so much time at the start of the leg and with the trails earlier on, and it turned out to be another full course team. It turned out to be the great folks from Haglofs (the British Haglofs that is), and we talked a bit with them as we all traversed the trail together. The final frustration unfolded when we realized we had reached then end of the trail without finding the CP, but thankfully RD Tom Gibbs was there to notify us that someone had taken it down.
And with that, we were back on roads for the rest of the way, and there was a fair bit of downhill, though the promises of it being an easy ride (already shattered with the long, tough climbs) didn't really hold up. To boot, there were some unmapped changes in the roads. That said, we moved well, escaping from Haglofs again. They fell back quickly enough once we reached open roads and tracks, but then again, they had wrecked themselves on the full course in a way we certianly hadn't.
For the next couple of hours, things went smoothly enough, but the final stretch into Cardiff turned into an absolute nightmare, and we figure we lost at least two hours navigating our way home. This final stretch was through the urban sprawl of Cardiff (if you want to call it that; it was in reality a rather pleasant ride through numerous towns strung together along picturesque creeks and rivers, leading into the capital), and we were again supposed to follow a mandatory route along established bike routes.
The problem was, it was very hard to match up the 1:50,000 map with the bike trails and what was on the ground. Honestly, I probably should have focused almost exclusively on the bike trail signs rather than worrying about the map, but I was trying to balance both, and before long, our pace fell off dramatically and the going became rather confusing. Additionally, the bike routes seemed to do far more bobbing and weaving than the map indicated and we ran into re-routes of the trail on the ground as well, leaving us to guess as to whether we should follow the signs or what was on the map.
In short, we wasted a fair bit of time simply trying to stay on the right trail, and this only led to us getting disoriented anyway. I finally threw my hands up in the air, and told Mark to lead on. I would follow on the maps but more or less follow him. While we began moving more steadily with this arrangement, we clearly were no longer on the mandatory route. We stuck to bike paths, but these paths were all over the place, added a fair bit of distance to the ride, and we still had the challenge of finding one final CP.
Finally, we made our final stop at one more castle, punching the final CP on the post of a small drawbridge on a picturesque castle, perched on a bluff above the sleepy river we would then ride along to the finish line. Now oriented, we jumped on the bike trail to the center of Cardiff, and this time stayed on course, though the ride into the city and around the same harbor we ran around in the prologue went on for an eternity.
When we finally ran across the finish line, we were stunned to find that Haglofs was the only team that had passed us, and the ride in hadn't been dramatically better for Adidas. As teams finished throughout the day and into the next morning, more and more people recounted similar stories on this final bike, a stage that was supposed to be "easy" according to the RDs but had turned into a bit of a bear for many. I'm sure this was in part due to the fact that we were all exhausted and simply trying to get to the finish, but between the overgrown trail network that fit the map and the confusing bike trails in and around Cardiff, most teams had a tougher time than expected with this final stage (no one other than us and Adidas had to deal with the initial issue with the mandatory route as the RDs rerouted everyone thereafter).
Aftermath:
Ultimately, the Itera:Wales course was my favorite AR course to date. I'm sure it would have been even more spectacular had we done more of the middle-of-the-race-legs, but even when skipping big chunks of the course, the short course options were stunning. As I remarked on numerous occassions, even the alternate bike routes early in the race were sensational. The CPs were often in beautiful spots, the RDs highlighted absoutely fascinating places, and the flow of the course was outstanding. Most notable was the feeling of truly being on a journey. Usually, races run a loop through a much bigger area. Certainly you feel like you have accomplished something, but this journey from the north coast of Wales to the south really felt like a journey and expedition more than a standard race.
As for our "race", normally, I would be dissappointed to drop so much of a course, and especially as much as we did early. But this race was different. It was clear from days before the race commenced that we had a problem with Mark being as un-Markish as he was. When the gun went off in Caernarfon Castle on Monday morning, I think we all privately wondered whether we would make it to the finish line with him. I wasn't sure we would make it through Day 1. As it became clear that he was still struggling a fair bit, our goals shifted dramatically from being relatively competitive to simply surviving and finishing the race with the team intact if possible. That said, we all were concerned about Mark and were ready to carry on without him if it came to that.
The amazing thing was, it really felt like we were all on the same page, yet we really didn't talk about this out loud, and we hadn't raced as a unit before. We simply adjusted our mindsets individually while constantly keeping an eye on Mark and personally checking in with him. When things came to a boiling point on Day 3 and we reached that crossroads before the Cadair Idris trek, we sat down and hashed things out without any drama or frustration as we were all prepared for whatever might come. So, while we may not have been "racing", this "synergy" as some like to call it, was amazing, and the experience of working through those first three days and staying together was an unbelievable experience.
To then have Mark begin to recover, which allowed us to start "racing" from Stage 7 onwards was also a remarkable experience, and we really felt great from then on, moving well and finishing the course relatively quickly compared to many. Again, some teams had expended quite a bit more energy to get to Stage 7, but we still felt good about this second race within a race.
When all the penalties were added up (teams finding every CP were all ranked first, and afterwards, teams were hit with a pre-determined time penalty for each CP skipped) we ended up in 16th place. Considering what we went through and how much Mark had to do to persevere, I was thrilled with this. Going into the event, I would have been happy with a top-15 finish if we ran a relatively clean, smart race as the field was loaded: When we gathered in Cardiff a week before and saw who all was there, we realized that the field had 10, give or take, recognizably world-class groups of racers, and there were many more teams of experienced racers, British and foreign, to contend with as well. So to still finish in the top half was a great success for us in my opinion.
To wrap up, an enormous thank you to Open Adventure and all of its amazing volunteers. They really do an oustanding job of running an event, and Abby and I are already looking at their next iteration of Itera, Ireland, 2016. James Thurlow and Tom Gibbs put together a course that was nothing short of magnificent in my opinion, and I cannot wait to do another of James' events. An enormous thank-you also goes out to Gary Davies, captain of Endurancelife. Not only did he lead his team to an exceptional full-course finish, but he and his wife Dawn opened their home to the Americans, saved us from the Cardiff Airport and helped orient us to Wales. Such community is why I stay with AR.
An even bigger thank you to JD, Jen, and Mark for being amazing teammates. It wasn't my first rodeo with Mark, but I once again lucked out with Jen and JD. Some people have horror-story after horror-story of racing with new people, and it's no surprise since so many things can go wrong in AR and personality clashes are always possible when you are sleep-deprived, hallucinating and strangers. But once again, I was fortunate to meet and race with two new and amazing people who were nothing but supportive, not to mention perfect teammates in every regard. I wish I wasn't going back to competing against them, and I hope we get to race together again sometime soon.
Finally, I know she would have prefered to be out there in the thick of things, and I certainly missed my normal partner in crime, but we all loved seeing Abby at our TAs. She did an amazing job of volunteering, cheering us on, and taking care of our newest teammate Zoe, and without her support from last fall onwards, I wouldn't have been able to experience this amazing journey through Wales. So thank you, Abby for being the best teammate of all on and off the course, and I'm looking forward to your return to AR this month.
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