Aug 20, 2007

ESAC Adventure Race August 18 2007

I joined up with Graham and Paul to race in a new adventure race up on Grouse Moutain. I had met Graham the previous weekend (he drove me to Stormy) and met his good friend Paul on Friday. The forecast for the weekend was not looking good, rainy and cold...perfect!!! (not really) as it turned out sat morning the rain held out for us. We all took the Gondola up to the top of Grouse and received our maps at about 9am. He received a short race briefing, got ourselves organized and we were off. Our first stage was Mountain Biking....I was little nervous here as I usually use the run as a way to get ahead of everyone (my strength) downhill mountain biking is not my strength...we were off...fairly technical for my biking skills but pulled it off with a little running and biking... We somehow got ourselves in the lead pack and into the first treck stage...it was a knarly downhill with a large uphill back to our bikes....catching up with a coupld of teams....we had a good rhythm going. and then it was an uphill mountain bike to the next check point. Slowly but surely we passed a bunch of teams (awesome feeling....finally I was feeling the grove and got myself into a good rhythm..Graham and paul were rocking it)..we had a neat little spine board challenge that we pulled off without a mistake... and it wasnt until the end of the bike stage that we realized we were leading the pack. How excited were we???? very!...our trek was right on. Graham did an awesome job of navigating us through the network of trails up there. We were so speedy that we beat a check point volunteer up there and missed out on a little navigation challenge....we ran into the vounteer on our way down......one of my favorite parts of the trak was the step ascent and descent through the bush.....it was tricky and thanks for the strong tree roots and braches that helped me make it down in one piece. We finally made it to the zipline...unfortunately due to the dampness in the air the zipline was a little tougher than expected....I sort of got stuck on the thing....prob the toughest part of the race...haha...anyways, we made it down and zipped through the last bike stage to cross the line where a group of twelve or so girls cheered us on. Great job Adrian and Adam!!!! I thought it was quite a successful race not only 'cause we happen to win....but it definitely helps!... Now throughout this race I could tell that I was not fully recovered from my ultra run last weekend....it hurt and I was tired. Like I said I'm terrible at recovery....I just want to do it all...

The after party was good fun!

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