Racing Ahead's Adventure Weekend

A few weeks ago, Ken Walker (one of the guys involved with masters' ski-o) invited me to be on a team with him and his son Greg (who is on the US ski-o team with me) for Racing Ahead's 12-hour adventure race in Pawtuckaway State Park. Ken and Tracey Olafson had won some sort of masters adventure racing thing on team Phast Generation (they had been past generation, but were told they were too fast for that, so just added an H). I waffled for a bit, but it just sounded like too much stupid fun to turn down. Plus, I'm still in the volume period for training, so more is better, right? Problem was, I'd already pre-reg'ed for the Quad Cycles cross race sunday. Whatever, I'll do a 12 hour adventure race the day before a cx race, no biggie. What did I just say about stupid?

I drove up to Pawtuckaway Friday night, we went over some of the rules in our packets, and then pitched a tent and went to sleep, only to wake up five hours later, at 4:30AM. Some breakfast, and then we had to go set up the transition area. We started out with one teammate running across the parking lot to pick up the maps (me), and then we were off. We took our time making sure we had the right maps and copying some of the controls onto our supplemental pawtuckaway maps, because that isn't something you want to be fiddling with in the woods in the rain.
Ken rummaging through our transition vehicle.

The first leg was the bike leg, and Ken told me straight up that he hadn't been riding all summer, so was going to be the weak leg. Greg has been riding, but not so much on technical stuff, so they gave me the task of navigating while on the bike. I had my map holder from ski-o on, that let me look at the map without having to hold it or pull it out of my pocket or whatever. We had everything in large ziplock bags, since it was raining, and that was a smart move. By the first control we'd caught up to two teams, and then going up some of the hills to the second checkpoint we caught another two teams. I guess Ken thought he'd be one of the weaker riders out there, but its amazing just how BAD some of the adventure racers are when there is some navigation.

Things were going pretty smoothly until the ATV trail we were on crossed a beaver pond - I made Greg go first (he's 6'7", so I figured we'd get to see how deep it was), and the water only came up to his knees, which was my waist, so that was alright. I carried my bike over my head, having just had the bottom bracket replaced and the front hub rebuilt... no need to trash them so soon! Anyway, a couple more fairly easy checkpoints, and then we got onto some of the really fun trails. Of course, this also meant a slower pace, because especially with slimy rocks and roots Ken wasn't riding much of this trail. We nailed the checkpoint on that trail, and then started a half mile bikewhack, which was not nearly as much fun as it sounds. To make matters even more interesting, having the map holder sticking out in front of me meant that I couldn't see where I was putting my feet. This is fine when you're on the bike, I mean, you're doing it wrong if you're looking at your feet, but trudging through the woods it helps to see where you're stepping. Anyway, shortly after that we missed a shortcut that was also flooded by beavers, this routed us around the swamp on a fun singletrack trail, which also meant it was slow. Probably lost 20 minutes or so on that loop around the swamp.
Me feeling good after the bike leg.

We came back into the transition zone after about five hours. This is a long time to only go 24 miles, but there was no point in making Ken go anaerobic on every uphill. We were now onto the paddle section, and Ken and Greg had brought kayak paddles for this purpose. There were three competitors in every boat, which meant it was riding pretty low in the water. I also had a canoe paddle, rather than a kayak paddle, so every time I'd paddle it would throw off the direction of the boat. Thus I became prime navigator, which maybe wasn't a great plan since I've never navigated with a boat before, but despite being hesitant, we were clean. I think our paddle was as good as anyone else's, mostly because we had Greg in the front providing some serious power.

Unfortunately, it was still raining, and the fact that I wasn't doing any of the paddling meant that I was getting really cold. Every time I'd get out of the boat to get a control I'd get even wetter, so by the time we hit control 9, on a long passage through a swamp that was barely floatable, I could barely hold onto the map because my hands were shaking so badly. We finally pulled out of the swamp and had a kilometer-long portage, for which we conveniently had Greg's shoulders, and trotting along trying to keep up (the guy can run with a canoe on his shoulders. I'm in awe), I warmed up enough to be absolutely furious when they told us at control 10 that we'd missed the cutoff. By my watch, we had an extra 20 minutes, but apparently they had changed the cutoff times, because they wanted the canoes back in time for the 3-hour teams. This meant that we were automatically behind every time that had finished the entire paddling section, which really sucked, because our strongest section was going to be the trek. Grrr!
Greg gettin' after some peanut butter.

Anyway, we started on the trek, and immediately passed two teams before control 1. Pawtuckaway is an amazingly accurate map, but it is very detailed and very technical, so the fact that we had so much orienteering experience among us really just put everyone else at a serious disadvantage. The winning team had a navigator who is also a very serious orienteer, otherwise I think we were probably the best team out there. We were doing pretty well, and had passed yet another two teams by control four, looking like we'd have plenty of time before the control 6 cutoff at 4:30pm. Control 5 was at the top of a mountain, and adventure racers, instead of using something solid and unaffected by weather, drew a numbered code on a tree trunk somewhere on this mountain top. The clue was "50m +- northwest of fire tower, south side of a ledge, broken pine tree". Useful. We wasted 45 minutes up there searching for the clue, and three teams caught back up to us. Eventually we asked the guy with the radio if he could give us a clue, and he radioed back that there were four teams searching for the clue. We could hear the guy on the other end of the radio saying that the clue might have washed off in all this rain. Great. At this point, we were all pretty hypothermic, and our 45 minute delay meant that we'd missed the control 6 cut-off. I was too cold to be furious, but it was certainly frustrating.

We slogged it out to control 10, where we were supposed to go if we missed the cutoff, and picked up a map for the finishing score-o - we had thirty minutes left to get as many controls as possible for additional points. We did pretty well with this one, and finished with two seconds to spare. Overall, it was a frustrating experience to have the rules changed on us (the canoe cutoff) and have the checkpoint on the mountain be so ephemeral, but it was really fun nonetheless. I loved working with Ken and Greg, our personalities worked together just right that we weren't biting each other's heads off after 12 hours of alternately moving and freezing. The results aren't up yet, but I heard a rumor that we were fourth. Not too shabby, since there were a whole bunch of teams there.

I am INVIIIIINCIBLE!

*superwoman is flying*

*flying*

*flying*

*CRASH*

Saturday I did a 12-hour adventure race with Greg Walker (US ski-o team) and his dad Ken. Stayed the night in Pawtuckaway in order to run an orienteering race sunday morning, and then drove down to Bedford for the Quad cycles race. Raced hard, felt good, got dehydrated, got home and suddenly I was tired, why is that?

Race reports are coming. I have lots I want to talk about!

Wood rollerski review

While I was at the SR/U23 camp, I noticed Martin had wooden rollerskis. I remembered hearing about some guy's dad who was making them, so I said "hey are those the wooden skis that some guy's dad was making? how do you like them?", and it turns out that some guy's dad was Martin's dad, Peter Breu. Martin really liked the skis, and we talked for a while about the possibility of getting CSU on some wooden skis, since they are cheap (their major selling point is that they cost about half of what most rollerskis cost), and they have a brake. The CSU adults seem to be fixated on this safety stuff, I haven't quite figured it out yet. I guess not having any kids makes you more callous with other kids' safety. Anyway, I guess Martin talked to his dad, because Peter emailed me asking if I'd like to demo a pair of skis. I jumped at this opportunity, because it really would be great to have some cheap skate skis that have some sort of safety device.

I won't go too much into how much V2 skate skis suck, but lets just leave it at them being unreliable and high maintenance. And very expensive. CSU has some sort of deal with V2, which means most of the kids buy V2 skis, plus V2 skis have brakes and speed reducers, which the parents (and more intelligent coaches) really like. Look good, have fun, safety third. I was hoping that these could be a cheaper alternative to the unreliable, high maintenance, and high cost V2 skate skis.

Look at those sexy red boots! Oh wait, review skis here, not boots...

The skis came in the mail, and they had a wooden version of the V2 brake (but not close enough to violate any patents, Peter had checked that) attached to the back of the ski. I brought them along to a skate interval workout, with the brake attached, and basically it just confirmed my belief that rollerskis are not meant to have a brake, at least one of that design. They were super clunky and the weight in the back of the ski with the brake was seriously messing with my technique. I was pissed, and had to verbally restrain myself from throwing the skis forcibly into the woods.

So, I took off the brake. This is done by taking out one screw, so its not a big deal.

The next time I skied on them was for a skate OD with some pickups interspersed. This went much better, without the brake the skis are great, they handle just like my Elpex skate skis, which are a generic aluminum skate rollerski. Peter talks about the weight of the Hickory dampening some of the road vibration, and I could sort of feel a difference, but on the recently tarred-and-graveled section of the Littleton loop, they were no better than my aluminum skis. While skiing easy, I did not notice the extra weight (I think he says they're 5 ounces heavier than Marwes, so thats 10 ounces per pair of skis, which is ~.6lb), but during the pickups I could definitely feel the extra weight under my feet. Granted, the average eastern Mass highschooler will not be doing pickups or other speeds on rollerskis, so this is probably not an issue.

The shafts also have a lifetime guarantee - Peter says he has been making these for four years, and gave a pair to a 300lb friend who is a ski coach for testing purposes, and this coach hasn't broken the skis yet. So based on four years of data, the skis are strong. Who knows what happens over the years with repeated wear and tear, but the shafts are guaranteed, so you can continually replace them if they break. I imagine this might be a selling point for some people. Myself, I tend to not be heavy enough to break skis or rollerskis...

The wheels are the same as the pursuitski wheels, generic 100mm wheels that come in three speeds, fast, medium or slow. Really, there are only two things that set this ski apart from all the others - its wood, and it has a brake. I don't think the wood either helps or hurts the ski, and the brake is superior to the V2 brake, simply because the V2 one brakes at pivot points too often. So, if you're looking for a ski with a brake, these ones fit the bill. But I feel rather strongly that one should never skate ski with a brake - rely on your own agility and your body's resilience to take care of yourself. Walk down the hills you're uncomfortable skiing, and get off the road if the traffic situation is dicey.



My final impression is that these are GREAT skis for the price - the price ($130)just can't be beat for highschool skiers, especially in MA where they only race skate. I probably wouldn't recommend the skis to the JO kids or other elite skiers, just because they felt a little too heavy, and at that point you may as well plunge into the deep end and pay for the lower center of gravity of the Marwe's. None of those kids want a brake or speed reducers. But for the vast majority of skiers, these skis are perfectly adequate, and half the price.

Thanks to Peter for letting me demo his wooden rollerskis. Hopefully he'll design a brake that doesn't affect your technique soon! Then this ski will have two advantages.

Mile time trial

The orienteering section of CSU was running a mile time trial last Friday night, and since I figured nothing I do on Fridays could be as much fun as running circles, I headed over to Harvard to join them. I haven't run a mile since highschool track, where I think my PR was 6:21, so I wanted to see if I could beat that, using my residual ski fitness, since I haven't been running at all this summer.

I drove over to Lori's house (Tangent: my car has been in the shop all week getting a new bumper after I got rear ended the other day, and I had to pick it up Friday afternoon, which meant a 14-mile bike ride before this time trial. Grumble.), and we jogged over to the track with her whippet, Presto. He had a ton of energy since Lori hasn't been running due to an injured hip, so we figured we'd make one of the fast people take Presto for a couple laps. We got there a little late, and Ross and Brendan had already started. This worked out, because Ross agreed to be my rabbit, running a 6 minute pace for me, and Brendan and Lori would be the cheering squad. Ian showed up around then too, so it was a right party.


I'd forgotten how springy and bouncy a track feels underfoot, I really felt like I had wings on my ankles as I did some strides to warm up. Being a forefoot striker really does help when you're on a track. If only my achilles would agree. Its amazing how quickly the adrenaline kicks in when you're standing on the startline, even if its just to run circles alone in the dark. The first 200m felt effortless, they flew by in 41 seconds, which is fast, but I like to think of the first 200 as free speed, since you can't feel anything yet and maybe you're not building lactic acid. Or something like that. I slowed down in the next 200 and came through the lap in 86, but unfortunately I kept slowing down going into the second lap. It was starting to feel hard, and I didn't feel like I could run fast enough. I knew I was in trouble when I came through the 800 in three minutes flat, running the next two laps faster than the first two was going to be quite painful. I can tell I'm hurting when my strides lengthen and the tempo slows down, my chin lifts and my arms feel like they're in slow motion under water. My breathing was starting to get pretty noisy, although it was still rhythmic, and I tried to pick up the pace near the end of this third lap. I hit the 1200 at 4:34, and even in my lactic-acid-soaked state, I knew that I'd need to run faster than 90 to break 6. Its amazing how hard it is to speed up when your legs feel that heavy. My breathing was pretty ragged at this point, sucking wind and trying to cheat reality. I really felt like someone had hit the slow motion button on the video camera, as I came around the corner I tried to kick even more but it was barely worth mentioning.

I crossed the line in 6:04, and I was simultaneously pleased and disappointed. Yes, I'd wanted to break 6, but I also proved to myself that I am faster now than I was when I was running track. Those four seconds can probably be attributed to poor pacing and a lack of running fitness, but I feel like my overall fitness is fine. I was able to absolutely push to the limit, and I'm pleased about that. Of course, cyclocross season will help with exploring my pain cave...

My knee held up fine throughout the speed, so I am declare myself healed from this stupid knee injury. The next TT is probably going to be a 3k, and that is one that actually matters to me. Hopefully it'll be fast.

Presto got some exercise chasing a ball on the infield when we were done running. I think he was probably pushing 40mph, if not faster, when he really got going. That dog can MOVE. Nothing runs quite like a long-legged sight hound... I wish I could fly like that.

Commuting again

One of the great things about my funemployment was that I didn't have to commute. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy riding my bike, but there are places I would rather ride than Boston. Anyway, one of the joys of my commute around this time of year is the section that passes BU, when all the freshmen are moving in. I don't know whats worse, the hordes of freshmen standing in the middle of the road, their parents triple parked in their SUVs, the traffic clusterf***s that result from said triple parking, or the sudden influx of hipsters on brakeless bikes. Anyway, I came up with a solution: The freshman catcher! Sort of like a cow catcher, only, possibly electrified. Maybe I'll just start carrying a cow prod.

Summer's over

Not much went on this weekend, I wisely chose to take a day off while the hurricane soaked the Massachusetts coast, spent four hours making a lasagne, and rollerskied with CSU. Peter Breu sent me a pair of wooden rollerskis to test out, I'll put up a product review once I've skied on them, since today was a classic day. Oh, and I start working Monday. Summer vacation is over. It sure was good while it lasted... now its back to the real world, lets see if I can handle the stress. I'd better take a nap while I still have time!

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I love being home. Its a mix of naps with my beagle, crazy training (although not too crazy) with Jess, and wegmans. The real world is calling, but I think I'll stay another day... or three...

Working on the cx bike, with a tray full of peaches. Thank god for toothpicks, those are some dirty fingers. Really I should have been working on the mountain bike, that poor beast is a wreck right now...

I went riding at Dryer with Jess, Graham, a guy named Sean, and Eric Metzler. I tried to take a picture of Eric in the parking lot, and only managed half my head and the bottom of his face... for a guy with a six month old kid, hes in damn good shape.

Jess and Graham - you can tell by Jess' face how sweaty Graham's back probably is...

We got caught on camera during a warmup run. Wheeee!