Race Report: Bonk, Hard, and Chill

The thorn scratches, chapped skin, and cedar branch-slap inducing wounds are healing a week after our adventure race, but the memories of what we were doing this time last Saturday have faded little. Three days after my 34th birthday, me and the other members of the newly re-monikered "34 down" (Jeff, Josh, and Jason had already turned 34 years of age), towed the line for the 2013 Bonk Hard Chill alongside the best in the midwest, for what would prove to be a chilly, bonkish, and admittedly hard 12-hour adventure of a race in the heart of Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks.

Smack-talk and a little fraternizing with the Enemy, er Boyfriend.

At 7:06 sharp, competing teams ran into the gathering dawn. We were among the front crowd, with Team Alpine Shop (odds on favorite for the win) right there with us.  I noticed their navigator, fleece jacket in hand, veer right through the parking lot as we kept straight into the woods. The entire field followed them, and for a minute I thought "everyone is following him to his car to drop it off!" In reality, that did sort of happen, except that one of two routes to the first CP on the other side of a pond took teams through the parking lot, and we were the only team to choose the other route!  Things were already getting interesting, and we made it to CP1 near the front of the pack.

The first leg was a trek, and our navigator ("map", "nav", "captain") Jeff bee-lined us to each of the check points (CPs) 1-6.  For about an hour, we traded the lead with Alpine Shop and the two-man Team Fusion, approaching points from different sides, different ridges, ping-ponging our way through stands of cedar trees (low-hanging, sharp branches), clothes-ripping thorns, and snaking vines worthy of a sci-fi film. Finally, we emerged from the woods at the bike drop in first (!), Alpine Shop and Team Fusion in hot pursuit.

The bike leg proceeded along rural highways and byways, up and down so many hills, I lost track. We were all feeling pretty good, and this section passed quickly.  At CP9, we dropped the bikes, now just barely in third, and rummaged around in our packs for a gear check.

In "hot pursuit" of Team Alpine Shop.

Despite the fact that I had to pull items from the very bottom of my pack, we made this a fast transition.

First on the water with our canoe paddles!

We had a few trekking CPs to hit before the inevitable paddle on the Lake of the Ozarks.  More low-hanging branches, bramble patches, and cedar stands. At one point, I got slapped so hard in the face by an errant branch that my vision went white.  Quickly though, we popped out on the beach, running up along the water a short ways to where the canoes were stowed. Josh and Jeff got the canoes in the water as Jason and I grabbed canoe paddles and PFDs.   Team Alpine Shop and Team Fusion were there right along with us. We gained a slight advantage getting out on the water first - short-lived though it was. The other teams had to put together their kayak paddles. In hind-sight, this might be the next piece of gear we incorporate into our race strategy. Jeff and Jason in one boat, and Josh in the back of our boat, we plowed those canoes through the chop like a Navy Seal team. Our strategy on the paddle in the past was to bungie the boats together, taking advantage of Jeff and Jason's strength relative to my girlie strokes, and it worked really well on the rivers and calm lakes.  But the cross-winds and speed-boat traffic combining to make waves and steering difficulties made it almost dangerous to tether.  Besides, after eight weeks of consistent swimming for triathlon training, I shocked my teammates almost as much as I shocked myself with my new found paddle muscle!  And we found ourselves only minutes behind when we went to beach and trek for a few CPs mid-paddle.

At this point, we were in a solid third; no boats were visible behind us. We scrambled onto the bank, and I struggled to pull a jacket out of my pack and put it on (I had gotten chilled on the water), as our team pushed on. I was running just behind Jeff, but when I looked down to buckle my pack back on, my foot hit a root, and I belly-flopped onto the ground, submerged in a pile of leaves. I didn't utter a sound, save for an "oomph", and when I gathered myself together, pulling leaves out of my hair and face, at first I couldn't see my team, so steep and dense was this little section. I spotted them above me, and quickly navigated the branches to latch back on.  We navigated several obnoxiously steep reentrants on this otherwise undisturbed peninsula of land, coming right along the ridge to the first CP16(ish).  Somehow, major props to Jeff and team for so quickly moving through woods, we actually came back out to our boats, after the three-CP trek, in first once again!

The winds had not abated, and the waves were now parallel to our boats as we traversed the main channel in the water. Josh and I had a stomach-in-our-throats-fright-or-flight moment as a wave hit us just as we both dug for water with our paddles. We took a pause, thinking that would have made things a "little" more difficult had we gone in. We both took on some comfort food, peanut butter and jelly, and followed Jeff and Jason up a much calmer side channel, finally docking the boats, and preparing for a trek back to our bikes. Here we also had a chance to get more food and water. I scarfed down Jeff's classic gorp. But, I looked longingly over at Team Alpine Shop (having arrived just before us) and the Coke classics they were guzzling. It's been a long time since I so desperately craved a soda!

Check out that secret smile!

No time to daydream! Time to bushwhack. A couple CPs and we were back at the bikes. By now it had been five odd hours total, two hours + on the paddle, and my toes were wet and frozen. But the rest of me was dry, and we were doing really, really well together.  And we were about to ride bikes, which is one of my favorite things to do.

Up and down, and up, and down again before coming to single track. I was pretty excited to see what the bike beneath me was capable of doing - a loaner from one of my and Boyfriend's (tall) friends (hugely grateful) - a ridiculously light, carbon, hard-tail, 29er. (I really should just get one for myself)  Right away, the single-track proved to be rutted, rooted, run-off, horse trail. Grrr...and often unrideable.  But, there were points of awesome, and a few sections where I gleefully yelled out "29er!" as if I were yelling "Eureka!" after proving String Theory. But by and large, it was a difficult slog for all of us, hike-a-biking, and staving off untimely bonks as the race approached the seven-hour mark. We did not see a single team around us until we hit the roads again to return to CP28, at which point we encountered teams just starting out on the bike.

Happy to be trekking once again!

A welcome sight, CP28. We dropped the bikes and bike gear, received new points to plot, on-boarded glutinous amounts of nutrition, and gathered together our muscle, moral, and momentum. No teams entered the CP while we were there plotting, so solidly had we positioned ourselves in third!

The last trek was long, and hard. A few of the CPs were the same ones we had picked up on the original trek, but we were confounded by a few of them.  The approaches differed, and the terrain was at once familiar and unknown.  Jeff did his very best with the nav, and we were quickly back on track. Nearing the end, Jason and I were counting down the CPs, I inhaled my emergency candy bar ("break wrapper in case of emergency"), and Josh put on almost every piece of clothing in his pack.  The temperature had dropped, the clouds had thickened, and the breeze picked up. Jeff announced that we had perhaps 1.5 kilometers, and two more hills to traverse. Over the next hill, he told us he had lied, and that "now" we have two more hills. And somehow, that was comforting both times, as I figured I had two more hills in my legs. This worked kind of like when someone tells you that you have a half-mile to go in a marathon, but really, it is more than a mile, but just them saying it gets you through that half-mile to the next one.

The finish line came into view, and we actually debated whether to take the shortcut or go the long way so as to approach the inflated Bonk Hard Racing balloon "properly"! Wouldn't you know it, we took the long way, always game for a photo-op.

Very happy to be done with another romp in the woods with friends.

Race wrap - up: (9:25:01, 2nd place 4-person co-ed, 3rd overall).  Props to my team for another great time racing. Congrats to Boyfriend's Team Alpine Shop and Team Fusion; you pushed us so hard at the beginning, what a race!  Thanks to Bonk Hard Racing for putting on another great race, and all the volunteers for working all day, taking pictures, checking our gear, maintaining our safety, the list goes on.

Team Alpine Shop, overall champs, and Boyfriend! CONGRATULATIONS!

Race Report: I picked my nose twice in one week-end.

The conditions were perfect for a half-marathon-ish trail race through the single track of Cuivre River. A week's worth of snow, rain, and thaw ensured that there would be mud, creek crossings, and questionable footing. In hindsight, I suppose there was one mudding section, from about 0.01 to 13.2ish miles!

Getting to start in the first wave (me and "the guys") has its advantages, among them being first on the course. It really didn't matter much today. From the first steps in my new Brooks PureGrit trail shoes and my bright green Big River Running jersey., I was ankle deep in puddles, mud, and horse tracks. The start and finish proceeded along an out-and-back dirt road for a half-mile each way, which meant that 618 legs, with feet at the end, tread that course at least once before I came along for the finish.  But, I get ahead of myself.

From the start I settled into a comfortable pace. The steady downpour hadn't materialized yet, and I was one of the first (sixth) to enter the trails. I had someone on my keester for the first few miles, which was great because it helped me set a good pace and be aware of hazards to call out. I spent a lot of time scissoring from one side of the trail to another to avoid the worst of the mushy bits, dancing around trees, fallen logs, and the occasional briar bush. 

By mile three I had lost my tail and was running "alone" (relatively speaking since I was still aware of unseen and unheard competitors in front and behind me). The course entered a gloomy, scented cedar forest. Here the trail was slippery with pine needles, and more than once I found myself doing a passable impression of The Roadrunner as I tiptoed my way around sharp turns. There was little room for error with the tight trees and low boughs. I passed a few aid stations, very much running a solo race at this point, when I spotted a white shirt running about 30 seconds ahead of me, a pacesetter materialized.

I picked up the pace, gaining valuable seconds as we ascended uphills and into even more questionable footing. I lost sight of the white shirt at a section that required superior focus and masterly foot-placement, as we ran a hairs-breadth from the edge of slight ridge that hung above the swollen river, all while negotiating mud, roots, and moss-covered rocks. It was hear also that we ran through an almost surreal setting - remnants of snow on the ground, a verdant fog hanging in the air, and the sound of footfalls and running water simultaneously muffled and jumbled into a cacophony of suspended animation.

I was perhaps less than 10 seconds behind white shirt when I came around a corner, and, my eyes on the trail, almost ran into the back of him. He was paused at the widest and deepest creek crossing yet. The water moved swiftly over an unseen river bottom. I simply said "onward", took one short step, and then long-jumped into the rapids, my foot hitting bottom just as my knee became submerged.

Now I was in front, and white shirt hung with me, even chivalrously allowing me to remain in front as I took four steps down the wrong trail. But he was running his race, and I was running mine (in pursuit of Boyfriend), and soon, my footsteps were alone again.

At 10ish miles (the mile markers all read "6ish miles", "9ish miles", etc), a cheery aid station volunteer and friend indicated that Boyfriend might not be to far in the distance... "How come you are letting Doug beat you?" to which I responded, "He never does what I tell him, ha!" It was at this point that the course doubled back on itself so that for the briefest of sections, runners run both ways on a single-track, and I got to glimpse the faces of fellow runners as they calculated their foot placement. It was also about this time when the thought popped into my head that I was "sure glad that steady rain never started", and right then it started.

And suddenly, I emerged onto the same mud road we hit in the beginning, this time a quagmire of bi-directional footprints. Just ahead of me, a blue shirt, with a familiar gate, if slightly altered by the degraded conditions. I added some steam, shortening the distance as much as I could over the next half-mile before Boyfriend hit the turn around and realized it was me splashing along behind him. I didn't catch him, but he gave out a pleased holler when he made the turn-around and saw me.

We finished about 30 seconds apart. I managed a 1:50:50 for first overall female and fifth place overall. I'll post links to the race picks when they are up - I hope the photographer posts the one of me giving a comical "nose-pick" to the camera as I ran by. (Apparently, I didn't get enough nose-picking at yesterday's Runnin' of the Noses 5K, which I also won!)