I was excited for my first solo race of the year and to be back at Ohiopyle. Kelly (my wife) was racing with the teamhalfwaythere.com team, so we were able to travel up, camp, and experience the pre-race fun together, which was great. We received our maps the night before and just had to copy the CPs onto the map. My buddy Michelle was gracious enough to copy the points for me since we were running late getting out of DC. The race looked very straight forward – a short 3ish mile run prologue, followed by a 20Kish bike, then a paddle of undisclosed length, another bike, an o-course, and a bike finish. We had everything but the paddle and the o-course plotted, and the nav looked straight forward. My goal was to win the race and I felt awesome in the beginning, but over the next 10 hours I would have emotional swings that I typically only experience in expedition length races.
The race started with a short prologue to space out the field. I knew that I had a chance to do well in the race, and wanted to stay with the leaders or lead the field coming back to the bikes. So I ran with my friends on team SOG and transitioned right behind them. The following bike section was flat as we rode along the rail trail on the river. I hammered as best I could, but I never caught SOG, and came into the paddle TA second with another solo racer, Steve. I was feeling great. We quickly grabbed our running gear and headed to where the boat put-in was located – about a 1/2 K run. The normal paddle in this race is on the middle Yough, and includes some easy class 1 and 2 whitewater. But this year, the paddle was moved to the lake that feeds the river as the water on the river was super high, very cold, and raging pretty good. The unfortunate part we still had to paddle duckies, with heavy double bladed paddles, on very still water. I can’t remember exactly the distance of the paddle, but I think it was about 3.5 hours on the water. This is where the first emotional low point of the race happened for me. I entered the water second feeling great…right behind SOG, and closely followed by Steve. Steve and I were passed by a few 2/3 person teams, and got to the one CP on the water at the same time, but then he passed me. And on the way back I was passed by another soloist and several more 2/3 teams. I was upset that my lead was gone, and desperately wanted to get off the water. Minutes of paddling felt like hours as I struggled to stay positive. I ended up coming back into the TA several hundred meters behind Steve and the other soloist. I was upset at my performance on the water.
Finally off the water, I lugged my ducky up the hill and left it with a volunteer. Doug was there and gave a shout of encouragement. I’m sure I didn’t look happy as I ran past him. Next came another mountain bike section with one major climb up to Sugarloaf mountain. I passed one of the other soloists in the TA, and was off. After riding for about 40 minutes, I caught up to Steve and we ended up rolling into the TA together. I was feeling good again, and felt confident that I could run the entire o-course and hopefully develop a good lead. I was feeling great again. The o-course only had 4 points, and they were plotted on a master map at the TA. Wanting to beat Steve out of the TA, I quickly plotted the points and headed out. Steve was right behind me. As I ran, I pulled ahead and knew that the race was mine to win. I was feeling just awesome. I nailed the first 3 points with ease, and passed Steve and another soloist Dave Ashley on my way to get the 4th point. I was about 15-20 minutes ahead and they were walking and I was running. I knew the race was mine…but here is where things got interesting and why I titled this writeup the Big Ups and Big Downs. I arrived at where I had plotted the 4th control, and it wasn’t there. I knew exactly where I was on the map, but no flag…no CP. My heart raced and then sank. I ran up and down the road where I had it plotted, even re-traced my steps to see if I missed something along the way. Nothing. There was no cluesheet for the o-couse, so I didn’t even know what I was looking for. After about an hour, I realized that I must have misplotted the point. HOW did I do that? Transpose a point wrong…how did I do something so STUPID…I asked myself as I did the only thing I could do at that point…head back to the TA. It took a good 20 to 30 minutes of self-pity before I got over it, and said the heck with it…what is done is done. I couldn’t change my mistake, I could only finish the race as best I could. So, I got back to the TA and told Doug that I plotted a point wrong. He responded with a positive – you’ll still do fine in the race with the other points. I didn’t have enough time to go back out and get the last o-point and make it back to start in time. As I headed out of the TA, I saw SOG coming back in from the o-course and saw Steve and David Ashley. I yelled to them what had happened, and they blankly looked back at me with a “that really sucks” sort of look. I rode hard to the finish and ended up 4th in the solo category. Although I was very disappointed with my mistake, I felt awesome physically the entire race, nailed the navigation, and my nutrition was dialed in great. If I was going to mess up, I’m glad it happened in a solo race and not with the team.
I couldn’t wait to race again and redeem myself…well I got my chance down in Florida a few weeks later and that result was oh so much better!
Thanks to Doug Crytzer and his American Adventure Sports staff, and all the great volunteers. You all make adventure racing possible.
