Digging Deep My RAID Experience 2003

I couldn't see very well. My ears felt blocked...sort of like when you hear someones voice when you are underwater. I felt absolutely, positively ill. And for the first time in my life, I couldn't muster even the most remote energy from my legs in order to propel me forward, even an inch - and I was on rollerblades.

Brian and Nic were on either side of me...grunting...struggling....desperately pushing with all their strength to get the three of us up that last hill to the finish. I squinted and barely saw the race official up ahead, less than 1/8 of a mile up the hill, waiting.....ready to slam the door shut on our chance to start the final mountainbike section to the end. Then I saw our fourth teammate, Clint. He was running down the hill, helmet and biking shoes already on. And through the grunting and heavy breathing I heard him shout, "You've got 5 minutes left! But I think you can get there in 3!" What happened next was a blur of sweat, rollerblade wheels and asphalt. We had rigged a tow system with Brian and Nic on either side of me, helping to pull me and my lifeless legs up the hills towards the checkpoint and to the finish. Brian, motivated by Clints words, made a frenzied attempt to lunge forward, thrusting his skate outward and inadvertantly into my own. I lurched, swerved, and saw Nic swing around to avoid me... and then we were down. Down HARD - a sharp, electric-like bolt of pain shooting up my hip and into my head. I sat there stunned, for what seemed like minutes.





The accumulation of 27 hours of exertion, sleep deprivation, high temperatures and dehydration was luring me into shutdown. I heard Clint yelling, "Get up! Get up!" But it felt like I couldn't. Then I heard Nics voice quietly, below all the noise surrounding my head. "Jen, you've got to get up. Dig deep just one more time, babe." So I did. Somehow, I peeled my body off that asphalt and got back up on those freakin' 'devil wheels'. Brian coached me into a semi-flexed position, with my hands on my knees, and we fought our way desperately, laborously up that last hill - Nic next to me, struggling himself , and half-wretching from the effort... and Brian pushing with me from behind. Then suddenly, surprisingly, we were there....rolling past the official - with one minute to spare. We spent the next ten minutes preparing for the final bike segment and taking care of Nic who was totally depleted from the effort of the last section. My head was spinning. And as I sat down, I fought back tears...partially from total heat exhaustion.. partly from knowing I had contributed to my teammates depletion for the next section, but mostly... because I realized that I was physically unable to ride the the final section to the Finish with my team. "Take care of Nic", was all I could whisper to Clint as they rode away. Without me.

I decided to start by telling you about this second to last section of the race, 26 hours into it, because to me..it represents the entire weekend - the struggles, the teamwork, the desperate feeling of sliding under or close to the wire of every time cutoff we were given....and the underlying refusal by any of us to let this course beat us. We got an unexpected look into our individual souls that weekend. And we saw that we were able to pull something out of ourselves, at times when we thought we had nothing left - a place athletes don't put themselves voluntarily. This was our first attempt at a 2-day adventure race. We were simply a group of four friends bound together by a love of multi-sport racing, and the satisfaction out of pushing our bodies through hell and back.
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We had discovered Adventure Racing in the Summer of 2003, and we formed a team. With only two sprint races under our belts earlier that season, we saw an opportunity to do a longer race in our own backyard of Stanley, Idaho - The Raid World Adventure Series. Adventure Racing in Idaho? How could we pass it up! So we applied. And surprisingly, we actually got in. I still think it was mostly due to luck. Or perhaps due a little out of the curiosity of the race director, who was probably wondering what these local rookies were willing to subject themsleves to. But we loved this sport. And we loved adventure! How could we NOT give it a shot? At minimum, we'd gain an education, even if it physically exhausted us.. The local paper did an excellent job at covering the race. They made our team look approachable, 'real' and not too 'super-human'. And they gave the public a good taste of what was involved over two days of this type racing with descriptions of mileage, altitude and individual biography. But what noone can describe to you fully, unless you experience it firsthand, are the 'nontangibles'. The stuff that you see and feel as a racer. I was motivated to enter this race by the physical challenge. But I came out of it with an appreciation of something much more abstract.

THE RACE

- The race was designed to cover 170 miles over two days - starting in Stanley and ending in Sun Valley, Idaho. The course was divided into ten segments involving mountain-biking, high-altitude running/trekking, navigation, rope skills, canoeing and yes...the dreaded inline skating. Did I mention that noone on our team even knew how to skate until two months before the race? Well, we all have the scars to prove it. The teams were co-ed groups of four. Most teams we found to be professional, or at least they had much more experience with adventure racing than we did. Clothed in plain blue dri-fit T-shirts and mismatched gear, we felt a bit out of place next to these impressive athletes in their colorful sponsor-laden jerseys. We were Team Simple Pleasures. No big name sponsors to advertise. No fancy gear to promote. But named for our outlook on life and armed with a never-say-die attitude. How could we really lose? The race was structured so that three teammates would race while the other one would sit out, rest and act as support. I, as the only female, could only miss three sections in total. So strategically, we selected three 'leg-power' segments that I would sit out on, knowing that the guys could muscle through it at a faster pace. But as luck, or fate or miscalculation of metres to miles would have it ( the race staff was French, conversion was a slight problem) ...we ended up with very little transition time or sleep, and between skipping certain sections and missing cutoff times for others....I soon realized that my sections, were going to be pretty close together, if not back-to-back. Ouch.





The next morning we rallied and got ready again, still affected by the gross effort of the previous day. Clint, Brian and I started out on the mountain-bike segment of the day. We all secretly, were not too disappointed to find that we had missed the cutoff for the next climb/trek when we returned - only 3 out of 4 professional teams actually had. The section was long, steep and the temperatures were rising into the 90's. We drove to the start of the last two segments ( fixing a flat Jeep tire en route ) to prepare for the final disciplines: the inline skating I described earlier....and one last mountain-bike section which we had received special permission to ride together as a full team of four to the finish line.

OUR SUPPORT:

We didn't do it alone. Man....we have some good friends.



Brad Acker - support-guy extrordinaire was with us the entire time handling our gear, tending to our needs, at our beckon call with First Aid and TLC only a friend can give. Mike Stewart - our original teammate who had separated his shoulder the week before the race, still shared the sleepless weekend with his team, assisting Brad with shuttling us around and keeping us encouraged the whole way. And Jon and Cathy Rushton - who started off simply intending to cheer us on a few sections, as they had planned to fish and camp in the area that weekend.....who got sucked into the drama, and for the ENTIRE two days contributed via gear shuttling, blister-care and well-timed 'moonings' on the river section. As Jon would put it later, "We just couldn't stay away!" No....I think we just have really good friends.





LESSONS:

We learned a lot from this race experience. We learned about nutrition, hydration and the effects it can have on prolonging stamina. We learned that all of us have a hidden source from which to dig, that we never realized we had. And we learned that this type of racing requires more than four individual athletes doing the same course at the same time. It requires four people who care about each other and have the ability to put their teammates well-being above their own pace desires, personal needs, or egos, in order to ensure that an ailing teammate never feels alone...and knows they always have someone pulling for them. We spent 48 hours towing each other on bikes, pulling each other on uphill runs, encouraging each other through times when we thought we couldn't take another step. And in my opinion, ( and Nic's too, I imagine ) the 'stud' of the weekend and the one who represented what Adventure Racing is truly about - was Clint. Clint Walker was a quiet, South African triathlete working in the United States and had been a good friend of mine for several years. When our original teammate Mike, had a mountain-bike wreck and fractured his collarbone the week before the race, we instantly thought of asking Clint to fill in. Clint was a closet thrill-seeker like we all were, with a laid-back demeanor and incredibly strong legs. He had never done an adventure race or competed with a team. But he was a strong runner, a powerful cyclist, and had paddling experience. Clint was our man. No doubt about it. It didn't even matter that he didn't know the other two teammates very well. He was game simply because he knew me. And he knew I always came up with new, crazy activities to try, that ended up being fun - even if there was some pain involved.



But on this particular day, struggling himself with nausea, dehydration, tired legs and pretty much equal amounts of food and sleep deprivation, he saw Nic, his teammate, totally depleted from two days of assisting others, falter in the last mountain-bike climb - a discipline he usually takes lead on. Instead of biking ahead, leaving Nic behind and waiting for hi

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