Race The Rockies Adventure Challenge
First Aid Skills Put to Practice
Shawn Wenger, Team Talus  / 03.09.2005
Driving into Golden, we were in awe of the amazing mountains. Those are real mountains we all agreed. Looking up at the imposing ridgeline above the resort where we were to start and finish, I never imagined I would be trekking up there, never mind in the dark.
This was our first long adventure race, having started with various sprint distances over the last two years. The dark was still intimidating for us,especially since any nighttime practice so far had been on familiar terrain.
After gear check and last minute packing and re-packing of gear, we took a picture of the fridge full of hydration bladders and headed off to bed for six hours of race-filled dreams. Our day began at 3:00 am since you can\'t be a \"Wenger\" if you like extra sleep (it¹s in the fine print that I didn\'t notice).
Chris\'s parents, Ferdi and Klara, graciously agreed to provide race support for us, and Ferdi and Chris took off early to take the canoe to TA1 since there was some concern that we would beat our support team to the TA before they had a chance to unload. In our case, this worry was unwarranted.
The race meeting took place in the day lodge at 4:30 am where race director Adele Frizzell explained the advanced course and regular course cut-off time, answered questions and distributed maps and instructions to racers and support crews.
Chris spent the next 45 minutes madly plotting UTM coordinates and jotting notes on the map. Next time I will try to double check over his shoulders - but more about that later.
3 2 1 go. Incidentally that was our team number  321. Ferdi said it was a beautiful sight to see all our bike lights flowing up the mountain. From our perspective it was a bit of a mish-mash with trying not to run over anyone or be run over while trying to keep track of each other. Soon enough we were on our own when we decided one of the roads was going the wrong direction and we feared we were heading back to the resort. After climbing abit more just to be sure, we ended up back on the original road, now following a cold trail over many cog-marked logs along a creek and through a few marshy areas. Wet feet are a foregone conclusion.
This is where we met Team Valhalla Pure Kamloops (325) and were glad not to be the only ones who had already gone astray. Our third teammate, Doreen Johnstone, had a tough time along this leg, twice hitting rocks and crashing. She got the trophy bruises early on. Once we got on track, we were set except for Doreen stepping into a hip-deep hole during a water crossing.
I was impressed that she could hold her bike above her head with one arm until I could grab it.
We were third last coming to the canoes and Ferdi was starting to worry about us. We love the boat, so this was our best section. We started out in the fog on the Columbia River, not sure which way to choose in a mass of braided channels. We did our best to assess the main current at each junction. This was a very exciting leg for us as we passed team after team as the fog lifted and the sun came out. Doreen paddles out-rigger canoes and Chris and I spend a bit of time in the marathon racing shell, so we settled into the cadence and chatted with teams as we passed, only once having to leap out and run through the shallows to keep the boat from dragging. It was nice to see some people after such a solitary bike ride to start us off.
SleepMonsters
