Fall Beast Race

The Fall Beast Race was today. The weather was memorable. After a few inches of snow yesterday, temperatures were hovering just above freezing with snow and sleet coming down as I headed out to Lake Youngs for the Fall Beast Race. My partner was Dave Russell from Hood River, a steady, solid racer that Aaron hooked me up with. I think that we fit really well together.

After almost wiping out on my bike going from the car to the picnic shelter, I was worried about using the new clipless pedals that I put on my mountain bike, but I'm glad that I had them.
I'd highly recommend Crank Brothers Eggbeaters if you are going to find yourself in mud and slush, as they don't gum up like Dave's SPDs seemed to be doing, are they are very easy to clip in/out of (even for a newbie like me). Not to say I didn't crash - I did a couple times - but snow is very forgiving as long as there are not too many pokey things underneath it.

On our way from the picnic shelter to the official start line across the highway, we passed by an SUV that had skidded off the road and over a berm, taking out about thirty feet of fence, and landing almost in the bike path. Conditions did not look favorable for a twenty mile bike ride today, and I think that I would have rather been in bed right at that moment, but you can't take the adventure out of "adventure race" without losing a little something.

We originally planned that I would navigate, but a mapboard malfunction at the starting line left my mapboard useless, so Dave nav'd the first half of the bike section while I handled the passport. I set us back what felt like ten minutes when I misread the clue for B11 and thought we were looking for another streamer, although in the back of my mind, I was wondering how the race organizers had put a streamer on the inside of the fence in the watershed... It was disheartening to see several racers pass us as we backtracked, looking for the wrong thing. Then we missed the turn off to B12 because we were too hasty, but realized our mistake quickly enough not to lose too much time. After that, we simul-navigated the rest of the route, agreeing on where we were and where we were going, and we finished the rest of the course without error.

My bike was very unhappy, however. It only wanted to shift into half of the gears available at any given time due to slush buildup, and the brakes decided to throw in the towel by the time we hit the single track trails. After accelerating down a hill and into a snowbank, I learned my lesson, and rode the downhills on Cedar Mountain with one foot out as both an outrigger and a brake.

By the time the bike section was done, I was soooo ready to get off my bike. We were completely soaked from riding (in the rain) through two inches of slush that melted into muddy pools and rivulets. Now we can _run_ in the rain through the slush. Much better....

Running is much more relaxing than biking, though, as I can read my map easily while I run, and I have a lot of "run energy". We harnessed this by setting up a tow between me and Dave, and I got to run as hard as I wanted without worrying about getting too far ahead, and this helped us keep up a solid pace and pass a few other teams along the way. We had no run navigation problems, and our bushwhacking havigation was dead-on on T3. Going to T10 I got momentarily confused as to whether we could cross an out-of-bounds area on a road, and after a few minutes of wasted discussion and weighing our options (go back on long, hellacious trails, go forward on short, easy road) sanity prevailed. I think that we were both pretty tired pulling into the finish - I know I was.

Lessons Learned:

1. Test out your gear ahead of time - I just got my mapboard minutes before the race, and it failed, leaving me in a worse situation than if I hadn't had it in the first place.
2. Find way to manage passport better. Passports get wet in rainy conditions, so we tried to take it out as little as possible. Also I crumpled it up a lot inside its bag while holding it while riding our stuffing it in a pocket, causing the misread at B11. Better to have it in a see through folder with a grease pencil.
3. Clipless pedals are great for slushy uphills and straightaways. I'm glad I tried them. On the downhills, I was afraid of skidding out, and sometimes unclipped at least on side, which also worked fine.
4. A well thought plan can sometime go by the wayside when we see someone else ride passed us heading in a different direction. I should be more prepared up front (Dave brought highlighters and straightedge) and maybe mark important turns with a different color highlighter (e.g. missed turn to B12)
5. We should have seen our planned path going through an out-of-bounds zone at the end and asked about allowability of going on a road. Or maybe someone did ahead of time, but we weren't listening to instructions.
6. Clothing - I wore my biking tights and gortex pants, wool socks w/ seal skins over them, wool long sleeve, poly thermal over that, gortex jacket. I was a bit warm on the bike, but I got soaked through and was glad I had everything. On the run I wore the same without the gortex. I had biking gloves on bike and light poly gloves on run, light poly hat. I tried the glacier gloves before the bike - they kept my hands from getting wet, but made my fingers cold after a while due to constriction.
   
7. Tow rope worked well. It not only helped Dave keep pace, but then he and I were always within talking range, and we could chat while moving. That helped us make sure that we both knew where we were and what our plan was. I liked that

I really appreaciate the efforts that Aaron V. and Matt Hayes put into setting up the race, and the other volunteers who also helped. They turned a messy, soggy day into an adventure.