It was that time of year again and I was excited to race in the Castlewood Adventure Race on Dec 1st. I love endurance mountain bike racing but, I was ready to add paddling, running, and orienteering to my racing calendar again. It's been a few years since my last adventure race and it was great to see so many familiar faces again. I was also pumped to race on a 4-person coed team this year. When I was asked to race with Zdenek Palecek, Adam Rybar, and Todd Dohogne, I knew we were going to shoot for the podium. These 3 guys are super talented and super fast.
We met at the Alpine Shop the night before the race where we received our race maps, numbers, and instructions. They handed out some of the maps and some were pre-plotted and others were not. We finished plotting maps there and worked through our racing strategy. We knew that Alpine Shop, Team Kuat, and Bushwackers were on our list to beat.
79 teams consisting of 4-person and 2-person coed, all female and all male lined up at the start at 7:00 AM on an unseasonably warm morning. The first section consisted of a series of orienteering checkpoints within the park to be done on foot in any order. When the gun went off, teams ran off in all directions. We chose to start on the north side of the park first which led us crossing a stream and scrambling up a creek bank. We were happy to see Alpine Shop chose the same way too since David Frei is an incredible navigator. It seemed that we kept running into Alpine Shop during this leg and soon we saw Team Kuat too. We were happy to see this because we knew we were hanging with the lead teams. Team Bushwacker was close behind us. We chose to have Todd tow me on foot since he is a machine and this would free up Adam while his head was in the maps. Zdenek was fast and we had him punch most of the checkpoints on this section.
We successfully completed the first orienteering section in 39 minutes and made a very fast transition to the bikes. The next section started out on paved roads where we picked up check points along the way. We headed out Kiefer Creek and climbed up St Paul Road. We could see Team Kuat in front of us once we started the monster climb that led us to Ridge Road. We bombed down "Zombie Road" were we played yo yo with Bushwacker. From there, we flew around on the flat dirt trails on the other side of Castlewood State Park.
After 1:02 hrs we were greeted by friendly volunteers in the woods, to include Kate Geiesen, where we were given 3 checkpoints to be completed on foot around the Blue Ribbon Trail area. We opted to change out our bike shoes to running shoes which was the best decision since some sections were long and steep. We didn't know it at the time but, we bumped into the lead team which Sunny Gilbert was on. Again, we were seeing Bushwacker and Team Kuat too so we knew we were staying in the top 5. We were all still feeling pretty strong at this point. Adam was doing an awesome job with the navigation, Zdenek was being fast as usual, Todd was super strong, and I was doing my best to hang on. We came out of the woods on this section in 26 minutes which was the fastest time among the top 5 teams behind Sunny's team, 33 Down. We were stoked we were still in the top 3-5!
Next, was a fast 20minute dirt ride to the canoe put in. It was required to paddle the 6 1/2 mile leg with the bikes in the canoe while picking up 2 checkpoints along the way. The boats felt really loaded down and the canoe paddles we had to use were heavy. However, we were able to catch teams Kuat and Bushwacker. I later learned that this was our strongest discipline with 2nd fastest time out of 79 teams.
One hour and 30 minutes later we beached the canoes at Castlewood State Park where a spot gear check was performed by 2 cool friends, Laura Scherff and Mary Piper. We were ask to see 4 items we were required to carry from the mandatory gear list. We got checked off and we were quickly on our way for the last discipline of the race, mountain biking on singletrack. We went into this leg excited since all 4 of us were mountain bike racers. However, we accidentally blew by one of the checkpoints forcing us to turn around which cost us some time. We got into a groove again and then, Adam got a flat. We quickly changed it but, the new tube had a hole in it too. Ughhh. Another quick change and we were off. We raced on almost all the Castlewood trails except Love and Rollercoaster. We were flying down Groetpeter almost to the finish line when I saw Adam running with his bike. You have got to be kidding! Another flat? We opted to take a shortcut through the woods and across a creek since Adam had to run his bike anyway. The final leg took us 56 minutes and we crossed the finish line with a total race time of 4:53. We took 5th place in our division and 7th overall out of 79 teams. Congrats to Sunny's team, 33 Down, on the win. They were super strong the whole race. Next time, they will be on our radar.
Despite the mistakes and a few flats, we were all very pleased with our results for our first time racing together. We had such a blast. Our goal going in the race was to be in the top 3-4 teams which we did for the majority of the race. We are excited to train more together to help us prepare for the next two adventure races in February and March-Land Between the Lakes, KY 18hr and Bonk Hard Chill, MO 12hr.
Even though I miss competing during the winter months, I do need the mental and physical break from racing and enjoy hitting the weight room with Off the Front folks and coach Chris Mileski. Our workouts take place at the Sports Enhancement Group in Chesterfield Valley from November through early March. Coach Mileski incorporates a lot of plyometrics and core work along with the weights. I have also added circuit fitness this year to increase my speed with sprint work and fast twitch 
drills to help prepare me for different races I have added on the calendar for 2013. Our workouts last 1 1/2 to 2 hours twice a week. It's always a blast training with a group of fun energetic people who also share the same passion I do-endurance racing.
