The Boone Crusher

If you ever want to know what you’re really made of, do something you think may be beyond your limits.  Jason convinced me (okay, asked me and I happily agreed) several months ago to do a longer adventure race with him.  The race allowed for two person and four person teams.  We finally decided to compete as a two person team on the short course, eight hour Boone Crusher Adventure Race.  I didn’t think I was quite ready for the 12 hour long course!

Race day arrived upon us yesterday and race we did.  I’ve done some long races before, 10 hour orienteering hiking expeditions and maybe 2-3 hour adventure races, as well as half marathons.  Nothing could have quite prepared me mentally for this race.

The last week in central Iowa has not brought pleasant weather.  We had one day of extreme heat/humidity followed by significant drops in temperatures, strong winds and rain.  Race morning brought the first set of challenges.  Our race started at 7 a.m. and it was around 40 degrees with super light drizzle and some small wind gusts.  Not ideal, particularly for someone who does not like cold weather.  I was bundled up in thin/tri-style biking shorts, orienteering pants, a long sleeve moisture wicking shirt and a light rain jacket.  I wore long fingered biking gloves and a cap the entire race.  And I still started the race with shivers.

We started with an orienteering trek and immediately got our feet wet in muddy, water-filled land near Seven Oaks in Boone.  My socks remained soaked the entire rest of the race.  As we tore through thick brush, we finally made our way to the first check point.  During an adventure race, you are required to carry a passport, or punch card, and punch at each check point to show that you made it there.  You utilize a topographic map, which we had to mark the entire course the previous night, to make your way from check point to check point.

We were able to quickly find the second and third check points and make our way to the first transition, back near the start line.  While we ran the majority of the trek, with a few breaks to let me catch my breath, we were shocked to find out we made it back first to the transition.  We immediately threw on our helmets and bike shoes and hopped on our mountain bikes for the next leg of the race.

At the finish line at The Boone Crusher Adventure Race!
After six hours, I'm surprised I'm still standing :)

As we left Seven Oaks, we immediately made a left turn to ride up a pretty steep hill.  I was having trouble with my gears (well, trouble remembering which one to be in!) and was trying to hold onto a piece of paper.  As Jason tried to relieve me of worrying about the paper, I turned my wheel into him and fell down midway up the hill.  I was less than thrilled.  I wasn’t hurt, more embarrassed to fall off my bike moving at about 3 miles hour.  I finally hopped back on my bike and we made our way to the next three check points on bike.  We rode about 20k and arrived at a park with a small lake for our next leg.  We had to canoe around a lake, picking up three more check points along the way.

Jason has built us beautiful, fast racing kayaks, which were not allowed at this race.  We had to use the park’s regular canoes and regular paddles, which are not as efficient (or as much fun!) to use.  However, we still made decent time, coming out of the water at the same time as another team that passed us just before arriving at the park.  We hopped back on our bikes to head to the next orienteering leg.

It was a few miles to the next park and I was already starting to wear down.  I had already battled demons in my head up to this point, telling me I wasn’t capable of doing this, that I wasn’t as fast as Jason and that we wouldn’t win, or even be competitive, because of me.  It’s interesting to compare thoughts of racing by yourself and running with a teammate(s).  When I’m racing at a half marathon, I also go through periods where my head tells me it would be better to just stop or that I’m a joke for thinking I can do this.  You have to learn to mentally fight for yourself.  That truly is half (OR MORE) of the battle with exercise and competing in a race.  

It’s easy to tell yourself to stop or give up when it gets challenging.  However, you can’t let the first sign of discomfort make you stop (unless of course that discomfort is an injury).  Teaching yourself to work through the discomfort is a challenge all unto itself.  Everyone responds differently to tough talk so you have to find what works best for you.  Do you need to distract yourself and think about the new pair of shoes you’re going to buy after the race or the yummy food and drink you’re going to enjoy later?  Do you rationalize the discomfort by talking yourself through the rest of the race and thinking about how you’ll feel to cross the finish line?  Do you let yourself complain the whole time and use that frustration to push you through?

When we arrived at the next park, we had to trek for three points.  The map was zoomed farther out and it was hard to see the details to know exactly where our points were.  Unfortunately, we had major challenges trying to find the first point.  We walked back to the start, we walked to the very bottom of a hill to walk back up it and see if we could see it from another angle.  We went left, we went right, we went forwards and backwards and could not find the point.  We moved onto the next two points and came back.  The check point was there, in a location where we had been, and we heard later on that a team found it on the ground and hung it back up (thus explaining why we probably missed it the first time around as we weren’t looking at the ground.  Check points are generally eye level.).

As we made our way out of transition the race volunteers let us know we were in first place.  There’s an exhilarating feeling knowing you’re in the front of the pack.  There’s also an intense feeling of pressure to maintain it or watch your hard work fly out the window.  We made our way back out on the bikes to locate a few more check points.  During this leg of the race, after climbing some pretty intense hills on bike, I felt such an intense burn in my thighs I thought maybe they’d honestly fall off.  I’ve never had to push my legs that hard.  I asked myself to keep giving and I wasn’t sure if my body would or not.  On one particularly intense climb, I was barely moving and my mind pretty much went blank.  I could not possibly think about anything else except the fact I wanted to keep breathing and just make it to the top.  Finally, I made it.

We had one more stop for a trek to grab one check point.  At this point, I had gained my second wind.  We quickly moved out to the check point and enjoyed a Honey Stinger waffle on the way back.  We hopped on our bikes, believing we were still at the front, and headed back to Seven Oaks for the final leg of our race.  The last leg was supposed to be a biking trek on the single track at Seven Oaks.  However, with the recent rains, the trail was rather gummy and slick.  We had the option to trek and decided immediately to go that route.  We knew coming into the park we were in first place but we also knew that a race can be decided in the last few minutes, especially if we had any trouble getting to our check points.  If you’ve never been to Seven Oaks or Boone County, it’s exceptionally hilly.  No, it’s not the Rockies or anything but the climbs are pretty steep.  We found our first two check points and then had to trek straight up the hill to find the last one.  We were then able to descend down the massive hill to the finish.

We ran down the hill and across the open field to the race headquarters and the finish line of our race.  We made it to the finish line just shy of six hours into the race.  We also WON the short course race!  We beat all other short course teams to the finish (two or four person teams).  Second place, a four person all male team, rolled in 30 minutes after we finished.

I definitely think this was the hardest race I’ve done to date.  Just as I thought I couldn’t go any farther, we made it to the next section of the race, which allowed my body to transition to a slightly different activity.  That wasn’t always easy (when we transitioned to the second long trek, I didn’t have any feeling in my feet – they felt like 20 pound bricks I was supposed to move back and forth) but it brought something new for my mind to process.

I believe that you have to be prepared to hit mental roadblocks and decide how you want to handle them.  Now, once you’re actually in a situation where your mind is playing games with you, you don’t always have the option to “pick” your next thoughts.  You have to decide up front how much you’re willing to give beyond what you think is possible.  Are you willing to push yourself a few extra minutes or miles?  Are you prepared to battle with yourself and argue your points on why you should and should not give up?  I have to say, I wasn’t totally pleased with the conversations that took place in my head, so I need to work on how to balance the “I can’t do this” with “You can, so deal with it.”

I really enjoyed this experience and I’m so excited to have won this race with Jason.  I also have to thank the 41 North Racing Team for putting on an excellent race.  Jason and I were at a race a few weeks ago in Arkansas and unfortunately the race director put on a horrible race.  So it was nice to show up to a race where things generally went as planned.  Now if only they could have ordered in 65 degree, sunny weather!