by
Doug Doyle www.spiritcanada.com
While
at the Advil Outdoor Adventure Show in Vancouver, BC on the weekend of Feb 18,
2004 Team Spirit convened for some R&R in Vancouver. We wanted to discuss our
upcoming race season, specifically our first big race of the season, the Explore
Sweden Expedition Adventure Race to be held June 2 to June 6, 2004. Darin Nevin
and I met up with team mates Chris Koch and Elsa Dahlie, who came down from Kamloops
and were helping out with Frontier Adventure Racing at their exhibit. Two booths
down was Bryan Tasaka, Race Director for the Mind Over Mountain Adventure Racing,
promoting his 2004 races for MOMAR and the Gutbuster Trail Running Series. He
had that excited look of a man who was primed and ready for the new year and was
telling us he was going to be raising the bar for his already successful and popular
adventure races held on Vancouver Island.
I've known Bryan
for a couple of years, having raced solo at the MOMAR races and Chris knows Bryan
from a race director perspective and also having raced MOMAR in Maple Bay/Mt.
Tzouhalem in 2002, when Chris and I raced as a duo. Bryan made the suggestion
that Team Spirit would be challenged by his race and we should sign up for the
race series. Ok, it wasn't a suggestion; it was more like an overt gauntlet being
thrown at our feet.
I couldn't let this pseudo-invite/dare
go unchallenged so I immediately confirmed with Bryan that Team Spirit Canada
would be at the first MOMAR race for May 8, 2004 in Maple Bay, not considering
my other team mates concerns that Bryan's races are one day events and as we usually
race in multi-day, expedition style races. A one day sprint like this would surely
leave us crying like babies in an anaerobic state of debilitation. Looking back,
maybe I should have retracted my team's commitment as May 8, 2004, came onto the
horizon a lot more quickly than it should have - our collective training time
was spent mostly talking about racing rather than actually getting out on the
bike/kayak or running. Besides, this was the only opportunity for Team Spirit
to get together prior to the Explore Sweden race and sort out any issues leading
up to that event.
From past experience, Bryan's events are
well organized and fun (this features high on Team Spirits’ list of features we
require from a race.) The MOMAR series attracts first time adventure racers as
well as full on sponsored and legendary multi-sport athletes from across BC and
the western US. His course design caters to all levels of ability and experience
and usually involves paddling, biking and trekking with some mystery events thrown
in at various stages of the race course. Bryan’s courses normally run between
35 - 45 kilometers long but he also enjoys incorporating a vertical component
to the race to ensure your lungs are tested to capacity and give you cause to
vehemently complain to Bryan post race.
Team Spirit's race
experience for the first MOMAR of 2004 started early, as a flurry of emails went
back and forth among us about who would take the lead on preparing for a talk
on Team Dynamics at the Frontrunners Special Speaker Presentation. Soon enough,
we were there, registering at the Quw'utsun Cultural Centre in Duncan and joining
Melanie Whital of Simon River Sports, and Denis Fontaine of Helly Hanson as guest
speakers for the Friday night speaker series and expo. Many thanks to Simon River
Sports, Helly Hanson and MOMAR for products given out as door prizes.
Race
day dawned early and greeted us with sunshine and hardly any wind, perfect for
the first discipline of the race, kayaking. As usual, Team Spirit arrived late
and as we drove into Race Central at the Shipyard Pub in Maple Bay, we saw Dave
Norona riding up the road, warming up on his bike with some other athletes. Uh
oh! Time crunch! We had barely enough time to unload our gear, register, pin our
race numbers on and stage our transition area from kayak to bike before we caught
the last shuttle from race central to the start line. I've gotta admit that the
energy pre-race was incredible - hundreds of athletes and volunteers with huge
grins on their faces and adrenaline fuelled enthusiasm. If you could market that
in a pill, we’d all be rich! I noticed that St. John Ambulance Brigade was in
attendance with the Canadian Coast Guard and the Search and Rescue Society of
BC: Bryan incorporates the experts at his races to ensure all participants are
in good hands when competing. The number of volunteers (80+) that attend his races
is massive in comparison with other high profile races we’ve done, with a high
percentage of volunteers returning year after year.
Photo
by Tony Austin
We found our rented double kayaks
among a very crowded beach of rental and personal kayaks - a paddlers dream! We
adjusted the foot pedals in our boats from Ocean River Sports and jumped in to
get a quick warm up. Of course, as luck would have it, I had to take a nervous
pee and the race was about to start in a couple of minutes. I couldn’t convince
Darin to stabilize the boat while I attempt to position myself outside of the
kayak cockpit for the ultimate in relief: good thing he refused to help me as
Bryan started the race and I would have been left racing 'exposed.' ;-) Grin and
bear it!
We had lined up at the far left of the start line
and had a direct paddle to the first turning buoy. Elsa and Chris were right behind
us in their Current Designs Libra XT: Darin set the cadence for paddling – which
was incredibly fast for the first 10 minutes. We wanted to try to distance our
selves from the pack to ensure we got into the bike portion of the race without
too much traffic to deal with when we hit single track, as trying to pass racers
on single track is next to impossible and only done by pushing the other riders
over to get past them ;-)
We kept up our furious paddle wind-milling
and noticed that despite our best efforts, we really weren’t making much progress,
so we slowed the cadence down and focused on technique (wasn’t that the most important
piece of advice that Melanie from Simon River Sports mentioned in her talk??)
Duh, lets’ get back to basics – our boat speeds improved when we settled our paddling
down – not that we could catch Dave Norona who was but a dot in front of us. How
does he do it? ….next time we’re going to covertly rig a tow rope made out of
fishing line and attach it to his boat and he can drag us across the course.
Photo
by Tony Austin
We were able to get out of the water
about six or seven boats back and had to run 2 kilometers to race central and
the transition to our bikes. The shoreline run was awesome with uneven rocks,
sand and shoreline bushes to dodge. I was able to take a quick break on the beach
to deal with my unfinished ‘business’ left over from the start of the race – too
much hydrating will do this to you. We noticed Chris had a nasty scrape to the
outside of his right calf and he didn’t know what he had done to cause this: the
race had just started and already a Team Spirit member was leaving a trail of
blood for other teams to follow.
We got to the bikes, threw
on our bike shoes and helmets and fuelled up – the bike course started on Genoa
road and went up, up and up. We turned left onto Marine Road and then climbed
into a new housing development before heading onto logging roads and the ascent
to Mt Tzouhalem. It was warming up, our heart rates were climbing and sweat was
dripping from our brows. Team Helly Hansen's Denis Fontaine and Cheryl Beatty
were racing next to us and we stayed with them for most of the bike portion, trading
positions back and forth. This discipline was awesome: a hard climb up the mountain
on various access roads and trails, then near the top, we ditched the bikes and
ran to a CP and gathered a stunning southern view of the area.
Photo
by Tony Austin
Back to the bikes and some hike a
bike up a slippery smooth rock trail. Then the fun began – some of the best single
track and technical riding in BC is on Tzouhalem – the course took us past series
upon series of ladders and ramps, sweeping/rolling single track through lush coastal
forests and banks of salal. It was fun and fast. Darin was gushing about the ability
of his new DaVinci full suspension bike and how well it handled the course (but
for the ladder he tried to ride up and fell off, doing a slow barrel roll to his
left and almost landing directly on his head. Team Spirits judges gave him a 10/10
for spirit but a 3/10 for not sticking his landing.)
We were
passed by a couple of solo racers and a pair but our worries weren’t so much about
being passed by anyone at this stage, but racing well as a team, despite what
was going on around us. Yeah, right, I can’t lie: I was checking over my shoulder
and was have concerned about where the next team of 4 was. Like it or not….this
is competitive. The bike course finally spit us out onto the paved roads we were
spinning our granny gears on earlier and it was a fast, smooth downhill sprint
back to race central, to transition from bike to trek.
As
we pulled into the transition area, we changed into our trekking gear, grabbed
extra water and ran off to check into the next check point. I was amazed to watch
Elsa multi-task as she told Chris, Darin and I what to grab for the next portion
of the race, as well as give instructions to the Reckless Cycle tech to deal with
a loose rear hub on her bike. You go gurl!
Photo
by Tony Austin
We had to stop at race central to
deal with a mystery event – a series of 5 questions relating to map work – taking
bearings, map feature identification and giving a contour reading on a selected
point on the map. The latter question was a hard one as the photocopied maps didn’t
have contours on them so we just put an arbitrary answer onto the sheet. As it
turns out, Bryan had to discount this question for all of the competitors because
it couldn’t be answered without the contour intervals. After handing the paperwork
off, we received our final instructions and map for the trek – a series of check
points/control points (some manned, some not) to complete in any order, ready,
set, go! Chris was navigating for this race and off we went. Of course, Bryan
had set the trek portion on Mt Tzouhalem and the vertical factor again featured
prominently here.
Even without looking at the map, I knew
we were going to be summiting the mountain again. We decided to attack the checkpoints
in a relatively counter clockwise fashion and we soon were straining quads heading
straight up hill. We overshot our intended trail and our first checkpoint and
hit the second CP on our list, then ran down the right trail, took the control
point and backtracked to the first check point we hit (sound confusing? You should
have been there with us!) Not wanting to make this mistake again, we all promised
to be hyper-vigilant and take ownership of the navigation factor, but not being
infallible we again took a less then efficient route (no, we were not lost; we
were temporarily outside the time/space continuum.)
Chris
was able to sort all of this out, despite my whining to him that I was losing
very valuable beer quaffing time. We kept gaining altitude and our legs kept getting
heavier and our hydrations backs were getting lighter much too quickly. We had
some hydration and fuel concerns that seem to follow us around from race to race.
Do you think we’d learn from past mistakes? Nope! We ran into a squad of fast
Frontrunners who we thought were a team of four and had caught up to us. It’s
difficult to know where other teams are during this portion of the race as you
don’t know how many CP’s they’ve hit compared any other teams but we did know
that these guys are very strong and were running effortlessly uphill. We gained
some urgency to our racing at that point but kept to our game plan.
We
did quite a bit of bushwhacking (some of it was mandatory as Bryan had dedicated
portions of the mountain (trails) as off limits and a disqualification if caught
in this area) and sustained the usual cut shins and thighs as a result of wading
through thick salal and swampy areas. We finally peaked and then it was a long
run excellent run down a single track trail to back the last two CP’s - for us
it was CP 11 and 20.
I was carrying the passport and kept
telling Chris that I was concerned we would have to back track up the mountain
again because we had not hit CP 20 and to me, logically, it should have been next
to CP19. I kept bringing this up to him and he kept ignoring me. I soon found
out why – I wasn’t thinking all too well and it didn’t clue into me that CP 20
was the last CP, the finish line. D’oh! No wonder Chris doesn’t let me navigate!
We hit CP11 and picked up our pace for the last 800 meters
of the course. We crossed the finish line (CP 20 – take note Doug, CP 20 is the
finish line) with sore feet, sore quads and the expectation of cold beer to greet
us and allay our anaerobic suffering. Bryan was at the finish line and welcomed
us over the PA system and pointed us in the direction of the Shipyard Pub and
cold ale (for the electrolytes, of course.) Ahhh…we can relax now. Well, not really
as the Awards Banquet at Providence Farms was still to come and like all of Bryan's
races, the post race activities are as fun as the race activities.
Photo
by Bryan Tasaka
We washed up at our hotel room and
left are stinking sweat soaked gear to marinate in the cab of Elsa's truck, then
made our way to Providence Farms to start the mandatory section of MOMARS race
experience, the awards banquet and post race socializing. Bryan and his sponsors
had great draw prizes and I was amazed at how much gear was given away to racers.
The food was great, the company better and the tunes infectious. Hats off to the
energetic gyrations of Denis and Dave, the cycling skills of all those who rode
the door prize Marin Cruiser bikes throughout the dancing crowd and to the winners!
I think Pat Chan deserves a big mention as he travelled from about as far east
of Canada you can go to attend this race - all the way from PEI! He was racing
with his brother Brent Chan with the team "From the Land of Anne" but he forgot
his Anne of Green Gables outfit and wig. Maybe next year!
Also,
big thank you’s to Team Spirit's sponsors, the kind folks who help us keep our
expenses down by assisting us with gear: Rudy Project USA, Valhalla Pure Outfitters
in Kamloops, Hammer Bar, Adidas-Salomon, RB Inc and Jamis Bicycles.
Team
Spirit is still looking for one of their member's lungs that were coughed up on
the bike portion – if any one found it, please send it COD to Doug Doyle, C/O
Team Spirit Canada. See you on the race course...
Cheers,
Doug
Doyle
Team Spirit Canada
www.spiritcanada.com
