Run-Kayak-Bike-Mtn. Bike-Kayak-Bike-Run… Collapse
Two and half years ago my brother and I were at a rhythm festival in Uxbridge, MA (Steve, didgeridoo, me, djembe). Nature called as it tends to, and exiting the bathroom I spotted a brochure rack on my right. One of the brochures caught my eye. “Greenway Challenge: An Adventure Race… like no other.” The race was to take place in less than 6 weeks, starting in Lincoln, RI and finishing at Wallum Lake, MA; a run to kayak to bike to run to kayak to bike to run to kayak. We hadn’t heard of a race like it, and we were smitten. “Let’s do it. Hey, wait! We need a runner.” I called up my friend in Danielson, CT. “Jack, there’s a race… “I’m in.” We had a team!
At this point I started to panic because my amateur road bicycle racing career had ended 15 years previous, and since then I’ve enjoyed beating myself silly on the mountain bike and unicycles, and occasionally in a kayak starting in ~2008, but I was pretty solidly a non-racer on a team of racers. EEK!
My 60 pound Valley Aquanaut served me well. We came in second, although the first place kayaker was well into Rhode Island (literally) while back in Massachusetts I climbed into my orange beauty, flat blade paddle in hand. We finished 10 minutes back, but saw potential as we eyed the next year’s race, which would find us 20 minutes off the pace; my orange beauty couldn’t keep pace and they had added in a mountain bike leg that schooled my brother (he is strictly a road racer). We hobbled off, eyes on 2013. Surely they would not have a mountain bike leg 2 years in a row.
Wrong. About 3 months before the race we got the first dose of info. Start: Ecotarium, Worcester, MA. Finish: Lincoln, RI. 57 miles: 3.7 mile run, 3 mile river kayak, 17.5 mile road bike, 5.5 mile mountain bike (crap!), 2 mile lake kayak, 19.5 mile road bike, and 6 mile run to the finish. That’s it. That’s all we’d know until the captain’s meeting 17 days before the race (race is on last Saturday in September).
Not much kayaking. A pity for I had retired the orange beauty and would be racing leg 2 in an EFT (West Side Boat) and leg 5 in a Stellar SES. So it was, and we had to find a mountain biker, so I called up a friend. “Spungie, can you…?”… “Wish I could, but…” Strike 1. David was strike 2, and then my number came up. I tried not to answer, but I have about 2,000 hours of mountain biking under my belt, half of that in the Colorado Rocky mountains, so it wasn’t an unusual request for me to race, except that I had never done a mountain bike race. Challenge! Leg 4 mountain bike transition to leg 5 kayak. Super challenge! Done. Tri-State TreeHuggers are ready. Game on!
My brother drove out from upstate New York 3 days after the captain’s meeting (and 2 weeks before the race) and we carefully went through the course. Leg 1 run, Jack, no problem. The leg 2 kayak (in Worcester, MA) from Lake Quinsigamond State Park to Hovey Pond took some figuring out, as there were several low water areas and lots of plant growth to get around (I went back a week later for a second look-see feeler); I thought the EFT would handle it pretty well. Leg 3 bike, Steve, no problem. Leg 4 mountain bike, what the hell was I thinking? Single track, roots, rocks, trees, hard and immovable trees, more rocks, hard and immovable rocks, and lots of horse poop, soft and moveable. Joy.
If you’re comfortable on a mountain bike, it’s pure pleasure to ride single track at 5 to 7-ish miles per hour. It’s pure terror at 10 to 11 miles per hour. Me? I chose pure terror, of course, and so I wouldn’t sleep all that well for the 2 weeks before the race, and I would ride the 5.5 mile course 4 times over 10 days to keep the terror in the forefront of my mind and insure my sleep was aptly fragmented. What the hell was I thinking?
Leg 5 kayak, interesting. I’d need to lose bike and gear and become paddle-ready in 10 seconds or less. No problem, except I forgot to smile and it took me closer to 1 minute. EEK! Leg 6 bike, Steve, no problem. Finally, leg 7 run, Jack, no problem.
Race Day! Up at 5am, off at 6:20 with 2 kayaks, 2 paddles, mountain bike, dark chocolate… Picked up Jack at 3rd transition site, met Steve at start at 7:50am. On schedule, left Jack for 1st transition site, kayak on water by 8:45am as Steve warmed up on his stationary bike trainer. On schedule, race started at 9:00am, finished warm-up at 9:06am (expected Jack at 9:21), and I jammed my kayak in next to the other 90, intermittently looking over the hill to check it’s whereabouts each time a motorboat went by (it only wandered and needed reeling in once).
First runner came in, sub-5 minute/mile pace, handed off wrist band to kayaker (Spungie, my friend who could not mountain bike for us, joined team Ad-Hoc as kayaker just days before the race. I was very happy to have him competing, for sure). Spungie took off in the wrong direction, barreling over the bank and beelining toward his Cobra Eliminator like a charging bull after 3 pots of cowboy coffee. The trees were shaking, the water cowered. The transition site captain did not take kindly to Spungie’s choice in exiting direction, and gave him two choices, come back through transition zone or be disqualified. As Spungie heard not, I ran to the edge of the bank and yelled, “Spungie, you gotta come back or you’re disqualified!”. Hearing this and trusting the amicable “enemy”, Spungie dropped his kayak and paddle and scrambled up the bank like I’ve never seen in my life, like something from the movies, Gollum from ‘Lord of the Rings’ – it was amazing to watch! As if that wasn’t enough, he tagged his runner (I think?) and proceeded in the wrong direction again before doubling back and staying qualified. As if THAT that wasn’t enough, a leg 1 finishing runner unleashed one of the most foul, rotten ‘roid-rages’ I’ve witnessed, screaming violently and spewing verbal venom right into the face of one of the race officials, something about no marshal and losing 40 seconds and the world is conspiring against me, I think. When I came to and realized it was indeed happening, I stepped between the rapidly expanding puffer fish and the bewildered and saddened official and said something like, “That’s enough, they’re doing their best!”, and puffer silenced and walked away. I have the power! – It’s going to be a good day… My race hadn’t even started and my blood was pumping in buckets!
It is here that I need to insert one of the most golden rules of the Greenway Challenge: It is the racer’s responsibility to know the course, to know the course and race the course as if there were to be no marshals. Different than most road races, it is what makes the GC the G Challenge, so the runner was 100% wrong, completely out of line, and thankfully I didn’t process this until after the race because in the heat of the battle I could have easily (and accidentally, of course) pushed said runner over the bank. If so, would I have been disqualified, I wonder? No matter, here comes #45, third runner in…
… TreeHugger Jack, a good run! I grab the wrist band and, being a quick study, head off in the qualifying direction, barrel over the hill, narrowly avoid a brave (and foolish) photographer on the descending path, and mount the brown bruiser (EFT); a good start in that I was the 3rd through transition but 2nd kayak on water, about 2 minutes behind the righted Spungie, I’m guessing – I have the power!
A good start, indeed. I caught Spungie about 1 mile in, exchanged niceties (his grandma is doing better, fyi), and continued to apply pressure, 6.9, 7.1, 7.3mph. I didn’t think the EFT would go that fast, and I’m not complaining! After passing Spungie it was a matter of not missing a beat or the right line and putting as much time on him as possible, because I knew his team (Ad-Hoc) had a good biker, a very good mountain biker, and the best runner by a country mile. A good portage, solid bottom-scraping in two spots as expected, a good line through the plethora of lily pads time and again, and a clean exit and run to transition carrying kayak gave me a near perfect leg, and Steve was on the road bike headed to Wallum Lake. I averaged better than 6.5mph. A good day!
One of the most critical parts of this race is transition, transition from racer to racer, and much more importantly transition via race vehicle from start of leg 3 to start of leg 4, for example (because I came out of kayak and I needed to drive 20 miles and be ready on the mountain bike before Steve was to finish leg 3). As a matter of proper strategy, we dropped Jack’s car as a 2nd race vehicle so Steve could drive from transition 3 to transition 5. One pretty good team did not employ this strategy and their kayaker finished leg 5 and sat waiting 18 minutes before their biker arrived. Ugh! Side note: As a matter of improper strategy, one of my teammates (or evil elf?) parked our race vehicle (near transition 2) in a spot that the local fire department most strongly objected to. The upside was Jack and I got my kayak loaded and drove off a minute or two before the tow truck arrived. Reputation tarnished, but crisis averted.
Steve had a very good ride to Wallum Lake and I was on mountain bike and ready with about 5 minutes to get warmed up. EEK! I had practiced the 5.5 mile mountain bike course in 32 minutes with fresh legs and lungs, beyond my expectations for sure, so I knew I just had to stay relaxed and not blow up while keeping my speed up, up, up. And I did, a near perfect run, just one tree touch losing 2 seconds and one impromptu dismount and 20 yard jog losing 10 to 15 seconds. I couldn’t ask for better with a G Challenge gun at my head, especially considering Steve and I hadn’t seen another racer since I passed Spungie early on in leg 2, which left me wondering what was happening behind me and how far behind me it was happening. I knew there were a few top caliber road and mountain bikers back there so believe me, we weren’t letting up, not for one pedal stroke or one photographer that really should not have been standing so close to my bike line on a 20mph downhill (peed himself, I’d wager). EEK! My estimate is a time of 31:30 (10.3mph). A good, clean ride.
Next up, transition 4, mountain bike to kayak, by far the most critical transition for us. I hit the breaks, tore off my helmet, glasses, shoes, fumbled with my life jacket zipper, grabbed water from Jack and made for my kayak as Jack retrieved my Garmin (he didn’t have time to mount it so I shoved it in my pocket, ugh!). A pretty good transition, but it still took a minute or so (vs. 2nd team 5 seconds), and then I experienced the challenge of transition from one discipline to another. I wasn’t able to take off in the kayak like I had hoped; it felt a bit like paddling through molasses for the first few minutes with a gullet full of water, and it was only a 15 minute paddle. EEK! Actually, what I felt was a combination of immediate discipline switch and no cool-down after first kayak (from race pace in kayak to carry kayak to drive 30 minutes to bike), i.e. stiffness and dis-coordination, it didn’t feel so good, but I can’t complain about increasing our lead with a 7.2mph pace in my SES (1.85 miles, 15.5 minutes) on Wallum Lake without a gaffe, a clean exit, and Steve was manning up on the road bike for 20 miles (to Woonsocket, RI).
Tim on one of the Kayak Legs
Steve had a fantastic ride, extending our lead to 6 minutes. Who’d a thunk it? Not the second team. They caustically predicted otherwise; probably good for us, gave Steve a bit more bitter-fuel for propulsion, which brought us to the final leg, a 6.1 mile run. Jack started well, as expected. I was done and driving, determined to cheer on Jack in a spot about 10 minutes from the finish. I waited impatiently. Steve rolled up on his bike, cooling down, and solemnly noted the impressive speed of Ad-Hoc’s runner. Wait. Pace. Wait. “Yes, here comes Jack! No, here comes Ad-Hoc! Wow!” I gave Jack every viable bit of encouragement I had to pick up the pace, but the picking had already been upped. It’s hard to outrun lightning. I felt bad for asking Jack to do so, then again don’t ask, don’t get, right? Team Ad-Hoc passed team TreeHuggers with less than a mile to go, and Treehuggers finished 75 seconds off the pace of lightning.
All in all, a great day, our best Greenway Challenge by a country mile. Nearly four hours, seven all-out, all-in efforts, nothing left in reserve, and a hunger for more. As we hoped for, and then some: After the race Spungie told me the “rest of the story”. He said that erring and erring again and losing more than a minute on leg 2 was an absolute blessing. Being recruited just days before the race, he hadn’t previewed the not-so-clear kayak route, and assured me that if I hadn’t caught him when I did that he would have went the wrong way and might still be out there. Hakuna matata, Spungie. I got your back.
All of this fun and adventure and challenge because of folks (Lori, Barbara, Sue) who had an idea in 2001, created an event and spent hundreds of hours putting it together for the 13th time this year! www.greenwaychallenge.org, fyi. Many, many thanks and kudos to Barbara Dixon et al. Bravo!
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