Team Name:
YERT – Smith
Team Members:
Darren Steinbach
Robin Smith
Time to finish:
28 Hours 30 Minutes
Favorite parts of the race
I enjoyed a lot about this race, the single track mountain biking was awesome, the layout was interesting, the staff was amazing as usual, and I thought the paddle section unique in a way that made it more enjoyable than a lot of other flat water I’ve been on. What really stood out as my favorite parts of the race though was our sunrise and sunset timing. As much as I can I try to hit a sunrise or sunset on a high point, it helps keep my moral up and makes for better memories. In this year’s Bend-AR we caught sunset at the high point of the race on the summit of Lookout Mountain and it was amazing. I only had my phone with me to take pictures so they don’t do the view any justice, but it was a really beautiful place to stop and intake some calories and enjoy ourselves for a few minutes. As a bonus we made it to the big rappel just after twilight the next morning so as I roped up for a nice descent the sun was coming up over the mountains and through the trees. I don’t think we could have timed it any better.
Where we suffered
There were lots of opportunities to suffer in this race, it seems like bodies will randomly act differently in race conditions out of nowhere and throw everything off. In our case we suffered the most on the first bike section. Robin was having issues keeping food down and every time his heart rate went up his stomach contents almost went up with it. We ended up walking almost all of the uphill sections. I felt bad about not being able to help more, if we had been on gravel roads I would have tried to tow Robin up but on steep rocky single track it didn’t seem practical. For me personally the muscles behind my left knee got sore very early on in the race for what seemed like no reason. We kept a slow but steady pace the whole race so I don’t think my sore muscles slowed us down any, but it made my race a lot less comfortable.
Lessons
It is nice when not all of the lessons learned during a race are the result of things going wrong. One of the big things I noticed this race was how setting expectations well helped keep moral up for me. Robin has had some serious medical issues this year and was very up front about them with me before the race. Well before we got to the start line I knew that we were going to be racing our own race and competing with most of the teams was out of the question. Going in knowing what our abilities were and what our goals were kept my stress levels down as we walked from point to point being passed by faster teams. It also helped that our navigation seemed to go better for us than it did for a lot of other teams so we were constantly catching up even at our moderate pace.
Gear
After freezing during the Wickiup reservoir trek at last year’s Bend-AR I was pretty paranoid about getting cold in the early morning so I way over packed for the cool morning. For most of the last orienteering course I was warmer than I wanted to be in my 2xu thermal leggings and ibex wool base top, a combination I’ve used many times in freezing temperatures during training runs. But, if I’m going to be one way or another I usually prefer to be a little warm at night. Still though, I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to use my new Ibex wool ¾ length bicycle leggings, I guess I’ll just have to hang around the pacific northwest this winter so I can get more use out of all my cold weather gear.