K2O 2015-NAT DNF AFTER 115.4KM OF PADDLING

James, John (his team mate) and I left on Friday afternoon to Kingston to participate in the 200km paddle K2O from Kingston to Ottawa. The boys were going to paddle a canoe and I had borrowed a light and fast surfski from a friend (a think surfski).

I had a lot of troubles last year with another think boat because of weeds getting caught in the rudder and the race had been cancelled last year half way due to the rough weather.

I had made it to the 72-75km mark and was nervous for this year although I had this year a weed deflector…so I thought I would be off the weeds.

My super awesome support crew, Joel Perrella from Breathe Magazine, met me on Friday night and we went through gears and food etc..

On Saturday morning we started the race at 6am.

From the start on I was stuck in a massive patch of weeds. To the point that I saw even the SUP going away at the distance while I was still fighting with the weeds. I begged ahead for help since there were no more boats ahead and luckily Rick, another racer, waited and took the weeds off for me. The first leg was hard as the weeds seemed to be everywhere.

As I was going along another surfski was struggling so we were de-weeding each other’s as we went.

Matt (that helped me out last year) did also a way with me taking the weeds every so often so we could keep a good pace.

We finally made some ground and went back ahead of the SUPs and other kayaks.

At the first lock I saw just ahead of me James canoe and Brad Jenning’s canoe from get out there.

 I caught up to James’ boat during that second leg and as I past them the weeds got me again. I asked if he could grab the weeds as I was next to the boat and James did but his team mate wasn’t happy and let me know that they would not spend their time helping me out…So I left them and went ahead.

I then caught up to Brad’s canoe on the next leg and they nicely helped me out as I was passing them.

The next few legs went ok but the weeds started to be more abundant again and after a little while I got caught back up by the two canoes (Brad and James). I did half that leg next to Brad’s boat chit chatting along until we reached the 69.7km lock.

That was the last lock I saw last year, being rescued a few kms later.

I made it through the lock and went on for the 30km+ leg. As I left I grabbed 3 gels, thinking it would be enough for 30km…big mistake. I think I was already really hungry by that point (despite the multiple sandwiches that Joel had prepared for me) and dehydrated a bit.

I had my first gel early on and by the time I got ti the 20kmm or so I was out of food. Just when I realise that I wouldn’t see my support crew until the 34km mark because they couldn’t reach the poonamalie lockstation at 30km. Hunger settled in. I had caught back to James’s boat by that point but didn’t dare asking for food after the reaction of his team mate earlier.

A few kms before Poonamalie I hit a patch of weeds and I was exhausted. I hit the wall big time. By the time I reached Poonamalie (101km mark of the race) James’s boat was 30min ahead (I was with them 2km before) and I was in a really bad shape. My stomach was burning from what I thought was a little bit of chaffing and the inside of my stomach was hurting by hunger. I am so lucky and thankful the volunteer in place gave me something to drink (an ensure) and I was off to Smith Falls.

The weeds were even worse than before and the 4km seemed to never end.

When I got to Smith Falls at 8h30pm after 14h30 I was tired.

 Most of the field would stop the race there (doing the ½ course). I showed to someone my belly and they patched it up and they made me stop for a bit before going again. My entire belly was red and some places more burnt than others.

The cut off was at midnight at Smith so I was way ahead of schedule and i was actually very decently placed in the 100km race if i had stopped there.

I left soon after (around 9pm) in the dark alone. By that point my friend Augusto had met up with Joel to give him a hand.

The next couple of locks went ok although very weedy. 

I didn’t see my support crew at one of the lock but saw the race director. I was then only 5-7km away from the next lock (Killarnock I think it is). That’s when things went wrong. I had nobody ahead or behind me. I was following my map which said to stay on the left shore but after a while I got in a massive swamp with lily pads all around and no room to even put a paddle in the middle….Just imagine what was going on in the back of my boat with my pretty long rudder getting literally stuck there. I couldn’t move much (less than a km per hour), the fog settled and I couldn’t see any buoys. Thanks to the headlamp the thousand bugs around me had decided to crawl through my face in my ear and nose. I couldn’t turn off the light as I really needed to find the navigational channel.

I then took my gps that I had tested before and that was working but I had to change the map for the second half of the race and for some reason the gps was telling me to go left. There was no left!!! It was lily pads and the shore. After what felt like a really long panick moment I decided to call the race director. I asked him if he could see me on his map explaining that I couldn’t see the navigational channel because of the fog and whether I was still in the right lake?? He told me I was in the right direction. “Keep left” he said. After telling him that left was NOT an option I started wandering on the right more and more and finally spotted a buoy far in the distance…on the other side of the lake on the Right-hand side.

I followed the buoys going all around the bloody lake to finally find the lockstation…It was now 11:30pm and I was at 115.4km. I had done the last 11.4km in 2h30…BRUTAL!!!

I knew the weeds wouldn’t get much better but I also knew there was only 10,5km left in open lakes before getting into the narrow canal where you can’t get lost anymore.

I asked the guys for some arm warmers and was going to continue when the race director came to ask me to stop the race. He was worried about my safety. He said all the other boats behind me (and there were many according to him at smith falls) had quit and he was concerned letting me continue alone.

That is the first time I get stopped from a race without missing any cut offs, being ahead of my schedule.

I had done 115.4km in 17h30 and I had 18h left to do the remaining 87…I could totally do it. But Hey he was the race director. He left and we started packing up my stuff. 45min later I was changed and ready to go when I saw a canoe at the lock, it was a team..and they let them keep on going…WTF???

The next morning when I woke up early I saw that two other teams had kept on going hours after I had been asked to stop. I wasn’t and I am still not happy about it. The race director sent me an email to apologies and told me that afterthought he should have asked me to just stop for a while…After all I had time…but all the apologies in the world won’t unfortunately make the failure feeling to go away.

James, strong as always, kept on going and finished a little after 30h of paddling.

I would never do this race again with a fixed rudder…maybe with a kick up rudder….If I can get over this year’s race.

I want to say that my support crew, Joel Perrella was the best in the world and that you all should check out his awesome magazine breathemag J

I also want to thank my sponsors for supporting me through this gruelling event, Nuun hydration, PacificHealthlab and strongbar nutrition. NRS and 2XU for the awesome gears to keep me moving and warm.

Nat

Cowboy Tough 3,5 days AR 2015- 7th overall, 1st Adventure class

Jason, James and I decided to do Cowboy Tough a few months ago but we didn't have a 4th.
We needed a 4th but most of all we needed a navigator so Jason wouldn't be on his own for the entire race.
That's when the race director put us in touch with Fritz (racer of Rev3).
We didn't know Fritz before and Unfortunately didn't have time to do a race all together prior the expedition.
We all flew to Wyoming on the Tuesday, Jason, James and I meeting up in Denver and then driving up to Casper while Fritz was supposed to meet us up there at about the same time.
After taking possession of what must be the pick up with the roughest suspension on earth, we started our drive and stopped on the way to do our groceries.
Fritz got delayed and delayed again and finally made it to the hotel past midnight...without one of his bags (that he got the next day on time for the race).
Wednesday was the check in and gear check, then race briefing and packing the boxes.
We managed to have a decent night of sleep before the race which is always a bonus in those races.
On Thursday morning we took the bus up to Buffalo where the race started.

Day1:
The race started with a small Orienteering course in town with different challenges: a shot of whiskey, punching a CP at the bottom of a 10-12 feet deep pool, collecting a telegram and a bullet casing. The orienteering was on foot and as soon as we were done we ran back to the TA (start), took our bikes and left for a couple of hours on the bike.
The first CP on the bike was a challenge. We got to a corral and were told that one of us needed to get in there and pick up a ribbon from a cow's tail (they were babies).
I heard a start of conversation in the team to know who was going and decided we didnt have time for that, so I jumped in...and then realized that I'm scared of cows :S but hey, I was in there, so I did my best and ended up getting one without getting hurt :)

Jumped back on bikes to get to the paddle.

There were two kind of canoes laying there and we picked the first one we saw that looked ok...big mistake. We ended up being passed by everybody who had the other kind of canoes. We thought they were about the same but there was actually 15 and 17 feet long canoes (if i'm correct).
Anyway the paddle was kind of painful because of the CPs not being exactly where they were supposed to be and one was not in place at all, which made us turn around for a while.
We saw the Yogas, Nuun, and Swiss Army turning around but we decided to try a little more to find it...without success.
By the time we came back, those teams were gone on the bike and we met them back up at the next challenge. In that one we had to guess a 3 letter word by flag signals. One or two persons were running to a far away field and were doing flag signals to make us guess a word.

We did relatively ok at it and were back on the bike quickly.
A couple of hours more and we were in TA ready to tackle the first big Trek that would take us up to 10 000 feet.
We started the trek with the Yoga and left them behind as we were climbing (one of their team mate wasn't feeling great). We had a great climb, passing a few teams on the way. Jason's navigation was awesome and we got all the CPs without any troubles up to CP 18. On the way down from CP16 we met Dart Nuun going up, which meant we had passed them somewhere on the way. We were moving well. On the way to CP18 Fritz started to have feet problems so we stopped for him to fix them. As we kept on going he started not feeling very well with GI issues that went on for the whole night. CP19 ended up being the race breaker for us.
The trail disappeared and we turned around and around for 4 to 5 hours. We were by then at 10 000 feet or close. I was feeling sicky from the altitude and just wanted to get back down. I really wanted to find that CP quickly. Fritz wasn't feeling any better at this point, so he couldn't help Jason which didn't simplify the situation.
After finally finding the CP we made another mistake going to CP20 that cost us another 2h+...the race was kind of over...we had missed a cut off.
The morale of the team went down and by the time we got to transition we didn't know if we would be allowed to keep on racing or not.

Day2:
They decided to put us on an "adventure class" course, which only meant that you had missed a cut off and were not forced to get mandatory points from there on but could get any CPs (mandatory or optional).
We decided to go for it and get as many CPs as we could, like if we were still on course.
After a sluggish 1h45 transition, we left on the bikes. We reached the rappel CP pretty quickly and decided to go for more CPs instead of just riding to the End of day transition. So we kept on going on the regular route and picking up CPs. One of the CP was on the top of a mountain. It was so windy.
We decided to go to the end of day after CP32 (I didnt want to but got outvoted). That ride was ssssooooo long and boring. We did it all at night and it was just a repetitive gravel road with not much to keep you awake. That was our second night awake and we rode all night until early morning (we actually stopped for a 15min nap on the side of the road).
Day3:
We got to TA and decided to go for some Optional CPs since we still had a bit of time. We hit two of them pretty quickly and messed up one in a creek that cost us a bit of time.
We got back to TA just on time to leave for Day3..on the bike again.
We rode a part of that bike ride with the Yoga. I guess we were kind of just following but we had to stop after a while and then we didn't know where we were. After turning around for a while we finally made it back on track...for 10 minutes before my first flat.
My tire was pretty new but had so many little cuts it was unbelievable.
The rocks were sharp I guess. We changed the tube just to get a second flat 2 min later.
James decided to cut open a punctured tube to make a protective layer for the new tube inside the tire...it worked.
We got to a CP at the canyon that was really pretty and even got burgers thanks to NYARA :)

Leaving there was again pretty hard (as every transition or stops we did) but we managed to get back on the road and picked up more optional CPs.

We struggled for a while and ended up not finding a CP at a well and decided to go to TA.
We got to TA end of day 3 after 63 hours of racing or so...and no sleep. We agreed on having a 2h stop which would include getting changed eating and sleeping. Alarm was set for 2am and we were supposed to leave for the orienteering course at 2:15am sharp....After barely 1h15 of sleep I was awake, looking at the map to see which CPs we would have time to get. By 2am I had a plan and was ready to wake the guys up.
That last TA was a nightmare to leave, and we ended up not getting out of the transition until 2:45am. But Hey at least we went...We picked up the first 3 Cps easily and decided to go for a couple more...problem is we went way too far and ended up picking up a CP we didn't plan to pick and missed the two others that we wanted to take closer to us...it was a bit of a rush to get back in the TA right on time to not be cut off and jump on our bikes.
Day4:
The bike was a 70 mile bike ride back to Casper with some elevation, especially at the start. We managed a good pace and within half the bike ride we had passed many teams.

The second half of the ride was my favorite.
We rode in an echelon formation with Nordic adventure racing team for a while and that was very cool. After a while we decided to go just our team and we took off. It felt fast and great.
By the time we reached town we had reached and passed a lot of teams. We got to the last TA where we took our packrafts and ran to the put in 3 miles upstream. We picked up our last CP and went down river in no time thanks to the current.

Arriving at the finish line, Jason and Fritz decided to race James and I to cross the line first :)

In summary a lot of fun but very disappointed to not have stayed on the full course. We were fit and fast and I am more than sure that we could have done great if only we could have helped Jason with the nav a little more when he needed it. This is the second race that Jason, James and I have done together and once again I loved racing with them and would do it all over again anytime.
I didn't mention it too much but I did spend my time freezing my butt (I really thought it would be a warm race) and when i wasn't freezing I sunburnt real good :/
On a super positive side I loved my Altra Lonepeaks to bits. I didn't have any feet pain which is really rare for me and my 2XU and Pearl Izumi clothing and equipment worked really well. We rode 392km in 3,5 days and I didn't get a rash. First time ever and I only used cream once prior to the race...I am stoked!!!

Frenchie

Photo credits: Michael Sero and Randy Eriksen, two kick ass photographers

ULTIMATE XC 60KM TRAIL RACE ST DONAT 2015- 2ND TIED FEMALE, 18TH OVERALL

I haven’t been doing much ultra runs. Actually I have done 1 pure ultra last year, the Endurance challenge 50km in Utah and that is it.

I have done many ultra distances in Adventure racing but the pace is never the same as in a single discipline race.

I went to the Ultimate XC back in 2011 when it was at Mont Tremblant and was participating at the time in the 3 days event. My 58km run then was very slow (10h38) and I thought I would die for the last 30km which is a considerable amount of time when you think about it.

James and I packed our stuff and went to a friend’s cottage 30 min from the race on the Friday night.

Really nice little place and good company made it for a pleasant and not too stressful evening…except that the water pomp broke and we didn’t have water…or bathroom.

James and I were racing the 60km so we had to wake up pretty early and we made our way towards St Donat, praying to find a Tim Horton open to be able to get breakfast and a bathroom stop.

I was pretty stressed and wasn’t feeling 100% but I had put all the chances on my side to have a good race. I had my 2XU compression shorts and socks, my Altra LonePeak 2.0, my osprey Rev 1.5L, my nuun tablets for hydration and I had my PacificHealthLab gels and strongbar nutrition bars ready to be eaten.

At 6:15am we were in the buses in direction to the start. I was frozen as we couldn’t leave anything in the bus so it was either carrying the sweater the whole way or freezing for 40min…I froze!

 A last quick kiss to James and off we went. I tried not to go too fast but was frustrated to see myself walking the up hills very quickly. My calves started cramping and I had no electrolyte tablets with me. I only had a little bit of Nuun in my camel back so I started drinking. It was a lot steeper than expected. For the first 5-6km another girl and I kept on passing each others. Then the downhill arrived and she blew blast me. Then a group of at least ten people and another girl passed me.

I didn't like the first 20km. I found it a little too technical to my liking and I kept on rolling my ankles on loose rocks covered by leaves. It didn't help that my knee was hurting a little bit preventing me from bending it too much.

I, for once, didn't think negatively but tried to think positive. It was a beautiful day and yes people were passing me but I still had lots of people behind and hey I was catching up to those people as soon as it was climbing.

I started setting up small very achievable goals. To the next aid station then as my legs were starting to be a little sore I was dreaming of the Vietnam section that was at 40km in where I'd be in the water.

At the feed station just before the Vietnam (35km) oh surprise I caught up to one of the two girls that had passed me in the first few kms. I was pretty happy and decided to not let her go. She looked like she was in a down moment and we left to the Vietnam a minute apart. Quickly I caught up to her and we did the section together, helping each others.

It is really nice to be able to run with someone who has about your pace but different strength. By the end of Vietnam we passed a bunch of people who were seating there changing their socks and all. We travelled Joelle and I together for the rest of the course. 18km before the end we made a deal. If we were still neck to neck by the time the 2km came we would go to the finish together. We kept on pushing each other's and passed people on the way. In the last climb some girls told us we were 2nd and 3rd which we didn't believe at first. I could remember the first girl that passed me at the start and I knew there was at least another girl ahead but Joelle told me that we had passed the girl from the start a while ago..oh well we were having a great race and we agreed that finishing on the podium or not we would be happy with our race.

We ended up crossing the line together in 8h37 (on my watch-8h39 on the timing machine-we started late) in second position in the women category.

The organization not wanting to have a tied found out a way to look at the hundredth of a second and called me third. We were 18th and 19th overall out of 51 finishers.

I was more than happy.

I was expecting 9 to 10 hours and mid field and was an hour faster and on top of the field. James crushed it and won the race in 6h57. He is my hero!!!

Nothing felt better than seeing friendly faces at the finish (Dave,Augusto, Amanda and of course James).

Dave and Lise brought me a long way and I'm thankful to Natural Fitness Lab for it.

Nat