Race Name – Storm the Trent Trek
Date – May 12, 2007
Description – 5-7 hour Adventure Race (Paddle, Trail Run, Mountain Bike)
Location – Golden Beach Resort, Rice Lake
Race web site – http://www.stormevents.ca
Jill and I had planned on doing the Storm the Trent Trek Elite 2 day stage race again this year, but were unable to find a support crew that could help out both days. We decided a week before the race that we would cancel the Trek Elite and instead do the one day Trek as a team on the Saturday, then do the shorte
r Hike as Solos on Sunday. The race site was at Golden Beach Resort on Rice Lake, just south of Peterborough. This worked out to be a great site as there was a hall for race kit pick up and awards, a nice grassy finish area and good deals on cabins and camping spots. Lucky for us it is only about 40 minutes away so we could sleep in our own bed.
We headed up early on Saturday morning to get everything set up. We racked our bikes, and then headed in to the hall to register. After getting our maps we finished setting up our paddles and nutrition, then sat down to talk over our race strategy. The race was pretty striaght forward, so this didn’t take very long. We had the most trouble deciding what to wear. It was quite cold in the morning, but it looked like the sun was trying to break through the clouds. We decided on bike jerseys and arm warmers, with Jill wearing tights over her bike shorts, and me just wearing shorts. These turned out to be good choices as it got a little warmer and we were able to pull our arm warmers down to cool off.
The race started with a 10K paddle on windy Rice Lake. There were 2 CP’s that we had to get a word off of, 1 pretty much straight North of the start and 1 to the southwest. After trying to keep our place in a line for the start for 10 or 15 minutes waiting for everyone to get into the water, we headed to the North CP first, as it was into the wind. Within 5 minutes 2 waves had come right over the bow and soaked Jill. I was never so happy to be in the back of the boat. Of course the water in the boat made it’s way down to my end of the boat and soaked my shoes as I was kneeling. After a tough paddle we exited the water in about 20-25th place. Jill took our paddles and I threw the canoe up on my shoulders for the short portage to our bikes.
After dropping the canoe we threw on our packs and jumped on our bikes hoping to make up some time on the teams ahead of us. The bike starts on a paved road then heads onto a dirt road for a long set of climbs to the south of Rice Lake heading towards Northumberland forest and the first run. We passed a number of teams going up these hills and felt good about our bike. After a few km’s along pavedroads we headed into some single track trail to find CP2. Along this section we passed Dave Zietsma, yes that Dave Zietsma, who was waiting for his teamate to catch up. We headed in to the transition to near the lead. For the run course there was a marked section with 4 Control Points, and an unmarked “advanced” section with 4 more control points. We were given a trail map of the park to use to find these points. We decided to do the unmarked section first, then get the marked course. Everything started out perfect, we got the first one no problem, then on the second one we decided to cut across from one trail to the next and got a little bit turned around. Found that Control Point, but then headed out in the wrong direction for the next one. This is when I made a HUGE mistake. The trails we were seeing did not match up to the map, but I KNEW where we were so told myself those trials aren’t on the map. In hindsight I don’t knwo how I could be so stupid. I can only say that we don’t so many AR’s or unmarked races, so I don’t have a lot of experience. So after spending 40 minutes (Jill is very good at keeping track of time and made sure I knew we wasted 40 minutes) finding ourselves we were back on track and set out to make some of that time back. I was especially careful finding the next control points and then we followed the marked part of the course backwards to our bikes.
Jumping on our bikes we headed out through the park and onto a paved and gravel rolling bike course that took us back to the a second trail portion that could be attempted by bike or foot. We chose to bike it as we felt this would be faster. As we were heading up to the first Control point we had to cross over a large tree branch that had fallen across the trail. I went acroos it fine, but when Jill was going over it 2 female racers were coming down the other way side by side and forced her of the side were whe fell and land with a stick in her stomache. She was amazingly tough and got back on her bike and we climbed the long grassy hill to the first control points then made our way to the other 2 control points that were part of the advanced course. Jill was in a lot of pain, but refused to stop as we grabbed the last 2 points and headed into the finish. At the finish we got first aid for Jill, where we discovered that she had bruised her small intestine. She is one tough racer to finish the race with as much pain as she was in. After Jill was feeling a little better, from her injury not about the race, we decided we just wanted to head home and rest for the race tomorrow.
This addition of Storm was another first class race from one of the best Race Directors in Ontario, Sean Roper. We have raced and volunteered at most of his races and are amazed at how organized he is. There were 3 races going on this weekend and no problems for any of them. If you have a chance you should come out for the Storm the Ten on September 22 at Kelso Conservation Area. It is a new concept that combines the idea of 24 and 8 hour relay style MTB races and AR. Check out http://www.stormevents.ca/stormthe10.htm for more information. See you there.
