Logs Rocks and Steel
Logs Rocks and Steel took place on this year’s Labour Day weekend. I was pretty pumped as this was going to be one of my only Adventure Race type race this year as being a new father has limited my ability to travel, and the Quest for a Cure’ change in format (from a 48, 24 and 8 hour to just an 8 hour) has altered my plans. This was going to be this year’s shot for me at multisport glory.
The first thing that I did was try to set a realistic goal. I broke each discipline down and figured out how fast I thought that I was capable of doing the race in. I made my predictions and set a goal of 7 hours. I took a look at last year’s race results and thought “holy crap”, as the fastest time was 7.5 hours. I reassessed this goal and thought that if Andrew Cameron did the race in the time, what business do I have setting a goal for 30 minutes faster. I adjusted the goal to 8 hours thinking that I would have to push myself as there must be an element to this race that I was not aware of. In reading race recaps from the previous year it was evident that muddy conditions were the culprit in the higher times. I still got a little gun shy and stuck with the 8 hours as a goal, even though I thought I could go faster. I learned a little about goal setting from this race.
I finished the run in roughly 1hour 42 minutes. I had never run 16 km competitively and since there were more disciplines to come I thought I should be saving some in my tank. The run was very scenic and I was pretty happy with the overall set up of the run. At around the 6th km I felt a stinging pain in my left calf. I let out a yelp of pain and tried to kill the offending wasp with little success. I kept going and tried to shake off the piercing pain. About 2 km later I received another stinging pain, but this time on my right calf in the same spot. That one took a little while longer to shake off but I did. It was at that point that I contemplated suggesting a new name for the race. I thought “Logs, Rocks and Wasps” was a very fitting name. The run was a nice scenic route that went up and down and twisted and turned. I popped some EDiscs along the way to maintain my electrolytes and continuously drank from my water bladder. I finished up feeling good. My Angry Seagull teammate Jay kindly volunteered his services for support crew. He had an apple, an Ensure, and an assortment of other food awaiting my arrival. I ate some food and grabbed my paddle gear.
I hit the water feeling good. As it turns out my borrowed seakayak was both slow (partly my fault) and cumbersome. I finished up the first bit and got ready for the first portage. I had played around with a couple different positions for portaging and I figured a paddle over my shoulders so that the kayak rested on the paddle and not my head was the way to go. I felt good for about 10m and then I lost my balance. My leg managed to go up to my hip in black goo (the only black goo for kms and I managed to find it) and the kayak shifted my weight and drove my Simon River Shark paddle into the ground and I heard a sickening crunch. I may have sworn a bit while I checked out the damage. The paddle blade was cracked about half way and looked very fragile. I finished the portage and started to paddle again. If I pulled hard while paddling I felt and heard the blade groan in protest. I had to settle into a pace that did not put a lot of strain on the paddle. I finished up this portion of the race and had to tell Jay that my half of the paddle that we had won in previous years of racing was broken. I finished this portion in 2 hours 10 minutes.
I entered the bike thinking that I could really put a dent into my ill conceived goal of 8 hours and perhaps attain my first goal of 7 hours. I decided to go for it. Well about 5 kms into the 50 km I decided that the sluggishness in my pedaling was in fact not me and that perhaps my brakes were rubbing. As it turns out it was my breaks and I quickly adjusted them. There was some pretty entertaining single track and some very scenic views. Things seemed to be going great. At some point, and I am not exactly sure where or when, as I went down a fairly steep hill, I somehow managed to launch myself over my handlebars and break my fall with my helmet and head. I lay on the ground and did an inventory of the feelings of my body. I dared not move until I had done a mental primary on my body. Head pain, nope. Neck pain, nope. Back pain, nope. Chest pain, nope. Move fingers and toes, yep. I passed the initial primary and decided to sit up. As there was still no pain anywhere other than a good scrape I assessed the damage to my bike. It was then that a duo male team zipped by asking if I was okay and I weakly answered “I hit my head pretty good but I think I am okay”. My bike was okay, but my confidence was not. I have had roughly 9 concussions and I thought that this could have been the worst of them all. I awaited the pain and the fatigue that I experienced for months after the last one, but it didn’t come. I got on my bike and significantly slowed down. I was starting to not enjoy solo racing as it would be at this point that I would rely on my team mates to lift my spirits. I pedaled along and came upon a T intersection. I looked one way and saw a pink ribbon. I zipped off. I was shortly thereafter that I started to have déjà vu. I thought that I had been along some of the locations before. I began to question how badly I had hit my head that I thought I had been along this trail already. I questioned my sanity, my desire to finish the race, and I was worried that this was in fact the big concussion that would do me in. I did a pretty good psyche job on myself. It was only when I came to the top of the same hill that I had wiped out on that I realized that I was in fact sane and that I had messed up somewhere along the course. I walked the hill and hopped back on my bike and started to make my way. I was already slightly depressed from hitting my head and now I was downright downtrodden as I realized I did the extra long version of Logs, Rocks and Steal. A duo male team zipped by me and I so badly wanted to keep up with them so that they could talk to me. I craved someone’s voice other than my internal dialogue. I made it to the same T junction as I had before and looked both ways this time. To the left was two pink ribbons separated by about 20 m. To the right was a single pink ribbon. As left was what I did last time, I went right this time. It turns out that this was the right way. There was a lot of high quality roads that I would normally have eaten up and loved, but I still seemed to be in a funk over my big fall. It had rocked my confidence and my desire to finish the race. There was some pretty sketchy single track at times that I walked and strolled through. At some point in the race, I hadn’t seen anyone for what seemed hours, I sat down and decided to throw myself a pity party. I drank and ensure, consumed some water, and started to mentally assess what it was I was doing. I made the decision to stop pitying myself. I couldn’t change the broken paddle, the wasp bites, the massive fall, or the wrong route selection. What I could change was my attitude. Normally I would rely on the interaction of team mates, but no one let alone team mates, were around to cheer me up. I got up and started to bike. I started to notice my surroundings more and I started to enjoy the pain and the suffering once again. When I got to the next aid station I had them assess my pupil size just to make sure I didn’t have brain damage and I headed off towards the finish. One more aid station and nothing but decent roads lay ahead. I had a decent time of it and finished up the race. My biking time was just atrocious at 4 hours 24 minutes.
I somehow ended up coming close to my poorly constructed 8 hour goal finishing time. This race did not make me feel all that spectacular in terms of my results and did help me achieve the multisport glory I had wanted. I experienced a couple of setbacks that mentally killed me and set me into a mini depression that lasted a couple of hours. I thought I was mentally tough but I came to realize how much I rely on teammates for sanity and mental support. I took pride in finishing the race as Bob Miller had designed a great race that had more psychological than physical endurance for me. While I was disappointed in my overall time, I took pride in finishing the race. It would have been easier to quit the race, but having learned from one previous occasion that I would hate that decision in the end, I kept going and managed to lift my spirits through positive thinking (my giggling 6 month old).
