Storm the Ten Adventure Relay

Race Name – Storm the Ten

Date – September 22, 2007

Description – 10 Hour Adventure Relay Race(Paddle, Trail Run, Mountain Bike)

Location – Kelso Conservation Area, Milton ON

Race web site – http://www.stormevents.ca

This is a race I was really looking forward to all summer.  It was an adventure style race modelled after the popular Mountain Bike 8 and 24 hour relay races.  You can participate as a solo or team of 2 and race continuously for 10 hours or as a team of 3, 4 or 6 people and race inpairs and tag off after your lap is done.  It is the perfect race to bring together all different ability levels, as you can do as much or as little as you want. I decided to do it as solo even though I hadn’t done much racing or training over a couple of hours.  I was planning on working my training upwards through August and September, but because of one thing or the other always seemed to not have enough time for getting in more that 6 or 7 hours a week. Oh well I would give it my best.

The Course

One word, Amazing!! I think that one of the hardest parts of putting on a race like this would be setting up a course that allowed for all 3 dicsiplines, took approximately 1 hour to complete a loop and was entirely off road, yet this is waht we got.  The course started on the beach at Kelso with a one time scramble to find a check point on foot to spread out the field before we jumped in the boats and paddled around Kelso lake to the other parking lot.  Then it was out of the boats through some trails and across the road to the bikes.   After a short ride along a service road to get the legs going we headed up the escarpment and onto a nice mix of single and doubletrack trails.  Although the ride up the escarpment was fairly difficult, this was my favourite section.  The trails were a perfect mix of somewhat difficult singletrack mixed with fast and flat doubletrack.  After about 10k of this we dropped our bikes and headed out for a approx. 2k run loop.  This is where some planning came into place.  I saw people with their shoes attached to their packs, running in their bike shoes and wearing running shoes ont he bike with flat pedals.  I couldn’t imagine not using my bike shoes, or taking the time to take my pack of everytime and changing shoes so I bought a rack that attached to my seatpost and planned to bungy my shoes in place.  But then on race morning I thought why not just leave a pair of shoes at the transition.  So I had a pair of running sandals that I used for the kayak and first running section, then changed into my bike shoes and had a pair of running shoes for the run.  The run was a very nice loop at the top of the escarpment with some really nice views and was mostly flat.  There was a checkpoint at the midppoint to prevent cheating.  After this nice run we jumped back on our bikes and bombed down a ski hill back to the bike transition.  After dropping of our bikes we retraced our steps to the boats and back across the lake to the beach where we had to climb the stairs up to the transition area and the completion of your lap.  If you were part of a team you could now tag off, or if you were solo or team of 2 headed out for your next lap.

My race

My race started out really well.  My first lap I started out conservative knowing that most of the people sprinting out of the gates would either crash or be part of a team.  I climbed into my kayak somewhere in the first 3rd of the field and stayed there until I got on the bike, then made my way into the top 10.  There were some frustrating moments passing some people that were obviously much better runners and paddlers than bikers, but I got a feel for the trails and where I could push the pace.  I felt good after the first lap and during the second lap made my way into 5th overall.  My 3rd lap was a little slower but I stayed in the same position.  On the 4th lap I started to fall apart.  It started with a pounding headache and then overall fatigue.  I pushed through with respectable times for lap 4 and 5.  I worked together with Blake from Bicycles Plus (who I had raced against in Storm the Trent) during lap 5 with each of us pushing each other on the bike up the escarpment.  But on the 6th lap I was done!  During the bike I threw up and started to feel really bad.  After almost crashing into a tree I decided that it was time to pull the plug.  I didn’t have anything left and felt that if I continued I might really hurt myself.  I was passed by Jill during the run on this lap as I was walking and she was running and looking amazing.  She asked if I was OK and I could see she was concerned.  I told her I was fine and cheered her on.  She was doing so amazing that I didn’t want to slow her down.  I finished off this last lap 25 minutes slower than my fastest lap.  I guess I pushed my body to far and it shut down on me.  I also may have suffered form heat exhaustion as at the awards everyone was wearing tuques and sweaters and I was in shorts and a T shirt and still radiating heat.

The Aftermath

To put things mildly I was not very pleased with how things turned out.  I put on a happy face for Jill who did absolutely amazing finishing as the first female solo by a wide margin.  Despite my unhappy ending this was a fantastic race.  The organization was exceptional and the course was dialled.  I am really looking forward to coming back next year on September 20 for some retribution.

Shout out to Marcus Olson who is building our sport the way it should be bringing out a group of kids from Aurora High School to race.  Not only did he get over 20 teenagers ready to race he got himself out there finishing 5th in the solo category.  Absolutely amazing!!