Raiding the Rib – Funderstorm Style

Event: Don’t Get Lost Giant’s Rib Raid

Location: Milton, Ontario

Date: April 10th, 2010.

This past weekend, fellow team RF’er Kelly Dorey (and superstar navigator) and I kicked off our adventure racing season at the Don’t Get Lost Giant’s Rib Raid. This race has become a staple on my calendar as it gives me a chance to see how fit I am for the upcoming season (usually the answer is: not fit enough!) and revisit my relationship with my compass and maps before the first adventure race. The weather for this race can be unpredictable, but is always predictably wet! This year, we lucked out both with the map and compass as well as the weather!

The race started from Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area with each team member running a relay lap to spread competitors out before the first section of the race, aptly named “the Scramble.” For us, it was ever so appropriate as we ‘scrambled’ to figure out what order to do the 6 controls in as well as remember how to use those compasses! We got a bit disoriented on one of the six controls, but found the others relatively easily. By the end of the Scramble section though, we were in dead last. The only benefit to this is that there was only one way to go from there – up!

After the Scramble, we proceeded through CPs 1-5, with both our confidence and our accuracy improving. CP6 was called the “VertiGHO” in which several additional incorrect CPs were placed around the correct one. Teams had to be careful here as if the wrong control was punched, an additional CP had to be picked up later the race. We felt pretty confident that we had selected the correct control (which we did!) and proceeded through the next section of trail and road running which took us into Hilton Falls Conservation Area.

One of the greatest challenges for me in the Don’t Get Lost races is the infamous “Walk the Line” section, in which teams have to navigate along a specific line drawn on the map. Two controls were located somewhere along Walk the Line, but teams don’t know where, which forces them to be as accurate as possible with interpreting the features on the map. I’m happy to report that this was our most successful Walk the Line experience to date, with none of the usual backtracking to find the elusive missed controls! We located both of the Walk the Line controls easily, passing several teams long the way, and continued to CP9 and the start of the “Gnarly Loops.”

This section of the race featured three orienteering loops: an east, a west, and a north. Teams could do each of the three loops in any order, but had to collect the CPs on each loop in a predetermined order. Teams were given the option of skipping any of the loops and taking a 2 hour time penalty. We started with the two shorter loops – the east and the west – and knocked each of them off in around 40 minutes. When we finished these loops, it was 1:30, and all the Gnarly Loops had to be completed by 3:00. The north loop was much longer than the previous ones, so we made the strategic decision to skip the north loop, take the time penalty, and proceed to the final section of the race, the Matrix.

The Matrix is the only section of the race in which team members are allowed to split up. We were fortunate that all Funderstormers know how to navigate, so we split up three ways, located our respecticve CPs and reassembled at CP13. A quick jaunt to CP14 and the finish and we were done!

At this point, we were the first female team to finish, but we had to wait until the others came in to see whether or not our decision to take the time penalty instead of doing the north loop would pay off. As it turned out, it did, and we were the first all-female team. I should note that we were HOURS behind the top male teams, but for us, it was a successful first outing of the season and great day out in the woods!

For more information about Raid the Rib and other super fun races put on by Don’t Get Lost, check out www.dontgetlost.ca