Adventure Racing: Raid the North Adventure Race Report

Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - 01:06 AM

"The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime."
-Babe Ruth

So we were just coming up to the 20 hr. mark in the Raid-The-North race in Kamloops this summer.... The sun was setting as we rapelled down a 120 ft. cliff to the lake below, changed gear and hopped into the canoes for a 40 km paddle.

The water was relatively calm as the last light faded and we were treated to a beautiful moonrise in the next couple of hours. Gradually the clouds moved in and as the wind picked up we hugged the shoreline to avoid the worst of the gusts, all the while keeping our bearings by looking at the darker black of the mountains around us against the black of the sky behind.

Even though it was early August, we were in the mountains and soon the temperature dropped down to 5 degrees. As we paddled, the wind was blowing the spray back onto us and, since my rental kayak paddles lacked gaskets, the water would run down the shaft from the blade, inside the sleeve of my Gore-Tex jacket, and soaked my torso from within. I could feel myself getting colder as the night went on and soon I had to keep paddling to prevent the shivering. Eventually, I couldn't stop shivering at all and knew that we had to get off the water. We called the second canoe over and when they pulled up beside us the shivering became almost convulsive and I could barely speak.

My teammates wasted no time in pointing us toward shore and fortunately there was a string of cottages along this part of the lake. We headed to the brightest and best lit one, a beautiful log cabin that was the size of a mansion. At their dock, they helped me out of the canoe and we dug out the emergency radio to place the call in for help. The call was something like, "This is Team Unsanctioned...we've got a hypothermic team member...we've pulled off the course and are looking for shelter...will call back when we've confirmed location...out." We all knew at that point that our race was likely over.

Meanwhile, our navigator ran up to the cottage (it's past midnight at this point) and knocked until the owner answered. "Listen, I know this sounds crazy but we're doing a race and I've got a teammate who's wet and cold and we need your help." Uhhh....ok...you're doing a what?!....Why? Well, 2 seconds later his wife comes out, takes one look at the situation and takes control. The next 30 minutes were a whirlwind - they got me in the shower, our clothes and gear went in the dryer, they had cups of hot chocolate and coffee in our hands in minutes, the guy tells
me to sit in his chair (one of those big comfy La-Z-Boy things with the heating pad and the massage), their dog curls up at my feet, they turn on the TV for us and his wife pulls out some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies! Surreal! Imagine the confusion at the base camp when the next call came in: "Hey, this is Team Unsanctioned. We're ok now. We're just finishing our cookies and should be at the next checkpoint in an hour. Thanks. Bye."

So, we hopped back in the canoes and finished the race after losing maybe an hour and a half of time. Looking back, our race would've been over if we'd hadn't chosen that cottage and lucked out with that family (they're going to get a nice little gift from us this Christmas). I was so looped by the time we got to shore that I wasn't making sense so the race would've also been over if not for the help of
my teammates (imagine if we'd thought to just tough it out and try to make it to the checkpoint - you get that single-minded focus when you're tired and racing...). Adventure racing is, without question, a team sport and you succeed or fail together. In the end, we finished last but we certainly didn't fail. I can't wait for the next race....


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