(What? We didn't plan this? Then where the hell did everyone go? Ah, beer run! Ah, yeaaaa, you want to partake, son?)
Remember the passing mention of those adventure races that my marathon training partner does? Didn't think so. Well, I "completed" my first one this past weekend. This one was to be an 8 hour race consisting of running, mountain biking & kayaking all while orienteering your way through a 30 some mile course. These courses aren't existing or permanent, which one can go visit & practice or anything, it feels like someone just walked into the woods in some arbitrary direction, throws a flag in the ground and says "Find this, punks." Hell, sometimes the flags are on islands in a river.
The night before the race (Friday), all the teams - either 2 or 4 person teams, ours was a 2 - met at one of the area's REI stores to finally learn the location of the event. As it turns out, we were to race at St. Croix (Steven? Steven?) State Park, a place I'd actually been! Attributing it to half hunger and half our "need" to carbo load, the girl and I went to the Olive Garden (Tour of Italy, bitches!) before heading home and finishing packing everything we'd need the next day. On this race, each competitor was to carry all of their gear (except the bike, kayak & paddles, obviously) the whole time - life jacket, bike helmet, H2o, food, tp and a list of mandatory gear. For those who have never carried a backpack besides the one they took to school, the weight and bulk of gear adds up quickly. Now imagine having to run with that on your back, bouncing around, getting snagged on trees and bushes. Yea, that's fun. Granted, it's not 30 or 40 pounds, but damn you gravity, you win again!
All right so Saturday morn, she and I got up early (4:30? 5?) and drove the nearly 2 hours to the race site on the MN/Wisco border. We get there, get all our gear together, insect repellent & sunscreen on, everything organized, OK! We're ready to go! One problem though, we can't go. Either of us. Seems that dinner doesn't want to be left behind on this race. Jesus H Christ, the one time I want to take the Browns to the Super Bowl and I can't do it. You've got to be kidding me. "What if I go over there?" Location mattered not; we were stuck with the bottomless salad and breadsticks.
As the 8:00 pre-race meeting crept closer, we realized our dilemma, try to force everything out at the privy or start the race and probably stop 5 minutes in to relieve ourselves in the woods. Wasn't hard for me to decide what to do. After 10 minutes of standing in line (and missing the meeting), I finally had my turn again and was quite successful. Hell, if she says she's fine, I'm taking her word for it, what can I do, reach in and pull it out? (Mark it zero, Dude)
With an 8:30 start time, we weren't able to look at our maps and order of disciplines until 8:27. Teams also received the sensor which would register us all at the checkpoints, along with the warning that if we lost it, we'd owe 35 bucks. Yea, lose the thing we need to check in the whole race? The most important thing beside the map? No worries, bud. We came to learn that the order would be running, kayaking, running, kayaking, mountain biking, running, mountain biking, finish. Look at that again, it never gets old. A total of 18 checkpoints, 5 transition areas and 1 team challenge stood in our way of the celebratory BBQ. "We can do this", "Hell yea", "This is gonna be fucking great." "We got this". Allow me for a second to assure you, the reader, that yes, we did in fact "have" that. Minus the butterflies in the stomach, we knew this was going to kick ass, and so were we.
Bam! 8:30, everyone takes off, all the teams racing towards the first checkpoint, about 100 degrees from magnetic North (remember, I'm carrying a compass). Run, run, run. Running through tall grass, running along 4 wheeler tracks, running through a marsh (HIGH KNEES!), stomp up the hill, stepping on every living plant along the way - wait, there it is! Checkpoint 1! Hell yea! I'm officially an adventure racer! I'd already plotted where we headed next (as had every other team) - about 1.5 miles, 45* from N.
This trot was easy, over a grassy trail, about 8 feet wide. It had its fair share of gopher holes, strewn branches and the like, but considering our expectations, this was nothing. Being in good shape, she and I ran alongside the fastest teams and left all others behind. After hitting CP #2, we were off towards a point a couple thousand feet away, just south of east. There didn't appear to be any easy access by trail so everyone chose the same option- bushwhacking! I think by this point, we were in 3rd or 4th place overall, right behind the leaders, and easily #1 in our class - 2 person, coed.
Really, there is nothing like bushwhacking. Plants, fallen trees, bugs, brush, nothing gets in the way of a focused person. If we can build thousand foot buildings, bridge 4 mile wide rivers and clone sheep, then no freakin' forest floor is going to stop us. I was right on the heels of my teammate, ducking, dodging and leaping with every "Branch!" or "Log!". Finally, after 10 minutes or more of slow moving, we can see the trail running perpendicular in front of us, all right, when we hit the trail, if we go ri-WHAP!!! "FUCK! You have to call those out!" Her right shoulder inadvertantly caught a small branch that snapped right back at my unsuspecting face.
Perhaps my reaction was a bit knee-jerk, but that branch/stick/twig hit me right in the friggin eye! Seriously, right in the fucking eye! Instantly I was blind on my right side. Not only could I not see anything, but it felt like Bo Jackson's bat handle was stuck under my eyelid. This was only 2 checkpoints and 30-45 minutes into our race, and I'm unable to voluntarily open my eye, plus when I pry it open, it was a haze heavier than getting out of a pool with too much chlorine. A couple of extremely helpful and conscientious teams stopped to try and help but we all realized that there was nothing they could do. If I could just make it to the first transition point, I'd be able to check with the medics and see if there's anything they could do.
To make matters worse, while we were stopped trying to flush out my eye, my excruciating knee/hamstring issue arose. You want pissed off? Not, "Dude, you didn't even hit me" ticked, but "IT'S KRAPF, YOU IDIOT!" pissed, that was me. Not only was I concerned because I was unable to run, but again, I couldn't see. My girl and I had decided that I'd be the navigator and now that plan was pretty much shot. The worst parts for me were not only the sinking feeling that I was letting her down, a solid & experienced competitor, but also, I don't think she found my situation was as bothersome as I did.
After some lengthy issues finding CPs 3 & 4, we headed towards the first transition point, a kayak launch. It was here that I learned from the pleasant medics that not only could they not do anything for my eye, but I was to expect that it'd get a lot more painful. Well, thanks fellas, glad you could come out to help. If I may say so myself, and I will, we kicked some serious ass kayaking. We passed a number of teams that had passed us during our hold ups and gained some serious ground again.
When we took our boats out of the water, we ran into yet another significant issue; we lost the god damned 35 dollar electronic device that registered which check points we'd visited? Christ! What's going on here? Oh, now the fucking waterproof map case broke and the maps are soaking wet?!?! gggggrrrrrRRRRRR AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! FUCK! Uh, needless to say, she and I weren't much for words at this point. To her credit, she helped minimize the finger pointing, given the circumstances, as did I, but crap, could anything else possibly go wrong? You already know the answer.
While Lorenzo Neal'ing my way through a thick creek bank, somehow the compass was ripped out of my hand, only to be lost forever. So you know, while orienteering, a compass is more than "required" gear. It's "don't bother if you don't have it" gear. How deep is that creek down there? Any chance I can drown myself in it? Luckily, she had carried one as well, which we proceeded to use, but imagine if she hadn't - that'd have been it for us. This was only CP 8.
Sorry to skip most of the rest here, but I need to sleep. After finding checkpoint 16, we decided that we would skip #17 and the team challenge so that we could head back for the BBQ and to chat with the other racers. Much of the latter half of our race was spent wavering between complete silence and me trying to apologize profusely for not being able to do better than I'd been able to. Our official finish time? 8:18:00. The winner in our class? 7:23:51. Crap. If I'd been able to either see OR run, we'd have won the thing, hands down. Now that's frustrating.
We finished and took some quick pics, though neither of us seemed to really be in the mood.
Oddly enough, word had passed throughout the race of my eye troubles and many people were coming up and congratulating me for finishing, which as touching as that was, did nothing to alleviate the guilt I felt for letting down my teammate (oh yea, she's my girlfriend, too).
When we finally headed home for the day, she decided that she'd be taking me to the ER for the eye. No one here knows this, but my eyes are the one part of my body you just don't mess with; doctors, polices, hookers, none of you! Now I was going to have all these people probing it like the Houston 500. At some point that night, a doctor put some dye in my eye and checked it with a blacklight which apparently showed the scratch to all observers on the other side of my eye (i.e., you). My girl got to see it with the doc and apparently it was a round-ish scrape of decent proportions, which overlapped onto the pupil, thus the vision issues.
Another thing ya'll don't know - I don't do pills. I don't do medicines. I don't do drugs. At least not this kind. Seriously, I've never been one for painkillers, but this was so intense that I jumped at the chance for Vicodin. Never again. Bastards put me to sleep like watching Titanic. The race went down on Saturday, it's now Thursday. This is the first day that I've been able to consistently hold my eye open. The main problem now seems to be that if I'm looking at an object, I see anywhere from zero to four images of that object. Could be going better. It'll improve, but this definitely answers the question - would I rather be deaf or blind?
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