Raid the North, Nelson B.C. 2005

From the start this was a hectic race for me as I return from my many months abroad biking, traveling and becoming somewhat laid back like the Southeast Asian culture had taught me. So trying to get the funds and the gear ready for this the biggest race for myself this year became somewhat over whelming.

Being under such time constraints I was all over the place doing what I could to make this happen, the racing being an addiction for me, my competitive side truly showing. I love the idea of getting out to these races and just completing the task that is presented for me, but the thought of not trying to give it my all to see where I may measure up was not acceptable to me.

As the truck gets loaded, we are set to head off to Trail where we will meet our two other team members for the Raid 2005 Nelson race, Sandra and Will. Surprisingly enough we meet up with our new member of support, Auntie (Debbie) whom housed us for a night at her house and helped aided our support team of Shawn and Brian to getting us ready for the race in Nelson.

Our support had a start on us, as they got our food bags ready making sure we were eating and drinking water to hydrate for our 36-hour push of endurance. Brian having to spend a bit of time doing some wonderful last minute work to my ride, as since I have been home and commuting everyday on my trusty stallion, I have neglected my ride and she needed Brian’s love and knowledge, before to long she is the ride I hoped for, ready to conquer any race course.

We attend our race briefing at 500pm, which turned into an hour of talk before we are sent off with our maps and racecourse directions. So we can now return to our nest of a home for the day at the Alpine Motel, here is where the support got cooking, Brian got to do the mechanics and the team sat down over our maps and plotted our course together with Will taking the helm as our lead navigator. Watching Will plan for our race was a lesson in itself as he showed some helpful hints and tips into plotting and preparing for any navigation route.

Being so busy trying to get the map plotted, getting our gear together and making sure we are set to head out for our race debriefing which was taking place at 10pm, 2 hours before our race start and even worse it was about some 60 kms away in the town of Kaslo where we were to start our race at midnight, August 19/2005. Not surprisingly they do not tell us this until the day of the race to mix us all up, all part of they master plan. As per last year, not getting any sleep before the race was, I would say part of the ideal picture for the race organizers, they succeeded.

In the town at Kaslo we were debriefed to what the general rules of the race are, even a couple of hints as to what to expect. We were all seated outside the S.S. Moyie, the old paddle wheel used to transfer people down the lakes or even ship goods back in the older days of the town. After our debriefing we were aloud inside the steam-powered ship for a look at the past. Kaslo having put out it best efforts to reward our start with some fire juggling and even live music. We also got a glimpse at the Miss Kaslo and heard from the mayor of this small community as well, a lovely treat having the community open to us at such a late hour, a lovely town stuffed between the Selkirk and Purcell mountains.

Now the time of midnight comes and we are set to start the race and make our way through the first section a short 15km plus bike leg on some old rail bed after a short ride out of town on the freeway to the old rail bed which is now some nice trail riding. Like most races this started off no different with a lot of congestion and even more of follow the leader. This is always a habit and proved that even the first teams to start do not always know the exact direction.

We finished our first leg in the middle of the pack, which is not that bad seeing how we were virtually the last team to get across the start line, never in a hurry in such a long races of endurance and consistent traffic problems. Pulling in to the first checkpoint and seeing Brian cheering us on and pointing us to our transition area, was a sigh of relief for us.

We took off fast after a relatively quick transition, climbing into the wilderness for our one long and only trek, this is where we had run into some problems.

We were off up the mountainside and after a quick 30-45 min walk up the dirt road we were now following the river through some trees and bushwhacking, a old path for some of the time as well, but quickly gone, replaced by solid bushwhacking. This is where we lost some of the time in this section. We trudged our way through the trees making time but not as quickly as some other teams as it seemed there was another path high above us that we did not find till a few hours later.

Come daybreak, we were climbing another old road (dirt) looking for a trail that seemed to be on our plotted route. Thinking we found it, we could not use it as it was very over grown with small Alder trees and very dense, it was here that we lost some more time as once we found our way again, we were forced through a serious bushwhack again. Until we found a boulder field we crossed and then climbed, not an easy trek.

Once high into the alpine part of our trek, we could see more but were undecided into the direction in which the team should go. This trekking section ended with us at our bikes after some 18-19 hours of walking, traversing some hairy boulder/scree slopes which was hard on one team members knees, understandably as this sort of trekking is always hard especially after many hours leading up to it.

We come into checkpoint three a little depressed as they turned us away from checkpoint two when we were right there but that was something that had to happen as we took to long. So here we rested a bit and ate a lot to recharge the bodies. Then we got on the bikes with poor Sandra suffering from knee problems but her spirits were as high as ever, her past experience and inner strength showed by her desire to push the race through and finish. An awesome example of will power.

Here is where we started to get back on track and started to make up our lost ground. We pedaled hard through the shorter bike section, another drawback from our slow trek section. The trail we took, who’s name slips my mind was amazing even in the dark and at one point we got to shuttle our bikes across the river we rode beside, by means of a cable car, going one at a time. In the dark it was fun and added to our newfound energy and excitement about still racing.

Once at the checkpoint for the first of two paddle sections, this one leaving the town of Silverton, we are informed that we have to wait for a boat, as there was a problem with the order of boats for the race. It was here that we waited for three hours and slept for two of them while our support team waited for us to get into our boats before sleeping themselves. They also put a time restriction on us to get out of the boats if we wished to continue on racing.

We left here with the other last team, paddling hard and getting a jump on them from the start. After what was a 4-5 hour paddle on Slocan Lake, we ended up about 6km down the Slocan River at the end of this leg, where we pulled the boats out of the water and shuttled them across the river via the pulley rope set up. After that was done, we hiked up the short trail to the Zip line that was set up for us to get us to the other side of the river, there was to be no Rappel section this year, what a drag!

Once the Zip was over we were to make a fast transition to our last bike leg, which lead to our last paddle into Nelson and the finish line. The bike was great and we completed it in a very fast time, passing a number of teams. We were determined to make our 36hour cut off time of noon Sunday, leaving us enough time to add on our penalty for missing the checkpoint #2 so that we could finished as a ranked team.

The team rode hard and the downhill went fast, once into the last transition we got in and out in record time thanks again to our amazing support crew. Here we had to carry our boats to water and paddle hard to Nelson, which we could see in the distance the whole time. I believe we finished this last leg with the second fastest time and with plenty of time to eat up our penalty and finish ranked.

At the finish line our amazing support there to cheer us on and more importantly rewarding us with the a very rewarding wonderful cold beer, followed by a swim in the Kootney Lake to somewhat get the stink and stick off us.

Congratulations to the team on an amazing race, I am very proud to say that even though we finished at 16^th out of 22 teams, we learned a lot, we persevered, and we proved that had we had a clean race we could have easily been one of the top teams to finish. Our good sections competed with the strongest teams at this race, something we should all be proud of.

Special thanks to Shawn, Brian and our new Auntie Debbie for all the amazing help and support, you are the reason we can race the way we did, without your combined efforts we probably would have not have been able to do the things we did. Many large hugs to all three of you, you are the greatest.

Another special thanks to the sponsors of Second Wind Racing, G&F and GVC Credit Unions, La Sportiva, Flash 5 power bars/drinks and Blak Dog Bikes in Coquitlam, you are also an amazing addition to our team and your continued support makes our progression into a true competitive team easier.

On behalf of Second Wind racing I will say that I cannot wait until next year.