Adventure Racing

Somewhere deep in the forest between Timmins and Sudbury, Ontario, Derek McNeil, Tanya Martin, Doug Neudorf, and I sit huddled together on the cool, wet ground. We are in the middle of a virtually impenetrable wall of face-ripping, ankle-bruising, toe-bashing spruce and balsam forest. The mosquitoes are thick and relentless, but are a reprieve from the hordes of blackflies that attack during the day. It’s 3 a.m. on June 1, hour forty of the inaugural National Adventure Racing Championship of Canada. To this point, we have stopped to rest for a total of ninety minutes during the first part of this six-day race.
“I just can’t keep moving. I’ve got to sleep for a bit. I can’t think straight,” Derek proclaims. Tanya feels the same. Doug remains his usual stoic self, though inside he is wrestling with the demons of quitting. I’ve been feeling the sharp, stabbing pains of knee strain for hours. We all spoon together for warmth and try to get a half hour of sleep. We think we’re close to the first transition area, where hot soup and friendly faces await. We don’t know we’re more than six hours of nonstop bush-slogging away.
This is an adventure race, the ultimate mental and physical challenge. I’ve been a huge fan of the sport ever since the days of Eco-Challenge, a multi-day adventure race produced by Mark Burnett (producer of Survivor and The Apprentice) for the Discovery Channel. So I jumped at the chance to be part of the first Canadian adventure race. A couple of months and a lot of training, later, I found myself in the company of sixty-seven much younger and fitter athletes in a convoy of equipment-packed vehicles bound for the starting line somewhere outside of the northern Ontario mining community of Timmins, about 450 miles north of Toronto.
Adventure races can take many shapes and sizes. Some can be a short as eight hours, others are twelve-day endurance marathons. They take place all over the world and usually include a number of modes of travel as participants make their way from checkpoint to checkpoint. Bushwhacking, trail hiking, canoeing (my personal favorite), biking, rappeling, rock climbing, rafting, snowshoeing, and skiing could all be part of any given race. In many cases, teams don’t have the opportunity to choose their routes until minutes before the race begins. The National Adventure Racing Championship of Canada is a 480-kilometer (nearly 300-mile) race that includes bushwhacking, biking, and canoeing. Each team comprises four people, a mix of men and women.
Earlier on, at the four-hour mark of climbing steep ridges and forcing our way through the thickest bush I have ever seen (and I’ve seen a lot of bush), we broke through to a babbling brook, where we refreshed ourselves and our water supply. Another team was close on our tail, so we went into stealth mode and let them pass. After all, this would be the only good water source for a while; if they happened to miss it, we’d have a slight advantage.
I love this strategic aspect of adventure racing. I’ve even heard of teams that have walked backward through the mud to throw off their followers. Derek and Tanya have been constantly reminding me and Doug, the two rookies, to drink and eat, to the point where they would become upset with us for having more energy drink left in our water bags than they did. I bent over and shoved my overheated face into the brook to guzzle as much as possible. We heard the sound of breaking twigs as the other team passed through the bush a hundred yards away.
In an adventure race, each team member typically has a predetermined role. The navigator, who has the strongest compass-reading skills, leads the way to the next checkpoint. If the navigator carries only the compass and not the map, the next person in line may keep the map hanging from their pack, constantly checking for reference points: a high ridge over there, a lake over here. The next two may simply trek along, keeping pace with the leaders. The team captain is also responsible for bolstering team spirit, but there is no question that everyone on the team is responsible for boosting morale at one time or another. I may carry you through this leg, but you may need to carry me through the next. Our team was thrown together without much time to prepare, so Derek, Tanya, and I all navigate while Derek assumes the leadership role.
Another hour passes, and we finally hit an established trail. Morale is at an all-time high, and we even bump into another team. Everyone is happy and we all travel together, laughing, talking, and trying to keep pace with the ridiculously fit Olivier, who leads Team Endurance Junkies. We’re called Team Survivorman.
Suddenly, the skies open up and dump a torrent of rain and hail on us, but it’s welcomed with hoots and cheers on this otherwise scorching day. Then the trouble starts. I’m carrying the map, but I don’t know the protocol of navigating during a race. As far as I can tell, Derek and Tanya are happy and Doug is keeping pace at the back, so we continue to follow Team Endurance Junkies as they make a number of turns at forks in the trail. Nobody has thought to check the map.
Eventually, they distance us, but we continue following in their footsteps. But something is wrong: it’s getting late and we’ve been traveling far too long not to be at a large lake just outside Checkpoint #1. Then we round a corner, and the trail crosses a big river—a very big river. The only problem is there’s not a river like this anywhere on our route.
Frustration and arguments ensue. Where are we? Finally, Tanya notices the only possible feature like this on our map—we’re way off course. So I learn adventure race rule #1: Never blindly follow another team; they could be wrong. We eventually make our way back to where we have to go, but not until we have traveled four hours and ten kilometers out of our way.
There are mandatory items that all adventure race participants must carry: compass, first aid kit, satellite phone, GPS, sleeping bag, emergency tarp, and tent, along with the necessary food and water. Lightweight energy drinks and food are a staple, but Derek’s idea of packing some cold slices of pizza is an incredible morale booster.
As delicious as the pizza may be, it barely masks the frustration I feel from wearing cross-training running shoes instead of hiking boots. Hiking boots offer much more protection, but are simply too heavy to be hauled around for three hundred miles when speed is of the essence. Running shoes may drain well and don’t weigh on your feet, but they are constantly wet from trudging through swamps and creeks and offer your toes no protection from the constant banging against branches and rocks. Swollen, blistered feet are common at the end of every race. Clearly, someone needs to invent an adventure-racing shoe!
Hour thirteen. After our unfortunate detour, we are finally climbing a three-kilometer trail that rises two thousand feet to Checkpoint #1, Ishpatina Ridge, the highest point in Ontario. En route, Tanya’s right shoulder barely grazes a leaning tree, but it’s enough to dislodge a log ten inches in diameter, which drops five feet down, directly onto Doug’s head. A serious injury out here would not only be devastating, but extremely dangerous as well. It would also be nearly impossible for us to carry him out of here on our own. Doug’s okay, but he will be plagued by neck pain and headaches for the rest of the journey.
We’re all exhausted, but there’s still a long way to go. Doug swallows some Tylenol. My head is clear—I’m no stranger to sleep deprivation thanks to my experience as Survivorman—but my knees are showing signs of strain. A sharp pain shoots through the inside of my knee with every grunting step forward. Derek is feeling better after his struggle with stomach pain, but his feet feel like they’re being sliced slowly with razors. For Tanya, the worst is yet to come.
Each race is peppered with a series of checkpoints, some manned and some unmanned. Some serve as transition areas where, if it is a supported race, you can meet up with your support crew and transfer from foot to canoe or canoe to bike. Transition areas are great because they have tents already set up, medical teams, hot food, and a change of clothes to help keep you moving.
For Team Survivorman, Checkpoint #2 is simply a campsite at the south end of a lake, where two volunteers watch over a fire and some tents. It is here that we learn, to our surprise, that we are not dead last! This means that somewhere out there, after twenty-two hours of nonstop racing, three other teams have not even made it as far as we have. I feel bad for them, but duty calls. We heat up some of our pizza over the fire, fill our water bags, and set off for sixteen more kilometers of bushwhacking, comfortable in the knowledge that, even with our four-hour blunder, we’re only a few hours behind the leaders. It’s great news, but it won’t last long.
We’re forcing our way through even thicker bush when we realize the only way we’re not going to get lost is to hold our bearing. Derek proves an excellent navigator through the Canadian wilderness, always landing us right on the shore of the remote lake we are trying to find. Yet as confident as we are in Derek’s route-finding skills, we are nagged by the belief that “we must be there by now.” So we orient the map, comfortable in the knowledge that the lake must be just around the next corner, only to find that we’re just halfway there. All this, and darkness is falling yet again. We’ve been hoping for a trail. The map shows an old trail. There must be a trail soon. Where’s the trail?!
There’s a real art to map reading. In a race like this, a good navigator can make the difference between winning and not even finishing. Transferring compass bearings, noting ridgelines and lakes, taking into account magnetic declination, the age of the map. The map is old—is the trail still there? It may not be, but it may have been made into a big, beautiful road, and hitting it may save hours of bushwhacking.
Each member has a chance to shine during the race. Derek, a supremely fit cyclist, will push me up the hills on our bikes during the 100-kilometer (sixty-mile) biking section, pedaling with one hand on his handlebars and one hand on my back. My time to shine comes around the thirty-sixth hour of the first section of hiking, as we lie down on the ground for some rest. Doug is quiet, Tanya suffering silently, and Derek near hysterical trying to figure out where the trail is. After a thirty-minute nap in the middle of the night, Derek is adamant that we head off in the direction of his choosing. I know it’s wrong, though, and insist we stick to the compass. I am, in the end, correct, and happy that I can make an important contribution to the team. My strength comes from my ability to handle sleep deprivation, something I have had so much experience with from my survival excursions.
Forty-five hours into the race, we’ve rested for a total of less than two hours. Tanya’s physical condition takes a turn for the worse. For the last twelve hours or so, she’s been suffering from horrible chafing and infection all through her inner thighs and pelvic area. That hasn’t stopped her from stoically pushing forward, at times literally crawling through the bush, her skin red and raw, the infection threatening to become internal. We know we are close—we have to be. But how much farther? The blackflies are ferocious. Tanya can’t keep going, though she claims otherwise.