Rss/Xml2006 AR World Champs Report
Hello Friends! Sorry it's been so long since my last confession :-)
I just got home from the Church of the AR World Championships in Sweden, and despite what happened to our team, the race was gorgeous, well thought out, rugged, varied, interesting, and aside from a few glitches )like not enough kayaks to go around and no time bonuses given for the hours that teams had to wait) the 2006 ARWC was a race worthy of it's title (finally!).
No trails on the hiking sections, super cool technical glaciers, unearthly and exquisite rock formations and granite mountain ranges, no ridiculously long bushwacking or bike bashing sections, a nice continguous and sensible flow to the course, a peek of the Northern Lights at night (only 3 hours of darkness!) and endless Lapland scenery made the race even more stellar with every step (when one wasn't looking at one's feet, which was far too often). My one criticism: If I had my perfect world, there would have been a lot more paddling than only 10 percent of the race mileage with so many perfect opportunities around, but a paddling team always wants more paddling, don't they? We're just waiting for the race that has just as much paddling as hiking or mtn biking. Wishful thinking? :) In general, though, Michael Nordstrom put on a great race and should be proud of his efforts and his staff/volunteers.
Now for the juicy stuff. A little too juicy when it came to my feet! I know the coverage of the race was spotty at best, so if you're interested in why Team Merrell/Wigwam dropped out of the race, here's the scoop. I had something called Trenchfoot, which I have never before encountered, and will hopefully never have to deal with again! Sooo terribly painful. Basically, trenchfoot occurs when your feet are very wet for long periods of time and are unable to shed the water. They develop deeply inset pockets of fluid that separate the skin layers and press on the nerves, and the result is a searing pain that I can only describe as walking on broken glass with every step. AaAgggghhhhhhhhh! I literally walked until the very last step that would support my weight, and I finally sat down in agony for the last time at the least accessible point on the race course--the top of a technical glacier in Norway. While the helicopter ride out was waaay cool, this is not a recommended way to leave a race course. :). Just so none of you have to go through this, here's why it happened: I've been in many wet races and had perfect feet (ie EcoChallenge Fiji, Eco Challenge Borneo, Eco-Motion Brazil, etc), but in this case, I made the rookie error of wearing gore tex boots as my required mountaineering boots for the glacier sections. In the first mountaineering section on day two of the race, I managed to get water in my boots (as is always the case--nearly unavoidable to keep ones feet dry in AR), and my feet were then trapped in water for about 15 hours. That was the beginning of the end. When I had to wear the same boots for the second glacier section 2 days later, it put the pain level right over the top and, sadly, sealed the fate of our team. The only reason we got as far as we did in the race (12 hrs from the finish), is that in the "trekking"/non mountaineering sections before and after the glaciers, I was able to wear my regular favorite hiking shoes, the Merrell Overdrive, which, of course, get wet, but shed water well, are super lightweight and dry quickly. With a few hours of putting my feet up each night, I was able to recover and move pretty well (albeit not nearly the race speeds we're used to), and it actually seemed like my feet were healing themselves hour by hour in the Overdrives... Until they had to endure the gore tex again on that final glacier....
Other than that, Team Merrell/Wigwam, I'm proud to say, really had a good race. Great teamwork, great navigation, good decisions, and no mistakes (a first!). We were a bit slower than the other teams chasing the top 5 due to the fact that we really left our blood and guts on the race course at Primal Quest 5 weeks earlier (every other team in/near the top 5 had at least 2 "fresh" racers, if not all Freshies), but we did the very best we could with what we had. Which is the silver lining in all of this. My boys rocked, and I love them for their patience, their consistency, and their class, especially in the face of all the adversity we have endured together in our last two races (right from the literal frying pan of PQ into the fire of Sweden!). If you'll indulge me in my dreams of the Perfect AR World once again, I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say that we wish that the race directors would talk with one another and not make the big expedition races so close together on the calendar in the future. Our team doesn't want to have to add fresh meat to the roster since we genuinely love racing together, and our particular team is so much of the positive experience for us. Just give us a little recovery time in between, and I think we'd all be a lot happier and healthier. But I digress.
SO the moral of the 2006 AR World Championships story is... Don't try to go waterproof in AR. It's not possible, and it can actually screw up your race, big time. Stick with lightweight, fast-wicking, quick draining shoes like the Merrell Overdrives and some non-cotton wicking socks like the Wigwam Ingenius or Ultimax, and you're good to go--and go. I feel like a bit of a dumbass learning this lesson again after watching other friends make this mistake over the years, but at the very least I can find some redemption in helping some of you avoid the agony of 'defeet' in the future. Hehe. My bad. Sometimes bad puns happen to good people. Now go on with your bad non-waterproof selves and kick some butt in your net race! Next up for me, Ironman Kona in October (eeeeek), and EcoMotion Brazil with my awesome boys in November. A couple more chances for my feet to redeem themselves. :). Send us some good race juju if you can! Love and happy racing, Xoxox robyn
