Cowboy Tough Adventure Race | 24 hour скачать в хорошем качестве

Cowboy Tough Adventure Race | 24 hour

Pre-race check-in began at 5 PM the night before the race. I met my teammate Mitzi for the first time, and we got our maps, rules of travel, and race numbers. We raced as Team 218: Strangers No More. We headed off to her parent’s house in Cheyenne for dinner and a night of pouring over the maps to determine the route. I’m super grateful for their hospitality! Though difficult, we decided we would aim to clear the course - it definitely seemed doable, and we had a route planned that we both felt good about. The 24-hour race began on Saturday morning at 9 AM from the Camp Russel Shelter at Curt Gowdy State Park. Leg 1 was around 8-10 miles and consisted of riding our bikes down to the lower reservoir to collect 8 CPs via mountain bike trails, canoe, and trek (to the first of many high points). As we were coming down from the high point, I noticed I was starting to feel a little dizzy and was having a hard time catching my breath. About 45 minutes later, I was blacking out a bit on the bike ride back up to the main TA (Camp Russell) and did not have the energy to get up the hills. My head was pounding with every movement I made and my stomach started feeling blah. I started getting frustrated with myself because I knew I was physically capable of the course but wasn’t sure what was going on with my body. We got back up to the shelter about an hour later than we had hoped. And at this point, I pretty much knew our hopes of clearing the course were fading, but I wasn’t about to quit. The next section was a bike section. We had laid out about a 48 mile route that included 9 CPs, a long road + gravel ride, and some bike-whacking in Medicine Bow National Forest. I tried eating and drinking, but at this point my body was rejecting anything I was putting in. By the time we had ridden about 7 miles out to the first CP, I was wiped. At this point, it had been hours since I had been able to keep anything down, and it was taking me way to long to bike-whack. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to complete the section in the time given and had an honest conversation with my teammate. I wasn’t about to give up but was concerned at this point about my chances of finishing the race if we continued on this section. She agreed that we weren’t going to make it if we continued on this leg, so we rode the 7 miles back to the park. After making it back to the main TA, I rested for about 30 minutes. The RD and several volunteers asked me if I was done based off of how I looked and how I was feeling, but I told them I planned to race on and had no plans of quitting. The next leg was a trek, and trekking is my absolute favorite. I managed to force down some Chef Boyardee Ravioli and a Gatorade, and we started out on leg 3: about a 7 mile trek with loads of bushwhacking up to some high points. There were 6 CPs in this section. After about an hour of trekking, I started to feel a little better. My head was still pounding, but I was finally able to keep some food and electrolytes down. The trek was beautiful! We started out by climbing up to a high point. Then we bushwhacked over to a trail that led down from the visitor center through some beautiful wildflowers and an aspen grove. We continued to bushwhack up high points, cross creeks, and follow trails through the park to clear this section of the race. Leg 4 was the mountain bike. This section of the race actually ended up being my favorite! The 10 miles of singletrack were fast and flowy. And I was feeling like a human again and having fun! There was a little bit of hike-a-bike on some super rocky sections, but for the most part, we had a blast! Coming down Albert’s Alley was probably my favorite. The sun started to come up as we rode the Shoreline trail over to our last checkpoint. We cleared all 10 CPs in this section as well. The RD and volunteers were so sweet to check in with me when we got back to the main TA, and they were as happy as I was to hear and see that I was feeling quite a bit better at this point. Saturday night was the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. I counted a total of 31 throughout the night! The high points that we visited offered clear, sweeping views of the open skies. We had one final leg left and about 2.5 hours to do it in. We trekked down to the upper reservoir for our 3 mile canoe. We had to portage one time on this canoe section, but we cleared this section in about an hour. It was chilly out on the water, and the wind was starting to pick up as we paddled back across the lake. After finishing up the paddle, we headed back up to the main TA to turn in our final punch card just before 8 AM! We managed to clear everything in the park (4/5 of the legs), but we only got one CP on leg 2 (the longer bike section). Time-wise, we made a good move by coming back to the park and clearing all remaining legs of the race. We ended up placing first overall in the female division and 5th overall out of 13 total teams.