Odyssey One Day Jan 17
I wanted to start the season off early this year to be ready for another competative season of racing in early spring.  In deciding this I met up with some of the guys from our friends on Halfwaythere.com to form a second team.  Our strategy was to be an eight person uber team and navigate with 16 eyes looking for check points and double map power.  Well that strategy never seems to work each time I've tried it and like the times past this attempt quickly fell apart.  The primary reason was the other halfwaythere team (I was on halfwaythere2) ended up not being able to race as their intended team due to personal reasons.  That left us with a 2 coed and a 4 coed team so a few less eyes, but still 2 maps.  We started the race in -8 degree weather, yes thats right, minus eight.  All the bearded men were doing their best to look like santa clause and the rest of us just had to settle for frozen eyelashes and tears.  My team was a little slower on foot so we separated from the 2 coed team halfway to cp2.  We caught up with them at cp 2, but they took off before us.  Unfortunately that would be the last we saw them for a long time.  We finished the other to foot cps and back to transition before them and took off before they got in.  Racing away in the now rising temp of zero degrees I was happy to have over insulated my feet.  On the feet were smartwool socks, then seal skins, then my cycling shoes with toe warmers under my toes and then finally the booties over the shoes.  We rode and often pushed our way up some brutal hills.  I got a little help from JJ.  Jeremy took a nice face plant trying to ride through a stream with ice covering the far side and I had a nice endo down a very rocky gully.  Otherwise things were going well.  We got out to some hard top and found our breaks weren't working so well.  Luckily Sara from Calleva warned us about an approaching stop sign and that someone had been hit by a car.  Turned out he is ok, but at the time it brought a little gravity to what we were doing.  The paddle was cancelled so we checked in and out there quickly and were now on our way to our next foot course.  Little did we know standing between us and that foot course were at least 25 stream crossings which were partially frozen.  Staying dry this race was key and after Jeremy's face plant and the desire for dry feet all streams were crossed with caution and care to not get feet wet.  All the guys managed to not suceed at this, I did stay dry.  Several hours later we are almost to the transition and I find that my breaks no longer work.  They'd been slowly decreasing in power over these last hours, but now I've got nothing.  My feet are used stop me several time and wilma flinstone is my name for a bit.  After kicking more stones, embankments and drit clogs than I care to we arrive at the cp/ta.  We get moving as quick as possible and start checking off the points.  After picking them all up in about 3 hr we are back to the bikes and off on some hard top for a while.  JJ again gives me a lift and we are off, still with no breaks.  After the hard top we see a friendly face (Michelle Faucher) at cp xx and then head back into the boyscout camp we started at on fire roads and very unkept trails.  This turns into many hours of hike a bike and then disappointingly no riding the down hill we finally arrive at b/c I have no brains...I mean breaks!  We hobble into TA happy to be done riding and in the cold even if it is for only a short period of time.  The guys get a good rest in and everyone dries out and refuels.  We are out on the final leg, a ten point o-course, and have eight hours to get them all.  Our mindset is to do just that.  We arrive at the first three points quickly and then start out on a very long trek to the fourth.  We get there just before sunrise continue on ward.  We struggle to get the next few points and realize we are running out of time.  My knee is killing me and so I can't offer much of a pace, but man do I have to say good move bringing the trekking poles on this section.  We are running out of time and decided to skip a mtn top summit and try for two easier ones close to the finish line.  We fail at both, one was too far the other we couldn't find (turns out it was mismarked on the map, our fault).  We arrive at the finish line with about 10 min to spare and find ourselves and only one other team there.  Everyone called it quits hours ago, at least we got the tough guy award for sticking it out and maximizing our time.  We ended up in 5th not bad for a day + in the cold with guys I've never raced with before.  Thanks Jeremy, JJ, and Lukas from Halfwaythere.com for racing with me.  It was a great season opener.
Kathy