The best laid plans

My team was standing at the start line of a 200-mile expedition race that would take us 3 days and nights through the back woods of Maine to reach the finish line.  This was now my third longer race and I had a veteran team assembled that expected to compete for the win. We had our canoes and padding gear with us at the starting line but no water in sight.  The maps showed that we had a 3-4 mile section of woods to travel first (with all of our equipment including a very heavy canoe) until we reached our first large lake.  Teams took off running like it was a 100 yard dash, we had learned by now that this was wasted energy so early in the race.  We made our way to the lake rolling the canoe on wheels and sometimes carrying it over downed trees or rocks.  A large lake paddle followed and by three hours into the race we reached a dam where we would transition to a white water rafting section.

This segment of the race was designed to be fun really.  The river was controlled by the dam and they released the water each morning in the spring.  We'd get into class 3 and class 4 rapids but in a large rubber raft with a guide, so more fun than danger.  A small delay on the initial canoe portage had us around 10th place, but the field was fairly compact still.  We had a great time on the rapids and we paddled during the flatter stages of the river in order to move forward.  Our efforts seem to pay off because as we descended to the lower section of the river, we started catching the teams in front of us.  However, we also started to notice that the teams behind us were also catching up to us.  It took us a while to figure out what was happening, but our guide explained that we had moved faster than then water release and we were now ahead of the bubble of water traveling down the river from the damn.  It sounds crazy, but the water needs to fill up so many nooks and crannies as the river goes along, that even though we were on top of class 4 rapids a few miles back, now the rafts were scraping rocks on the bottom and you could get out and walk faster. The result was that almost all of the teams in the race came back together by the end of the river section.  It was basically like starting the race over again.  The teams that had burned energy to be way out front at the beginning were upset.  You could hear them complaining to one another.  For us, it seemed like a neutral event and nothing we could do about it at this point.  Just had to move on.

After meeting with our support team, the next leg was a 90-mile mountain bike leg that seems to be entirely on roads - well Maine roads, which means soft dirt and lots of rocks. It was early afternoon and we felt we would be to the next rendezvous point with our support team by 8:00pm that evening. We set out on the long slog that didn't seem to have too much to it except the saddle sore that can set it with that many miles. Just about as night began to fall strange things started happening and the wheels started to fall off.  First, we passed an intermediate checkpoint and faced a gear inspection and learned that we had forgotten to pack a piece of our safety gear. We were issued a 2-hour penalty that we would have to serve at the next transition area. Hot off of that news we started down a road that seemed good for a while, but quickly started to meander differently from what the map indicated. We kept pressing forward, but it became clear that we were no longer following along the line drawn on the map.  Another few miles and we had to pull up and start assessing the situation. We were feeling lost and now faced various road choices. We had been in the top three of the standings since we started the biking sections, but the longer we stood around trying to figure out where we were on the map, the more teams caught up with us. As it turned out, most of the teams ended up in the same (wrong) spot and started to work together to solve the riddle. It took hours with some trial and error going down incorrect roads and having to double back to our original location, then trying something else.

By the time we worked it out, it was the dead middle of the night. Now riding under lights, we felt like we were back on course, and then came the rain. It started raining pretty hard and the May night was cold. The one thing I hate to do during races is stop out on course. But the team was falling apart and it was pretty miserable. We came up on a small cabin in the woods that had a small covered porch and we ducked under.  Always a little risky in the middle of the Maine woods in the middle of the night which No Trespassing signs everywhere. But we piled up on the floor under our space blankets and took a 1-hr nap. It took us the rest of the night and a good portion of the next morning to get to the support area we expected to reach the previous evening.  We were tired, cold, wet, and starving as we didn't plan enough food for the full night. Our crew was also a little weary as they had been up all night anticipating our arrival at any moment. And, we had a two hour penalty to face at some point. It was too much for two of the four team members. They decided to drop out of the race. We were only 1/3 of the way through and this was devastating news. All the preparation time, all the training, all the effort to get here. I consulted with my teammate and good friend David Darby and we decided that we would continue on even if it was unofficial. Once again, nothing more we could do about an outside force.

We refreshed ourselves with supplies and food, served our penalty, and continued on. A day and half later, Dave and I crossed the finish line together unofficially in third place.

Throughout my adventuring racing career I was faced time and time again with surprise challenges: flat tires, broken bike chains, getting lost, feeling and getting sick, bad or broken team mates. Besides the awesome travel and adventures, the repetition of facing and dealing with these challenges was the most valuable part of the whole experience.  I think back to my life prior to getting involved with adventure racing and I see a life focused on the wrong things and stress built up over meaningless things.  How many times was I stuck in traffic and cursing up and down in my car?  How many people get mad because their Starbucks isn't made just right?  I watched a Vice President at my company blow a gasket yelling at me because I suggested two engineers move next to one another because they were going to be working on a project together for the next several months. Not natural.

It was right around this time that (and not coincidentally) I launched my event business - Genesis Adventures - and began to promote and run my own adventure races locally in Connecticut.  It was a long time coming but I had finally done all the work to form the business, create the website, do the marketing, secure permits and all the support equipment necessary to pull off the event. I had quit my six-figured job and was hanging out on a limb with a big mortgage and two small kids at home. The last element I needed was kayaks for the race. I had sourced a supplier and felt the order was in hand. I needed around 60 inflatable kayaks for the first event and coming up on one week before my debut event, they had not arrived. I called the supplier and it turned out that they were on back order and none would arrive in time for the race. I distinctly remember kicking a box in my office very hard and sitting with my hands in my head for a while. But I was different now.  Just one more obstacle standing in my way that I had to solve.

I found that the local Sports Authority stores stocked the same kayaks, I jumped in my truck, my wife in her van with the kids and we bought out every store I could in the area. It was now a day before the race and I only had 20 kayaks. The great thing about adventure races is that the competitors are expecting surprises from the race organizer.  Since there was a running, biking, and kayaking section on the course, I split the field in three and sent them in three different directions. Only 1/3 of the field needed kayaks at once and we made it through the race. In fact, the racers thought it was cool that they weren't all together and couldn't tell how they were doing until the end.

As I staged more and bigger events as a Race Director, the one thing you learn is that despite all the planning - things happen.  And they're going to happen to you.  What's important is how you react. I see too many people who want to over plan, and then when a deviation occurs, they're crushed.  They can't deal with it.  I've watched top triathletes run into a relatively small, but unplanned issue and blow a fuse ruining their entire race. I've seen inexperienced Race Directors over plan, and then get consumed and overrun by a small problem rather than seeing the big picture.

A great man I know worked for the same company for over 30 years until he was laid off during a downsizing.  It spun him into a clinical depression for close to a year.  It was very hard to watch.  His plan, his self-worth, his vision of the future was all tied to the company that he started to work for out of college and would take care of him until he retired. But an outside, uncontrollable force changed his plan suddenly.  It was crazy, the man had achieved everything great in life.  A loving wife, four beautiful children, house, and solid wealth that gave him the freedom to do whatever he wanted in life. At some point in his journey, he awakened.  He pick himself off the couch and began to move forward.  He created his own new business that gave him a new sense of purpose and a greater sense of pride than I have ever seen.  It wasn't even about the money for him.  Over ten years later the business continues to run and grow.  I take great inspiration from this man and I'm very happy to be part of his life.

We've already covered that planning and preparation are important. But far more important is the ability to read and react to the certain and sometimes very sudden changes that will take place in your life. Obstacles are coming your way, and I'm not talking about a cold Starbucks, traffic, or someone playing politics at work, that's all crap.  You need to develop resilience, an ability to absorb a new situation and adapt your plan at a moment's notice. This is the only way to move forward in life.