Midnight Rush

...its an adventure race, not one of Jayden's night time feeding frenzies! This past Saturday, after weeks of diligent pumping to build up a hefty milk surplus in the freezer, I got to have a day away to do a 12 hour race up near Cornelia, GA at the Lake Russell WMA. I was originally going to race with Kim, but she got sick a couple of days before the race, so I was adopted by Julia and Thomas, who were on a second OutSpokin' Bikes team.

The race started with a "prologue" trail run section that took about an hour and a half. I set a moderate to fast pace at the start and was surprised when Thomas (a pro mountain biker/all-around-badass who doesn't ever run) was right there next to me, and Julia (a seasoned xterra/dualthlon/XC/AR/all-around-fast-chick) was falling a little behind. Apparently, Thomas is good at everything he tries... We walked a little bit towards the end, but were still within the first couple of teams back to the TA. We picked up our bikes and after realizing that we weren't coming back to our TA at our campsite until the race finish, I tossed my manual breast pump in my pack for later use...fun eh?

The next bike section was all gravel or paved roads. Thomas was on his singlespeed, so he set a nice fast pace up the climbs that kept us working. The nav was straightforward so we were able to move through that section pretty quickly and made our way to Currahee Mountain for our next transition.

Once at Currahee Mountain we got another map for a trekking section that was mostly on trails with a little bit of bushwhacking. Again, the nav was pretty straightforward and there was, of course, the obligatory bushwhack up Currahee Mtn. My "girls" were getting pretty swollen, so I had to pump about halfway through this section. I went off into the woods a bit and sat down to get pumpin'. Thankfully only one team came by, but they did ask if I was ok...I'm not quite sure they realized what I was doing.

Once we cleaned that section, we were back on our bikes for an even longer ride back to the start/finish. When I strapped on my Niterider, I found that it didn't work, so I was relegated to wearing my headlamp. No worries though, as both Thomas and Julia had good lights. The nav was still pretty easy, although I did blow by one CP that we had to backtrack for because I wasn't watching the map and distance close enough. Once we hit the paved road back to the campground, Julia's light totally went out, but we were almost home so it didn't matter.

We finished about 11 pm and had obtained all the checkpoints. Julia and Thomas stayed up and made a campfire and pasta...me - well I just crawled into my sleeping bag and went to bed. A fine end to my "day at the spa".