Bending the Map: Shenandoah Epic Race Report
- 48 minutes ago
- 7 min read
I took on the 24 hour Shenandoah Epic adventure race solo. Yep, all by myself. Pretty proud of that. I hadn’t done a 24 hour solo race for at least a few years. 24 hours is just long enough to play to some of my strengths though.
The night time hours don’t spook me too much, and I’m not super fast, but I can maintain the speed I do have for a long time. Good thing, too, because I somehow had to make up for my navigation errors!
I ended up 1st solo female and 11th out of 85 overall. I was second overall soloist with Chip Dodd being the only solo racer that beat me. (Go figure.)
So stoked!
But, there definitely were some not-so-proud moments, too… I think I had AT LEAST an hour and a half of nav errors and inefficiencies. So, let me tell you more on that because that’s where the growth usually happens. And, besides, it’s not a good story if nothing goes wrong.
This race was designed in a super unique way. Stages were set up for the bike legs to take you to paddle put-ins and when you finished the paddle, you’d trek back to where you left your bike when you got on the water. Rinse and repeat 3 times. Neat concept. With such short legs and so many transitions (10), it was a challenge in itself to unscramble my brain enough to figure out what to do where, when and how.
It was a blessing and a curse that all of the paddle legs and all but one of the bike legs had no checkpoints on them. I’d prefer points on every leg, but it was quite challenging to keep it all straight in my brain as it was.
Knowing the last bike leg had checkpoints and knowing it was within the Shenandoah River State Park, I was looking forward to the 2nd-to-last leg for the whole race. I love to mountain bike and those trails at that park are super fun!
So, of course, that’s where my biggest navigation error of the race happened. I just couldn’t unbend the map.
If you haven’t heard that phrase before, AI says it’s when someone mentally distorts or misinterprets the map to match what they think they’re seeing on the ground, instead of adjusting their understanding to match the map.
Yep, that’s what I was doing.
As I started this leg, I passed at least 3 teams, maybe 4. My inner talk was, “I know these trails. I’ve got this. This is fun. This is easy. I’m doing so great!” As with most of my follies, that seems to be when I get a smack down.
I found myself at an intersection trying to decide which way to go. I think I know right where I am. I investigate and I choose a direction to go. I take that trail and come out at a completely unexpected place.
Instead of saying I did something wrong, I started telling myself the map was wrong. (It actually can happen. Roads and trails are sometimes there in real life, but not on the map. Maybe they are too old or too new to be on whatever mapping software the race designer used.)
So… in addition to checking the supplemental trail map we were given, I look at the park sign posted at the trail intersection. Brilliant idea, except the map does not have a “you are here” arrow. What good is that?! I wonder if anyone else has even been frustrated by this? I wonder if the park knows they could help a lot of people by adding a “you are here” sticker.
BUT, here’s the other thing. This was during the “witching hours” between 2 am and 5 am. As a team, we know to be super careful during this time. This is when your brain can play tricks on you, or at least when your brain can check out without notifying you. It’s when most people are the most sleepy.
So, I still wonder if the dang “you are here” indicator was really there and I just didn’t see it. It’s definitely possible. Anywho, moving on… using a park map in an adventure race feels the slightest bit icky anyway. It’s not cheating, but it ain’t “winning” either.
So then, I thought I’d just go up the road a bit to see what the road does. I surprisingly turn into a campground. A nice, big one that I think is not on the map. It can’t possibly be the campground on the map that is WAY over there… where I should NOT be at all… The road seems new, the buildings look newish… I tell myself it’s not on the map because it’s new. I go back to the trailhead thinking I missed a turn, but when I do that, things still don’t add up.
I go back up the road that parallels the trail. When the trailhead appears sooner than I think it should, I blow off that thought, too. I REALLY want to be right this time.
I ride the trail and do the same thing I just did again. Pretty sure that’s the definition of insanity, doing the same thing you’ve already done and expecting a different outcome.
Next plan, I convince myself that a building in real life is a certain building on the map. I think I’ve got it figured out, finally! I find a trail that goes behind the building and it seems to go in the right direction, sort of. I take that trail and go VERY slow so as not to miss the CP.
Then to my surprise, I get to the bottom of the trail without seeing the CP and I’m greeted with tons of teams coming my way. I know immediately that I’m on the Bluebell Trail.
Finally, I free my mind from the cloud of lies I had been telling myself. Now I KNOW where I am. And, I’m screwed.
Well, not completely, but I did have to talk myself out of thinking I just ruined my race (again, there were at least 2 previous, albeit lesser, mistakes that also “ruined” this race for me) and I told myself I’d have the pity party after the race when I find out how much I really suck. By the way, Fragile Flowers Adventure Racing, Olga Huber, would never make a mistake like this!
I had time to climb back out of the pit of despair, but I still had to pass all these teams seeing me go the wrong way all saying, “Good job!” Well-intentioned I know, but I knew better. It was a ride of shame.
The sun was just coming up and the teams coming my way, were smiling and having a blast. They were done with this section and were heading to start of the final leg.
I didn’t let myself think about how exactly I got so turned around and disconnected from reality. I told myself that my Strava gps track would tell the tale and I’d figure out what I did wrong after the race ended. I went back to having a clean slate.
I eventually got the point, attacking it from the unintended, less-fun direction. It was a hike-a-bike with one more walk of shame as another team going the correct direction flew by me.
The rest of the points came easy. Well… not necessarily physically easy, but navigationally easy. And, as most uphill slogs, they earn you great downhills!
I got to see another team, too, while I was going the RIGHT way. It was Adventure Addicts Racing with Michelle Faucher and Ben Valentine. We hooted and hollered on the downhills. The short time we were together was a blast and a great pick-me-up!
Back to the real issue though that I keep thinking about. Why did I let myself believe my own lies?!
All the tools I used to try to figure out the puzzle were telling me I was wrong, but I kept telling myself I was right.
Seriously, I oriented my map. I did the things you’re supposed to do when you’re trying to establish where you are. I told myself things like it’s just a newly added road or… the map is not detailed enough to show all of the squiggles in the trail so that’s why the compass is off.
I disregarded every ounce of truth that presented itself. In other words, I didn’t see the truth until it smacked me in the face…
I wonder how much I do that in real life. Probably more than I care to admit. I think I know. I think I don’t have biases. I think I’m pretty open minded. But am I? I think I make decisions based on truth, on a foundation of analytical problem solving.
Bending the map is a little like confirmation bias. I was looking at the map and picking and choosing what fit my preexisting ideas instead of starting from first principles. That’s hard to do in a race and almost impossible to do in real life.
I don’t feel like I have to question every decision I’ve made in my entire life after having this revelation in a 24 hour adventure race, but I do think I want to give some more thought as to what I’m actually telling myself, what I’m letting myself believe, and why.
Maybe the rest of the world should, too. When it seems like everyone is losing their minds, maybe we just need to take a step back and trust our compasses, without judgement. We need to reevaluate the possibilities and maybe even be willing to be wrong.
One last “deep thought”, I’m also going to try not to check-out when things are going well. I don’t mean that I’m going to live a life of paranoia, but I might try to stay focused on what’s important… especially when I’m feeling overconfident.
Don’t get me wrong, confidence is good and even necessary. There are many times I feel like I need to work on having MORE confidence. But what I’m talking about is OVERconfidence… when ego gets involved and hubris takes over. That doesn’t usually work out so well for me.
Anyone relate?
So many lessons to learn in adventure racing!
Photo credit Vladimir Bukalo and Brent Russell