NH 24 Hour Adventure Race

Tora and I volunteered for a 24 hour adventure race over the weekend. This was the last race of the season for the racing company Tora's mom owns, Racing Ahead. We both had a great time but it was very tiring! There were 18 teams that started this year so it was a pretty good crowd for a 24 hour race. Tora and I worked the start and the first transition area which was the paddle to bike transition. I had some fun doing a gear check on all the teams and making them dig through their neatly packed bags for required gear.

After the first TA, Tora and I sort of helped out at checkpoint 14 for a while and then headed up to our post for the night CP C, which was the last checkpoint of the race. We drove my minivan about a mile into the woods and set up camp in a meadow near Gunstock. The projected time for the first team was around 9:30PM so we sat around and waited excitedly for them, and waited... and waited... and waited.... and they finally showed up at 3:00 AM! Neither of us got much sleep at all that night but we tried to be cheerful and enthusiastic when teams wandered into our cozy part of the woods. One team even took a little break and sat around our campfire for a bit with us while they rested before the final push to the finish.

I like volunteering at these races (if anyone wants to try it then shoot me an email). The racers really appreciate that you are volunteering and thank you frequently and just doing the work can be fun too. The races can get exciting when a few teams are vying for the lead and you don't know which one will pop out of the woods first at the next checkpoint. The team that won this weekends race was called Wicked Pissah and they were consistently up there but I thought that they might lose the top spot a few times. You can read more at the official race report page.

Tora and I were so tired on Sunday that we had to trade off driving on the way home so we could alternate naps. We got home at 1:00PM, I took a shower and then laid down for a nap at like 2:00PM. When I woke up again it was Monday morning, I had slept 17 hours! I'm still impressed with myself and I think its a new sleeping record for me.