Adventure Academy and Race - Part One

What a great week! When I took off a month between jobs, I promised myself that I would do something entirely for me. My plan was to go away for a week all by myself - no kids and no husband. This sounds selfish, and it probably is - but man was it great!

Given the uncertainty of when I would be leaving one job and starting the next, I did not have much time to plan my trip. I knew I wanted to go some place where I could play and sweat - what ever I did, I wanted to go at it hard! I searched the internet for options. I looked a vacation packages and camps. I soon focused in on surfing camps and adventure camps. Surfing in Costa Rica looked like a blast, but since I had waited so long to make a reservation, the flight was over $1500 - thus making the trip financially unreasonable. So adventure camp it was...

I quickly weeded out those camps that had pictures out of shape people on their site. I soon focused on Odyssey Adventure Academy - a 5 day camp that culminated in a 24 hour race. I rationalized all the gear I had to purchase by comparing it to the cost of the plane ticket to Costa Rica. Besides - I knew I'd use the gear again and it helped that REI was having its annual sale!

There were 9 students at the academy. Some were experienced adventure racers and other, like me, who had no experience at all. I was the first one to show up at Camp Washington Carver near New River Gorge in West Virginia. The gates were closed and a quick stroll through the camp revealed no one. I was beginning to fret that I sent my money to a black hole! Fortunately another person showed up, and then another until there were seven of us hanging out at the locked gate, wondering if there was in fact a camp. There was no cell phone service at the camp. After about an hour we left as a group to find a location with cell service - when we finally able to reach a live person, we learned that the location of the camp had changed. Apparently none of us got the e-mail... At least we didn't have to go through any of those silly ice breaking exercises, since we all got to know each other while we hung out at the locked gate. Everyone had a great sense of humor, and I was looking forward to a fun week.

When we finally made it to the correct location, we were shown to our lodging. A 20' x 20' cabin with a loft. Six of of us were to sleep there - four women and two men. Good thing we all liked each other!

The first day was repelling and ascending. We spent the morning learning techniques and safety and headed to the cliffs in the afternoon. The repelling was awesome! What a high. I headed over to the "lobster claw"climb next. Two people had gone before me up this wall. Mike, a very fit and experienced adventure racer, scaled the wall with some difficulty but made it all the way up. The next woman got stuck at a very difficult section and ultimately gave up. When it was my turn and when I got to this same section of the climb, I refused to stop trying. It took a lot of coaching from the instructors and some pure gutting out but I made it through the section. The rest of the climb was tough, but the adrenaline got me through it.

Day two we learned navigation. Despite the great instruction, it was clear from the get go that navigation was where I was going to struggle the most... After doing classroom work in the morning, we headed out to the park to test of our knowledge. Before leaving, we packed up our gear in our packs. Because of our tight quarters, I left some things in my car that I had to retrieve for the day's activities. After getting what I need out I slammed the door shut (the car was parked at a side angle and the door needed a hard slam to close). I was horrified when I realized my finger was caught in the door. I had to drop everything out of my other hand so that I could open the car door to release my finger. I took a quick look at the cut and bent finger to confirm no broken bones. The cut was pretty deep, and I knew I was going to need at least a butterfly band aid. I made my way up to the main cabin where every was waiting to leave and found a fellow participant who I knew was a doctor in real life. He took a look and confirmed I would probably need something to avoid infection and to help it heal faster. I thought it would be okay to do the afternoon field work first and then we could pick up some durabond and steri stripes at the pharmacy. One of the instructors went to work cleaning my finger and and bandaging it up, during which I got more and more light headed, until I eventually was looking up at three faces all of which were asking if I was okay. Yep - I passed out! In the process I hit my chin on the fireplace and scraped it up pretty good. Now the Doc was checking my face to see if I broke my cheek bones! They all laughed when I said "you guys are still going to let me go today - right?" They did let me go - taped up fingers, bleeding chin and all. Since there was no durabond or steri strips to be found, I headed out to the closest urgent care facility and they took care of the finger. The emergency doctor and I had a little disagreement over whether I could continue doing the adventure camp... I won. I was back at the camp and I was able to grab a quick bite of dinner before heading out for nigh navigation.

Day three was canoeing and kayaking. Good thing we are building a new garage... cause I'm going to need the space for the new kayak! Day four we spent another day on the water white water rafting. In addition to all the field work I've described above we had class room work on first aid, back pack packing, foot care etc. We also did a little mountain biking and trekking. In all the earliest I went to bed all week was 11 PM the latest was 3 AM and averaged about 1 AM. By Friday I was beat and I still had a 24 hour race on Saturday! Stay tuned for my next entry about the race...