Matt's Kinzua Country Tango Race Report

Friday AM. Pack up the car for a week off in Warren PA. Genine and our brother in law Scott headed out about 8:30 AM. It was probably a good thing that I was going to ride with Maija when she got out of work later in the day. We had so much stuff packed I wouldn’t have fit in with them without re-packing.
I probably should have gone back to sleep after they left but I had a To Do list that kept me busy most of the day. Who needs sleep anyhow?
Maija finished work, picked me up and off we go! Her GPS had us scheduled to arrive about 9:30-10 PM. Other than the typical NJ rush hour traffic, it was a pretty uneventful trip. I should have offered to drive the 2nd half of the trip…. Sorry about that Maija.
Once we got there, I had to get to work organizing my race stuff. That took awhile. Mixing up Gatorade, packing food options and deciding what clothes I’d need for each event. Then setting them up so I could find them easily once they were loaded in to our “Transition Area” AKA Craig’s car. I was up much later than I was hoping to be, as I said before. Who needs sleep anyhow?

Race Day:
We had planned to head to the race at 6:20-6:30. I woke up without an alarm at 5AM. UGH! 4.5 hours of sleep!! I wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep, the nerves kind of kicked in already. It was raining out. We are talking major thunderstorm. I check out the weather online, looked like it was really isolated and would be cleared by the start. Whew! Now to psych myself up to race.

We headed down to the YMCA. So nice not to have to worry about leaving 2-3 hours early to get a parking spot. Also nice that it’s only 2 miles away.
I get there, find Craig and transfer all my Boxes of gear into his car.
Craig and Matt 2 man relay team!
GU product placement shot. Just in case they'd like to sponsor us.

13.1 mile run:
The first event is the half marathon, I had worn my Brooklyn Half Marathon T-Shirt on Friday just to remind me that I have completed this distance before. I also decided that I’d wear the Singlet we received from Dana Farber for the Leukemia fundraiser. Just trying to channel all the good energy I can.
Casey’s brother Joe lined up beside me and we talked a bit before the start. I asked what pace he was shooting for and he said 8-8:30 but he’d have to see how it goes because it’s a long day and you have to pace yourself. This was good news for me. I thought there was a chance that I’d be able to run with him the entire 13.1.
Next thing you know we are off and running. I’ll have to download the run info from my watch but I’m fairly certain we were faster than an 8 min mile pace for the first couple miles. I knew that wasn’t going to be a reality for me so I told Joe I was going to have to ease up and he said he’d ease up once he got into the hills. So I latched onto another group which seemed to be more of the pace I was thinking I should be running.
I’m guessing about 4-5 miles into the race someone runs up along side me and says “Wow, I hardly recognized you”. It was Chris and Heather. I had run with them back in December along with Jim and Marty. I’ve lost about 20 or so pounds since then. So that was a very nice morale boost mid run. So I ran with them for quite awhile, Jim and Marty drove up Hemlock and cheered for us as we passed them.
I’m guessing they dropped me once we hit the hill where the dirt road started. I don’t remember but I was right back in with Joe and another person doing the solo tango. They were talking about all sorts of stuff which really was taking my mind off of the running. Which was fantastic. The other guy was telling us how he’d only been at this for 5 years, before that he was one of those people that would sit around watching Nascar and Football. Then he decided to get healthy, so he got rid of his TV. At which point Joe says “Whoa Whoa, hang on here. I can do without Nascar but I’ve gotta watch the Steelers!”
It was very funny. By the way, I’m with you Joe, I’m not giving up on the NFL.
Another funny moment with these two guys was as we were approaching the dam. We were just getting into the really steep hill and I think this other guy was saying how he makes sure he never walks during a race. Well I think he was right in the middle of that statement and Joe and I both started walking up the hill. (Casey check with Joe on that for me). The other guy kept running and we were back up with him midway across the dam.
I’m starting to get the feeling that I’m in the home stretch and that a personal best was in reach. Of course I was also thinking that Maija would be tagging Genine any time now and Genine would be biking. Craig would be staring at the bridge waiting to see my orange jersey hoping I wouldn’t be too far behind.
As it turned out. Maija finished up 15 minutes ahead of me, Shawn’s teammate Heather finished 3 minutes ahead of me and I hit my goal of a 1:50:00 half marathon on a pretty tough course. Craig goes tearing off on his bike. I know he’s going to hit his estimated time this year. Last year was a mess for him so I know he’s determined.
I spot Maija and I ask how she did. She said she was the first woman to finish the run. Wahoo!! We are both pleased with the first event but now we’ve got to drive over to the other side of the reservoir to get to the swim start.

Matt and Maija after the 13.1 mile run

Waiting for Craig to Mtn. Bike 20 miles, as I prepare to Swim:
We get to the parking lot and I’m feeling like I don’t want to swim anytime soon. We have some time. So we go looking for our support canoe teams. Scott and Jerry are there for Maija but I’m not seeing Craig’s mom anywhere. There is still time. Get into the wetsuit, take another stroll around to find them and along the way I run into Jim. He’s telling me that Shawn is going to have to go without a support canoe because there was a mixup. Ugh! So I run down to the docks to see if I can find my crew and maybe they could help them out somehow. They are there. I hand them my Gatorade and food to put into the canoe and I head back up to the transition. Next thing I know, Craig is rolling into the lot!! He has passed both Shawn and Genine and we are first among our friends!!
I jog down to the water. Put on my fins and away we go.
Craig finished the bike in 1:23:00

2.5 mile swim:
I try to maintain a very slight kick with as I start out. My legs are plenty tight from the run but I’m hoping they will hold out for me. I know that I need them to stay close to Shawn and Maija. Well hope wasn’t enough. I had to bail out on the kick, then even with them just being on my feet I was so close to a calf cramp. I flipped onto my back a couple times and just kicked to try and work it out but when I was going to do this a 3rd time, I decided they were of no help to me in my current situation. So I handed them up to the canoe and went kickless for the next 60+ minutes. The cool thing about doing this is you use so much less oxygen. I was able to start breathing every 4 with a 2 mixed in here and there depending on wakes from passing boats. I’m guessing about an hour in, my stomach was telling me I was hungry. I didn’t want to stop. I was more afraid of what something new in my stomach would do, than I was afraid of bonking.
Towards the end of the swim I started to see other swimmers near me and I was being passed. Ah well, you do what you can. When I finally reached the Beach, you are supposed to run up to the top of the hill to the transition area. Which would stop your swim time. Well as soon as I stood up, my quads let me know that they although they just enjoyed the break during the swim, they were still unhappy that I made them run 13 miles this morning. So I had to work through that a bit before heading up the hill. I wonder how much time I added to my result because of this?
Time 1:32:00
Maija and Shawn both passed me during the swim. The girls were back in 1st place and we were back into 3rd among friends.

(Here is a picture of Maija going up the hill I’m speaking of to the transition tent, Genine is running down to meet her)

Orienteering 7 miles:
We were handed out maps as soon as I hit the box from my swim. So our orienteering time will also include my changing out of my wetsuit and getting into my running gear. Not sure why they did that but whatever, it only changes the split result and we weren’t going to break any records.
Last year Orienteering was my first event and we ran up the highway 3 miles first thing then ran the course backwards. Craig had already done the bike last year. This is a late apology to you Craig and a thank you for not making me run up the road to start the orienteering this year. I can’t imagine how slow I would have been.
This year we hiked up the front of the hill looking for point 4 on the map. Instead we found Shawn and Jim. Guess we are in agreement as to which direction we should be going. I was walking. Well we didn’t do a great job at finding that point but looking back I think I learned something for next year. We should have counted how many “steps” or flat areas we needed to climb in order to reach the right elevation. We lost time because we were searching the wrong “level”.
Now that we were on the flat, we tried to pick it up to a jog through the woods. I had a stitch on my right side where I’ve never had one before. So there was quite a bit of jog/walk/jog/walk going on as I tried to work through it. Craig got us to the next point and as we check in the people at the point inform us that the girls team was very pleased that they were there before us. Nice.
Now that we are on the road, it would be nice if I could actually run but I was still in walk/jog mode. We found the next point in good time. This time when when we say our number I’m told that my wife’s team is kicking our butt, or something to that effect. The whole crew there got a laugh at us there….. Very nice.
One more point to go. Finally I am jogging and not having to walk and we’ve got a good trail to follow. We get to the spot where we think the point should be and we see nothing. I mention that they said something about points not being manned and there just being a clip board and Craig says he thinks he may have seen something back a bit. I feel like we lost about 10 minutes looking for this point. Then once we found it of course we were razzed by the crew because Genine and Maija are long gone.
We head back up to the trail because it looks like there is nice trail to get us back to the road. We run into Shawn and Jim, oh man, if they find this next point quickly we are going to be in trouble. Fortunately for us, they found it just as difficult. Again I think I’ve learned a bit from that point. Craig has been spot on for distance and location all day. All we had to do was pick the distance we thought was right and then get off the trail and start looking. We were stuck to that path for some reason.
Anyhow. We then trekked our way across some tough stuff over to the highway and ran back down to the beach. Yes I believe I was finally running although I’ll admit the downhill was helpful.
Our time was 1:44:00. Last year we did 1:43:00. Uh Oh!
Seriously that T3 should have been at least 4 minutes!! We improved!! Really!!
Anyhow. We are now in 2nd place among our friends.

4.5 mile Run:
Craig took off on the run. While I went to get our Transition vehicle. I run into Greg and he tells me Maija hopped a ride with Bart down to the Canoe Launch because there was nobody there to drive her down. Well it’s cool that Maija is down there but now the Jetta is going to be left at the beach? Greg says he will help figure out how to get it back into town and I hop into Craig’s car and drive down to the boat launch.
As I’m driving along I’m watching for Genine, how much of a lead do they have now?? They have just “won” 2 events in a row!!
I finally see Genine. She has been dreading this run all week, she is walking. Hmmm do I feel badly for her or celebrate? Ha ha! I roll down the window and yell “GO GO GO, you must have a 20 minute lead on us!!” I’m not sure how much of this she actually heard but she started to run again. I did the right thing here right?
I get to the boat launch and I see Scott and Jerry. I ask if where Maija is. They say they haven’t seen her. Uh oh!
My brain wasn’t working well, I should have asked if they’ve seen Bart who supposedly brought her down here instead I park the car do a quick look around and Scott goes driving back up to the beach to look for her.
When I walk down to the water, there’s Maija waiting for Genine beside the canoe. All is well. Other than the fact Scott is now on a Snipe hunt at the beach. While we are waiting at the canoes there are a few photographers and news writers. They get the story about how Maija and Genine have a good shot at beating both of the guys teams. After chatting a bit, I had to go get the stuff for our canoe. While I was gone Genine had finished the run and as I’m walking down the hill I see them paddling away. I yell to them but they can’t figure who it is. I watch them fade into the distance as I wait for Craig. He finishes the run in 0:46:00

Canoe 8 miles:
Well this is it, we are still in 2nd place among friends and about 19 minutes behind Genine and Maija. We have no clue how far along Jim is into his 4.5 mile run. That’s probably a good thing for us. Look ahead not behind.
We aren’t far into the canoe when we get into some tough wind. I’m hoping that it’s not going to be like this the entire time. It would make for a very tough trip downstream.
I don’t claim to be a great oarsman, I just tried to keep the power on as long as I could. Finally we spot Genine and Maija. It was another 20 minutes before we caught up to them though. When they spotted us, I gave a WAHOO!!! And I saw them double their efforts. Craig had been watching and had pointers to pass along once we were along side. Then finally we moved along. Once we were a bit ahead, Craig then asked if I was willing to take some advice as well. Ha ha. Well I understood what it was that I was doing wrong, I’m not sure I was able to correct it. I think fatigue was playing a large part.
Anyhow, we navigated quite well. We only had to get out under the bridge just before the refinery. The people on the bridge were telling us to go the other way but I knew the side I was on. If we had to get out, it would only be for a very short distance. I wasn’t sure of the other side. I’ll have to try it in a non-race situation to find out about that other direction. The other good thing was when we got to the rapids we knew how to handle it. Shawn and I were nearly swamped last year when we went through it. So I had my dad ask around about that section when the canoe races were in town last year. We got through quick and dry! Good thing too because Shawn and Marty were not far behind. Craig assured me they wouldn’t catch us. Craig checked his watch and was disappointed to see that a sub 9 hour race wasn’t going to happen. We were just going to miss.
We finished the canoe is 1:44:00 and our final time was 9:02:00.

Now I’m going insert a comment from Craig a month ago
“The math works out under 9 hours. 8:06 with great efforts by both of us.
Lets say under 10 hours we had a great day,
under 9 hours awesome day,
under 8.5 a urine sample may be in order,
and under 8 hours, "please step through the metal detector, we are sure the bionics will set it off."

I’m going say it was an awesome day. Who would have guessed our 3 teams would be so close? 23rd, 24th, 25th. Certainly not me. Genine and Maija walking off with hardware and cash is pretty cool too.

I also love the fact that Shawn has already asked if I’m ready to do the Complete Tango with him next summer. For the record, don’t ask when I’m still having trouble walking down stairs. Give it a day or 2. Ha ha!

Good Times! I’m sure I’ll be posting more later.