Ask any seasoned veteran and they’ll tell you every adventure race brings new situations and unforeseen challenges. It’s part of the fun in doing them. The 2024 Chisholm Trail Adventure Race was no different. Some of the lessons have glaringly obvious solutions. I’m reminded of Dwight Schrute’s quote from The Office “Don’t be an idiot. Before I do anything, I ask myself ‘Would an idiot do that?’ and if the answer is yes, I do not do that thing.” If only it was that easy.

1. Prepare for the weather

The weather conditions are a major consideration when taking on an endurance event. North Texas is generally hot in mid-September (based on a year of living there). This race was off the charts hot with temperatures in the upper 90s and the heat index in the triple digits.

In hindsight, we had no training in the heat and desperately needed it. Typically, we’ll start our morning runs or rides before sunrise, wrapping up well before the heat of the day. We weren’t ready for sustained effort in the harsh sun – often with little shade.

Moving forward, paying attention to the weather – best and worst case scenarios – and training accordingly for the worst-case scenario is definitely the way to go. Especially in Texas. Training in the heat more frequently is a must.

We did a good job prepping water, electrolytes, and snacks for our transition area and carrying everything with us that we needed. BUT we could’ve done a better job of managing body temperature earlier in the race before the heat overwhelmed us. If we had taken a more measured approach of our exertion levels, and cooled off in the creeks early-on, we could have staved off the near heat exhaustion we experienced in the afternoon.

2. Set up for the race in daylight

It’s easier to set up your gear and nutrition when the sun is up. Races often give you the choice of bringing your own kayak/canoe or renting from the race director. We bought a two-person Kokopelli Moki-II inflatable kayak at the start of this year. The kayak has been great and is pretty easy to set up. Part of set up includes attaching a removable tracking fin to the back…and guess what color it is?

Black.

Before sunrise on the morning of the race, we got busy setting up our kayak at the parking lot near the put-in. While inflating it, hauling it down to the water’s edge and velcro-ing in the seats, we misplaced the tracking fin. Despite searching for it extensively even as the sun came up, we couldn’t find it. We quickly figured out the paddling segments of the race were pretty much impossible without it, so we opted to skip those segments. Instead, we moved on to the trek/bike segments where we knew we could be more competitive.

3. Don’t lose your clue sheet (and other things)

I had an absolutely horrendous day when it came to maintaining things in my possession. Fortunately, none of the items I lost were critical to our race, but they didn’t do great things for my psyche.

Among the things I permanently misplaced:

• My phone. After accidentally bringing my phone to the opening paddle segment, I assumed it was secured in my PFD. You know what they say about assuming…the phone has found a new home at the bottom of the Brazos River. While phone use is not condoned during racing, some race directors ask teams to take photos with each checkpoint. This was an easy fix with Laura carrying her phone (not to the opening segment, of course), but a stupid mistake nevertheless.
• The clue sheet. Competitors are given a clue sheet for each segment that share physical features where each checkpoint is located. They can be a tremendous help, even if in our experience most clues say “draw”. Luckily, a sympathetic team allowed us to take pictures of their clue sheet. In retrospect, Laura should have the responsibility of carrying the clue sheet. Since I’m the primary navigator and focused more on the maps, it’s one less thing to worry about. Lesson learned.
• Rubber bands. Somehow, I lost the two rubber bands that secure the map to the map holder mounted on my bike. Easy accessibility of the map was lost. This made navigating a bit more time consuming any time we had to stop and re-evaluate. Fortunately, it occurred later in the race, limiting the impact and most of all, my annoyance.
• Removable kayak fin. See #2 above for that mess.

While setting up during daylight may mean arriving the day before an early morning race start, it’s totally worth it. Not only will we have more time for set up, but it’ll give us a few extra minutes to relax and prepare for what’s to come.

4. Recognize navigational biases

It’s often said in adventure racing that if you think you’ve gone far enough to reach a checkpoint and haven’t found it, you probably haven’t gone far enough. Just knowing this can be helpful as you zero in on a particular location. Otherwise, you can end up going in circles in a small area for a lengthy amount of time.

There were multiple checkpoints in this race where we spent too much time trying to locate a checkpoint. Often, the checkpoint ended up being just a little further on the same bearing we were on, but because we undershot it, we lost crucial minutes.

5. Manage your time and race plan

Time management can be tricky when it comes to adventure racing. There’s an innate desire to tick off each checkpoint in numerical order, but some races are designed to make you consider if every checkpoint is worthwhile in the time allotted. For this race, our race director makes it pretty clear every year at the pre-race meeting that we need to choose our checkpoints wisely. All checkpoints aren’t meant to be found in 12 hours.

We did an okay job of picking and choosing the checkpoints to attack with certain limitations (again, see #2 above concerning our kayak issues). But early on Leg 1 we should have gone after the PRO checkpoints immediately. They offered a two-point bonus opportunity even though they were the farthest away from the transition area. As a quick refresher, PRO checkpoints are worth extra points, but are often a harder to find.

Instead of going after the PRO points first, we got the first two checkpoints with a lot of the other teams who didn’t go after the bonus immediately. It took us getting to the first three when we realized we could have leapfrogged ahead and taken advantage of the PRO points opportunity, leaving the single-point checkpoints for the end.

In addition, the race director hid a walking stick totem along the 12-hour course that was worth five bonus points on its own. Nobody knew where it would be other than “near a checkpoint”. While we thought it could be near a PRO point on the first leg, it wasn’t. Just something else we’ll think about when we’re strategizing in the future because points are critical, but time can be even more critical.