The Frigid Infliction is an 8-hour winter adventure race for teams of two or three. This year's race was scheduled for Saturday, March 4th 2017 at Bolton Valley Ski Resort, Vermont, and was hosted by our friends at Green Mountain Adventure Racing Association.
Last year, Kate and Cliff teamed up with winter AR specialist John Hanley (Kate's dad). This year, with Kate out due to pregnancy and John out due to WRW (weather-related wussiness), Cliff raced with long-time ultramarathoner but first-time AR racer (and appropriately bearded) Chris Sussman.
With a temperature of -4 degrees at race start and windchill bringing that much lower, the race truly lived up to its name. For a much more complete race report, check out the organizers' website here.
Here's a short addition regarding our experience on-course.
Last year's race had featured ordered checkpoints, a Tyrolean traverse and at least a nominal effort at multisport (despite subpar snow conditions). For this year's race, GMARA had changed the format to ROGAINE-style CPs, with one return to start required to "transition" between showshoes and post-hole. We just decided to carry our snowshoes and use microspikes, which we think was overall a good decision, as there was a thick crust of snow we only broke through a couple dozen times through the whole day.
After a hurried 30 minutes of race strategizing, we followed a group of teams out from the start and accidentally ended up at CP 4 instead of CP 1. But after that, we had a great morning nailing points with no problem. Bonus points (worth 3 pts) lured us up to ridgeline a couple of times (+1,300 vertical each time). Got into "transition" at 12:40 p.m. and dropped our snowshoes (which we had been carrying all morning instead of wearing), headed out for minimum of five points. At 2:10 p.m., we had only found two points, and had spent an hour looking for CP 9 even though it was only 150 meters from CP 10, which we found no problem. Turned out my compass had frozen (has that ever happened to anyone before?) and we were searching in the wrong area.
We wanted to give up on the point several times, but the math just didn't add up if we didn't get this easy point. Finally, too late, we made the tough decision of bailing on the point and instead heading up +700 vertical to CP 21, which we hit at 2:35 p.m.. We then ran like crazy people downhill. We made one course correction to try a promising trail and lucked into CP 16 at 2:52 p.m.. We kept running downhill, and needing just one more point to get our mandatory five CPs on this second "section," we ran right past CP3 without seeing it. Not that we didn't do a quick look. But with just minutes before 3 p.m., and worried that a late finish would mean a DNF, we didn't have time tob be thorough. We continued down the stream on the outside hope of finding CP3 on the trail bordering it, and with the secondary motive of taking a direct path to the finish. Then, Cliff's heart skipped a beat as he saw an orange and white flag pop up in the woods.
Sadly, it turned out to be an old CP from a previous race. Dutifully, we cut it down and, as we crossed the finish line, Cliff jokingly threw it at RD Chris at 3:04 p.m.
If we had known about the relatively small penalty for being late (1 CP for every 10 mins late), we definitely would have searched for CP 3 (which we were 30 feet away from, tops), instead of trying to beat the cutoff. Instead, we finished unofficial due to not getting our minimum 5 CPs on each leg. Our total points were a satisfying 18 + 2 bonus points (worth 3 pts each) for 24 total, placing us 10th overall (unofficially). Two Canadian guys destroyed the course, getting all 22 points and all 4 bonus points in 6:15. At minimum, that was 25 miles of running in subzero temps with vertical gain of +7500 ft. Unreal.
Another great race from GMARA, though by the end of it, both Chris and Cliff were having delirious frozen daydreams of adventure racing in the summer, in temperatures where it didn't hurt our teeth to smile.
Last year, Kate and Cliff teamed up with winter AR specialist John Hanley (Kate's dad). This year, with Kate out due to pregnancy and John out due to WRW (weather-related wussiness), Cliff raced with long-time ultramarathoner but first-time AR racer (and appropriately bearded) Chris Sussman.
With a temperature of -4 degrees at race start and windchill bringing that much lower, the race truly lived up to its name. For a much more complete race report, check out the organizers' website here.
Here's a short addition regarding our experience on-course.
Last year's race had featured ordered checkpoints, a Tyrolean traverse and at least a nominal effort at multisport (despite subpar snow conditions). For this year's race, GMARA had changed the format to ROGAINE-style CPs, with one return to start required to "transition" between showshoes and post-hole. We just decided to carry our snowshoes and use microspikes, which we think was overall a good decision, as there was a thick crust of snow we only broke through a couple dozen times through the whole day.
After a hurried 30 minutes of race strategizing, we followed a group of teams out from the start and accidentally ended up at CP 4 instead of CP 1. But after that, we had a great morning nailing points with no problem. Bonus points (worth 3 pts) lured us up to ridgeline a couple of times (+1,300 vertical each time). Got into "transition" at 12:40 p.m. and dropped our snowshoes (which we had been carrying all morning instead of wearing), headed out for minimum of five points. At 2:10 p.m., we had only found two points, and had spent an hour looking for CP 9 even though it was only 150 meters from CP 10, which we found no problem. Turned out my compass had frozen (has that ever happened to anyone before?) and we were searching in the wrong area.
We wanted to give up on the point several times, but the math just didn't add up if we didn't get this easy point. Finally, too late, we made the tough decision of bailing on the point and instead heading up +700 vertical to CP 21, which we hit at 2:35 p.m.. We then ran like crazy people downhill. We made one course correction to try a promising trail and lucked into CP 16 at 2:52 p.m.. We kept running downhill, and needing just one more point to get our mandatory five CPs on this second "section," we ran right past CP3 without seeing it. Not that we didn't do a quick look. But with just minutes before 3 p.m., and worried that a late finish would mean a DNF, we didn't have time tob be thorough. We continued down the stream on the outside hope of finding CP3 on the trail bordering it, and with the secondary motive of taking a direct path to the finish. Then, Cliff's heart skipped a beat as he saw an orange and white flag pop up in the woods.
Sadly, it turned out to be an old CP from a previous race. Dutifully, we cut it down and, as we crossed the finish line, Cliff jokingly threw it at RD Chris at 3:04 p.m.
If we had known about the relatively small penalty for being late (1 CP for every 10 mins late), we definitely would have searched for CP 3 (which we were 30 feet away from, tops), instead of trying to beat the cutoff. Instead, we finished unofficial due to not getting our minimum 5 CPs on each leg. Our total points were a satisfying 18 + 2 bonus points (worth 3 pts each) for 24 total, placing us 10th overall (unofficially). Two Canadian guys destroyed the course, getting all 22 points and all 4 bonus points in 6:15. At minimum, that was 25 miles of running in subzero temps with vertical gain of +7500 ft. Unreal.
Another great race from GMARA, though by the end of it, both Chris and Cliff were having delirious frozen daydreams of adventure racing in the summer, in temperatures where it didn't hurt our teeth to smile.
