In four short months the dog days of summer will be upon us. When the Red Sox make their final surge before providing a rollercoaster finish and when humidity and mosquitos saturate the air, a little event known as the XTERRA Off-Road Stoaked Triathlon is staged in Hanover, NH. The race consists of a 1k swim down-and-back the length of Storrs pond, followed by a 2-loop, 16k total MTB ride of climbing and single-track, finishing off with a 2-loop, 8k total trail run around the Storrs pond recreational area. Having spectated this event in 2009, it feels more like a camp race than a staged event featuring professionals and men and women challenging themselves for points in the XTERRA world championship series all culminating with a race of top performers held annually in Maui, HI.
Camping in Hanover, NH is not open in April, at least not officially. So, instead of pushing the envelope to set-up man-camp illegally and risk either deportation from the state or frost-bite, man-camp became the next cheapest overnight venue, also known as The Days Inn.
Upon entering NH on Friday evening, the rains were beginning to subside. After coming off one of the wettest Marchs in the history of New England, we were anticipating muds galore. Residences in the Boston area looked like New Orleans after the levees broke or one of those other southern cities that are in flood plains. The water was so bad, it was declared a state of emergency and even my favorite government agency, IRS, gave us a 1-month reprieve on filing our taxes. It was a mess!
We were looking forward to a chance to ride, unplugged, and with no concern over time or schedules. Joey had been touting the trails of the Stoaked from his '09 experience, so I was really looking forward to the terrain of upstate New Hampshire. After a borderline Mexican dinner at Margaritas, we rested up for a big day of adventure. Starting out Saturday morning with a healthy breakfast at Lou's in "downtown" Hanover, we fueled on egg white omelet's in preparation for a full day of activity in the woods. Coming out of the restaurant we had to make our way through snow flakes to get to the car - this was not in the forecast. Good thing we didn't camp?
We decided it would be prudent to check out EMS for some thermal gear before venturing onto the Storr's pond recreational area where the annual event was held.
We finally arrived at the parking lot around 10:30 and I was anxious to get on the rig. The weather was warming up. We had temps climbing into the 40s and luckily thick woods to shelter us from the winds that were in the mid to high teens. The 40 degree temps felt like about 70 in a matter of 5 minutes on the side of what felt like a mountain. It turns out that this is the location that the Dartmouth College ski team trains. There would be no chair lifts operational today. Never-ending switchbacks in a steady steady climb in very lumpy trails kicked off the 2-lap course of this race. It was a tough start. I usually need 30-minutes or so to remember how to ride the mountain bike, but this terrain was not very forgiving. In fact, this felt like the off-road, woods version of the switchbacks I'd frequently trained in Palos Verdes, CA. To make things worse, the mud on top of extremely spongy ground took any momentum and power out of every pedal stroke. With many off-the-bike-and-walk sections, we finally crested the top of this climb. Once at the top, short ups and downs made for challenging but very manageable terrain. A little more solid surfacing and the trail would be a great test, overall. As usual, we meandered our way into a "trail blazing" expedition where we were completely off the beaten path. We climbed over an entire trail of destruction including huge fallen trees that had been either uprooted or split by lightning and surrounded by ravaged forest, and of course, we're carrying the bikes over top all of this! Needless to say, we were lost in the woods, but we were enjoying the adventure none the less. Finally, after 2 hours and 30 minutes we found a place that was familiar to Joey and the single track took us straight down to spectator alley where we found the car and our base camp.
20 minutes later, we've back on the bikes making a second lap of the course. This time, I feel better, but Joey feels worse. I climb the switchbacks with much greater ease, but this time no trail-blazing - or at least we didn't plan on it. We got to the single-track piece pretty quickly, but we decided to go right instead of left and we're blazing again, down hill, in the wilderness. We ride quickly across the gun range (good thing no one was shooting) and found ourselves on the wrong side of the mountain. Instead of riding around via streets, we decided to climb back up to the road we took the wrong turn on. Carrying the bikes again, we made it to the road and ultimately down to spectator alley.
After 4:30 of riding, it was time to call it a day. We wiped down the bikes, enjoyed the sun in our faces and headed for a nice dinner at Molly's.
At Molly's we took the window seat. It seemed to be the only restaurant people cared to eat at in the town, so we spend a few hours enjoying burgers, brew and watching all the people walking around the streets of Dartmouth and Hanover. A few of the characters we entertained were JT, Jay-Z and the frat boys. It was fun for us and the entertainment value was second to none. We enjoyed man talk and general silliness like the old days. It was fun.
The next morning we had to hit Lou's again. We planned on moving quickly out of dodge, but wanted to view the running course before we left. We ran down to Storr's pond again, checked out the water and dusted off the shoes to walk around the trail which was the majority of the course and circled the water. 2 laps around for Stoaked. After walking the course, which was a nice open trail with severe 'undulations' I attempted a short trail run - solo. I don't know what it is, but there is something about being in the woods, running by yourself. The feeling is hard to describe, but it was omnipresent running two laps of this course. Its about being in nature, on your own two feet with no one else around and only your breathing and your mind to keep you company. I didn't see a soul until the very end of the second loop, but I was anticipating a moose (hoped, rather) or something big. The only wildlife excitement was a rafter of wild turkeys and the usual squirrel rustling. After completing the Stoaked course by foot, we barreled out of Hanover enroute to home with expectation for another trip to camp and tackle the terrain of Storr's pond. It was a sunny, warm and beautiful day and indications of spring were finally upon us.
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