Wha-what?!?! A paradigm shift.

110 miles. 31,320 feet of elevation gain. 30 hours.

That's the course description we received today from the organizers of the USARA National Championship race. While we're gung ho about being ready for this race, this will be a significant challenge. Above all else I'm a realist. The elevation doesn't intimidate me. The distance doesn't intimidate me. The time doesn't intimidate me. Put them together and call me intimidated. Let's not even mention the fact that we'll be paddling the slowest watercraft known to man, the Sevylor inflatable K-79. Consider the following:

A month ago, I got on my MTB and did a 9-Gap, 200-mile Brevet (that's french for way too long organized road ride) in North Georgia that included a climb to the top of Brasstown Bald, the highest point in the state. That took me 11 hours to complete and that was only 26,000+ feet of climbing. Granted I was out of shape and I kept a pretty easy pace, but it was all on paved road and all on a bike. There was no nav, singletrack riding, running or paddling, all of which traditionally have a slower pace than road riding.

A few weeks ago, we competed and won the Overmountain Extreme adventure race. It featured 13,000 feet of elevation gain over 95 miles. We won by a significant margin over our competition, which included the 2002 USARA National Champions, and it took us nearly 19 hours. We've been faster in past races, but we nav'ed clean and were efficient throughout.

So what's that tell me? Either we're ALL really slow here in the SE and need to examine our egos, the RD got his math wrong, he doesn't want anyone to finish (first place gets to race free in '07... sorta, not really), or this race course is going to be utterly relentless. But we have no plans to relent. Prior to receiving this email, we'd been more focussed on how we'd stack up against the teams in attendance. Now, the only thing I'm focused on is how we'll stack up against the course.

As the RD told me:

"It's the Championships, its supposed to be a challenge... :)"

Good point, I guess.