Frigid Infliction 2008

Long time no blog. The cause: a client deadline at the end of last week combined with the 2008 edition of the FRIGID INFLICTION, a 10 hour adventure race held in Bolton Valley, Vermont. I was participating with the rest of Team Sea Savage, who debuted last May at the SAVAGE adventure race in PA (and yes, the names of all adventure races must be in all caps).

The difference between the two races was night and day. At the SAVAGE we mountain biked, orienteered, and canoed, with our biggest concerns being sunburn and heat exhaustion; at the FRIGID INFLICTION we skied, snowshoed, and postholed, with our biggest concerns being frostbite and hypothermia.

However, both races had a few things in common. Navigation played a huge role in both. Both races contained disciplines that I (and other members of Team Sea Savage) had little to no experience in: mountain biking and cross-country skiing. As expected, in both races those sections of the course were by far the hardest, required us to carry the implements that were in fact supposed to aid us for a significant portion of that segment, and each section also contained some of the most spectacular wipeouts.

Both races, however, were ridiculously fun. This one especially provided a much-needed taste of winter, which I have not had in some time. After the race, the Princeton contingent, which made up a significant portion of the field, headed to upstate New York and Camp Pok-O-MacCready the Pok-O-MacCready Outdoor Education Center to spend Saturday night. We awoke to a delicious breakfast and a tour of the camp, including a walk on a very frozen lake on a very sunny morning.

More details about this year's race can be found here; Tim Curtin, the race director, has a review that takes a bird's eye view of the day. And of course there are pictures galore; still waiting on the facebook flood to arrive.

Next year - we train for it!