The 10th anniversary edition of Maine Summer Adventure Race! This would also mark the 10 years of adventure racing for Reed (his first was the inaugural MSAR in 2016) and my 10th MSAR. We drove up Friday night to Norway, ME, had a nice early dinner in cute downtown Norway, finished gear prep early and went to bed at 9:30 allowing a solid night of sleep.
The race began (and finished) at Mt. Abrams ski area. Race weather was going to be fairly mild, with no chance of rain and no major humidity - about as good as it could be for mid-July. We started with a short foot prologue on the ski slopes, strategically planning a route to get 4 checkpoints. I thought our approach was pretty clever but we had some minor nav delays and seemed to lose time overall on this part, so maybe not so strategically sound? In general, we are always happy to start a 24-hour race slow, resisting the temptation of a competitive, hard start, knowing that our 24-hour persistence will outdo most mid-pack teams in the end, which proved to be true in this race.
We quickly switched to bike mode for the next stage, a mix of pavement, rough dirt roads and MTB trails. Early on, we encountered our major nav issue for the race - a dirt road intersection that we approached much differently than expected from the maps. There were also new logging roads in the area which muddied the waters further. This took an embarrassingly long time to figure out, but eventually we got it right and continued on. Spying on other teams GPS tracks post-race, everyone
seemed to have a little confusion here, which softened the blow a little. After a while we transitioned from dirt roads to pavement and headed into nearby Bethel. We rode through town and then into the Bethel Community Trail system, featuring flowy fun riding and several easy CP pickups. From here we headed to the Gould Academy trails (familiar from MSAR 2025) and grabbed a couple more CPs on tougher trails. After the final CP, we exited the trail system, relying on our rough memories from the last MSAR, forgoing any additional trail riding or actual nav. Then it was back through Bethel toward the next TA to begin trek #1.
At this point we were feeling a bit behind the pack because of the aforementioned delays, so we took a very focused approach to this trek leg - get only the low elevation CPs in a fairly efficient loop. We were able to do this accurately and efficiently, spending only about 3.5 hours in the woods while gathering 12 CPs. We happily trekked for a while with our friends on team Foolish Ones at the start of the leg.
Following this leg was the evening/night paddle down the Androscoggin River. This 15-16 mile trip featured a few minor rapids, a couple CPs, paddling under the stars with no artificial light, clouds of little bugs and some creative peeing solutions. We spent most of this leg peacefully with no nearby boats. After about 4.5 hours, we hit the take-out in Rumford, ME around 11:00 PM, with a little less than half of the race to go.
By merciful race design or pure fortune, the post-paddle TA was right next to a McDonalds. We, along with many other teams, made it a point to stop here to fill up the calorie tank with some food that was enjoyably not at ambient temperature. We were pretty chilly after getting off the river and exiting the air-conditioned restaurant but we knew that we had a tough bike climb as our next task so we wisely stayed in short sleeves.
This bike leg involved rough dirt road that gradually deteriorated to lumpy trail, powerlines and then more rough dirt road over several miles. We were headed toward the Pennacook Community Trails to find a clutch of CPs in the woods behind Rumford's high school. We were feeling pretty done with dirt riding by this point, however the surprisingly excellent machine-built trails here were a complete pleasure to ride. Even the uphills felt easy and fun. The CPs came quickly and easily here and it was soon time to exit out onto some roads in the wee hours, to ride uphill to the next TA, at Black Mountain Ski Area.
This TA was the starting point of a long, linear, mountainous overnight trek. Race staff has some tasty warm ramen cups ready for us here, which was much appreciated. We tend to not eat well toward the end of these races and this entire upcoming trek, of 11 miles, 6 hours and well over 2000 ft of climbing, was fueled only by one ramen cup each and a handful of peanut M&Ms.
The trek commenced with a steep 1700 ft climb while picking up a few easier CPs (and skipping the rest). The middle of the trek was a bit of up-and-down and a little welcome level ground. After some steep up and steep down, we arrived at scenic granite-paved peaks around Whitecap Mtn, and afterwards arrived at the location of the second-to-last CP we were planning to attack. By this time, however, what had seemed like plenty of time to accomplish this trek had dwindled substantially. We wanted to be at the final TA by 8:00 AM, to allow sufficient time for the final, lengthy bike to the finish, and now it was after 7:00 with a lot of trek still to go. So, after not immediately seeing this CP, we decided to bail and find the exit trail which
seemed impossible to miss on the map. We headed toward it but did not encounter it where we expected to. At this point we were panicking a little bit - about time and about the prospect of not finding the trail and having to bushwhack steeply downhill out of here. How steep, you ask? We had to lose about 1200 ft of elevation in under 3 miles. We soon came across a fairly decent trail however and after a few minutes of following, it was clear we were on the right track. Still concerned about time, though, we jogged/hustled down it for a long time until finally reaching the TA...right at 8:00, just as planned.
The ride home was just a 90-minute road ride. We encountered no major problems and rolled into the finish line with about 25 minutes to spare. The provided fresh beer and breakfast burritos at the finish line were heavenly. In the end we covered about 87 miles, 8,700 feet of elevation and scored 12th place out of 32 teams - solid. This was a very well-designed race, with excellent trek, bike and paddle legs. Thanks to the Strong Machine crew, the awesome volunteers and race sponsors. I have a feeling that this won't be our last MSAR.
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