Living It Up Outside the Comfort Zone
How an adventure race made me more alive
I stopped in my tracks. My head was spinning, and my stomach clenched. I was alone in the woods, had only a vague idea where I was, and wasn’t sure what to do. I was 21 minutes into an adventure race and every second counted, yet I stood there, frozen with indecision.
My fitness watch told me I had traveled a mile. The compass run was one mile in length — or so I thought. Yet there was no sign of the logging road where the mountain bikes had been stationed. I listened intently but heard only the caw of crows. I heard nothing of the other competitors picking their way through the woods.
I had passed several groups who seemed to be heading a few degrees to the right. I unfolded the map from my pocket and looked again. My bearing of 332 degrees should have brought me to a logging road, no matter what. It seemed impossible I could miss it. Yet there I was, far from the endpoint where my bike would be, in thick woods, with the unseen competition surely surging ahead.
Disbelief disaggregated into panic. Could I have missed the road? Could my bearing be significantly wrong? Could some defect in my compass have led me so far off course that it would be an hours-long struggle to find my way out of the woods? Would I need to sheepishly retrace my route to the start, metaphorical tail in a gravitationally suppressed position?
Heightening the stakes is the fact that I’m a Registered Maine Guide. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing out there. It would be more than a little embarrassing to fail at the compass run when it’s something I’m expected to be good at.
In my defense, I’m a sea kayak guide accustomed to navigating by nautical chart and deck compass rather than a map and handheld compass. Taking a bearing on the open water is not the same as using a compass to pick your way through a dense forest. But it didn’t seem that distinction would be important to anyone else
Staying true
That moment of panic was one of two moments of doubt that tested me during a recent 20-mile adventure race in the woods of eastern Maine. The race included moments that were fun, exhilarating, and even relaxing, but those moments of doubt are the ones I’m still thinking about a month later.
What I see now is that while on the compass run, I should have stuck to my original bearing. The GPS track I later downloaded from my watch shows my heading was a relatively straight line. If I had continued following that line, I would have ended up on the logging road within a hundred yards of my destination. What I did instead was to dogleg to the right along an old tote road, slog through a swamp, and then return to my original bearing.
What set me back was a sense that I should have already reached the road. This came after just 21 minutes. In hindsight, I hadn’t yet been out there long enough. (At the time, of course, it seemed much longer.) I learned later that the straight-line distance of the compass run was actually 1.5 miles. I also forgot to compensate for weaving around obstacles as I followed my bearing. A more accurate projection would have set my anticipated travel distance as between 1.75 and 2.0 miles.
The key to success is to be efficient, not make mistakes, and stay relaxed. I had failed on all three.
What I learned ultimately is to give more credence to my careful plan. The panic I felt on the compass run was a product of doubt. I had calculated the bearing and confirmed it. I had checked the accuracy of the compass. I had followed the bearing faithfully. Unless my bearing was off by a full 90 degrees, I was certain to hit the logging road eventually.
Next time my carefully built mental construct of the world is rocked, and everything seems in question, I’ll remember that moment in the woods. I’ll be better able to stay the course. I’ll take a deep breath and move forward.
Despite the mental drama and the dogleg through the swamp, my time on the compass run was decent enough. The start is staggered at 3-minute intervals so place tells you only so much, but I was the fourth one out of the woods and onto my bike. In all, I didn’t lose that much time, five minutes maybe. I prefer to think of it that way, at least.
What I did was expend more physical and mental energy than was necessary. I came out of the woods emotionally stressed and physically drained. An adventure race is more a marathon than a sprint. The key to success is to be efficient, not make mistakes, and stay relaxed. I had failed on all three.
Plant, crunch, rotate, and repeat
My second moment of doubt came when I was about a mile downriver on the final leg.
I had maintained my 4th place position on the 10-mile mountain bike segment. I had done reasonably well on the challenges. Mud pit, culvert crawl, and cargo net were behind me. I had survived the log roll — if just for a few seconds. My hatchet throw had found its mark. I had aced the wildflower ID. Only the scaling wall had stymied me. More on that in a minute.
The day had warmed, the river was shallow, and the current was sluggish. I was dehydrated and paddling into the sun. I was missing my sunglasses (later I found I sat on them for the entire eight miles). I had pulled the brim of my hat tight down over my eyes to compensate.
With each paddle stroke, I felt tightness and a twinge of pain in my right shoulder. That’s where the scaling wall came in. During my attempt to get up onto the wall, I had spent several seconds dangling one-handedly by that particular arm.
I was two hours plus into the race, mentally fatigued from focusing so intently, and physically spent. In other words: just plain tired. I had passed the only two paddlers who had put in ahead of me on the river and was paddling alone on the remote tree-lined Baskahegan Stream.
It was tempting to drift into the shade on the side of the river and take a few bites of the Cliff Bar in the pocket of my PFD, to see if there was still a swallow of Gatorade left in the bottle behind my seat. It was tempting to stop moving and feel that relief of stopping, even for a few seconds.
I knew that by force of will I could keep my present pace for ten minutes or maybe twenty — but could I keep it for another hour or more?— I wasn’t sure.
Doubts crept over me. Would my strained shoulder hold out? Would dehydration lead to cramping? Would my fatigue slow my pace to the point other competitors would overtake me? Was the pain and discomfort worth it?
“You’re tired, but your body knows what to do. This is what you’ve trained for,” I reminded myself. And it was true. Despite the fatigue, my body still knew what to do. One paddle stroke at a time. Plant the blade, drive the knee, crunch the abs, rotate the torso — and repeat.
The biggest challenges are the ones you can’t plan for
As I moved further downriver, the anxiety that fatigue would win out gradually dissipated. Yes, I was tired, but that wasn’t slowing me. I was holding my tempo, I was still moving well. I was holding true. The stretches where the current quickened and entered class I rapids rejuvenated me. Mind over matter. You can do this, I told myself, and then I did.
I paddle in a half dozen races each spring, so I know about the discomfort that comes with sustained near-maximal exertion. I know what it is to keep going, even when I feel tired.
The level of physical and mental fatigue in an adventure race is more intense because this type of race throws more things at you that you haven’t trained for. There are so many variables. It’s impossible to prepare for them all. And it’s those variables, those unexpected challenges that are tiring — and invaluably instructive and invigorating.
The compass run gave me a swamp to cross and the momentary panic of feeling lost. The mountain bike course challenged me with tricky intersections and sneaky ninety-degree turns that left me wondering if I had missed one of them. The bike leg surprised with steep hills and stretches of soft sand. The scaling wall gave me the problem of how to get over it, and when I couldn’t, how to extract myself from one-handedly dangling from it. Then there was the simple fact that my sunglasses were missing.
These are the things that wear you down. They’re what push you to be more resilient. Next time I face a formidable mental or physical challenge, I’ll be able to draw in the grit I gained out there in East Grand.
Correcting for an adventure deficit
Our forebears who traveled the Oregon Trail didn’t need to layer an adventure race onto their lives. Their lives were already an adventure. And so it has been for the vast majority of human history.
Adventure races have become popular because they provide a fill of something missing from modern life.
While we’re genetically programmed to seek comfort and control, attaining them doesn’t make us feel more alive.
Addictions to food, sex, drugs, video games, consumerism, and power become more prevalent when people don’t get their fill of adventure. That’s how I see it, at least.
Most of us spend the bulk of our lives in indoor environments where, compared to the outdoors, things are highly controlled and — with each advance of technology — there is one less reason to ever experience discomfort.
Except, it doesn’t work that way. As Michael Easter explains in his book The Comfort Crisis, the pursuit of comfort is a treadmill that ultimately numbs us and doesn’t result in our feeling happier. While we’re genetically programmed to seek comfort, attaining it doesn’t make us feel more alive.
On the other hand, doing something hard helps us rediscover appreciation of the ordinary. Being hungry, thirsty, cold, hot, hurt, tired, or scared aren’t things we normally go out of the way to find, but they do provide a powerful reset when they find us. Michael Easter writes that after a month-long trek in the wilds of northern Alaska, even the crackers on the plane taste incredibly good. And the airplane seat is comfortable almost past belief.
Extreme athlete and film star Orlando Bloom captures the essence of this paradox when he states, “I find life to be more exhilarating on the edges of it. Pushing our edge and stepping out to that place is where you appreciate the center.”
In other words, venturing beyond my comfort zone helps me feel fulfilled when living the more ordinary life within it.
Thus, reset is not just for the body but for mind and spirit as well. Recognition of even the most basic blessings is rekindled. Appreciation of the present moment grows from a flicker to a flame.
While driving home later, a ride of gratitude welled within me. I felt acutely appreciative of the health that allows me to do the things I love — and for the experiences of the day, the song playing on the radio, the roads I was traveling, and the life I was returning to.
Pushing our edge and stepping out to that place is where you appreciate the center.
A walk in the woods, a hike in the mountains, or a 5-K road race, each provides a reset because it requires us to give up a degree of control and comfort. And for some people, those challenges might be enough. But if you’re already doing those things and not getting the full body, mind, and spirit reset you crave, an adventure race could be your next step.
I was the first overall finisher in this friendly youth-and-community-oriented race, but my place of finish in comparison to others is secondary. Truly, I was racing against myself. What I gained is so much bigger than a medal. I found adventure — and with it, the joy of being more fully alive.
You may also enjoy my story about paddle racing, “The Perfect Line.”