Strong Machine didn’t set its sights on the 2022 ITERA adventure race, scheduled to traverse an unknown part of Scotland over four days in mid-August, until relatively late in our 2022 race-planning process. We had already decided to do Expedition Canada and the inaugural Endless Mountains AR, hosted by our good friends from Rootstock Racing, but there was a hunger among many of the crew to tackle an additional expedition and limited options that worked logistically. ITERA fit all our needs, and with the incredible experience the original Strong Machine team had at ITERA 2016, despite the hurricane that ravaged that race, we were confident we were in for something special.
Adding to the excitement was the extended team’s plans to turn ITERA Scotland into a vacation for significant others, family, and non-racing teammates. The team’s ITERA lineup of Kit Vreeland, Evan Moreshead, Tom Martin, and myself would be well-supported by all of our families, who rented a charming waterfront manor outside the host town of Oban that comfortably accommodated everyone, even though at times the hot water boiler got a little overmatched and it took us a few days to figure out the convection stove.
The team’s arrival in Scotland was smooth, with Tom and Amanda and their two kids, along with several members of Amanda’s family sending us photos of their advance scout of the Isle of Skye that had us all excited to get started with our own explorations. Evan’s wife, Emily, had scored a giant-sized van that somehow fit three bike boxes and seven humans, though at the cost of having nausea-inducing seats that faced backwards, and we made the four-hour drive to Oban from the Edinburgh airport with just one roadside stop for lunch. The views of the Loch Lomond area were incredible, but several of our crew missed out as Emily’s smooth driving skills lulled them to sleep.
Before arriving at the manor, we did an initial shop and scout at the local supermarkets – Tesco and Marks and Spencer. Evan and Kit had brought most of their food over from the States, but I found M&S to be a fertile hunting ground for exciting food opportunities, with a strategy based around eating as much “real food” as possible, and aided by M&S’s meal-kit provisions, such piri piri chicken and pre-cooked bacon (I don’t typically eat meat but races are an exception). These lasted well into day four of the race, though Evan made a pretty convincing argument they shouldn’t have because the stench of overripened meat trailed 50 yards behind me by that time. I also loved all the delicious cookies at M&S the Brits illogically call biscuits. Tesco was less of a hit, where the only Pringles available were “prawn cocktail” flavor and they featured a beer called “Lost AF”. We took advantage of the favorable dollar-pound exchange rate and loaded up on the calories we knew we would need out on course.
The wind-up to the race proceeded as expected, with the added minor inconvenience of having our AirBNB located 15 kilometers away from race HQ, which created a headache when we found out that there were three different meetings we had to attend on the day before the race started, and when I forgot to bring our bothy bag for inspection during the check-in process. But other than that, and some last-minute cold-weather concerns from Kit, which had Ashley scrambling to case every outdoors store in town for warm layers, we had a fairly non-stressful pre-race process.
Adding to the excitement was the extended team’s plans to turn ITERA Scotland into a vacation for significant others, family, and non-racing teammates. The team’s ITERA lineup of Kit Vreeland, Evan Moreshead, Tom Martin, and myself would be well-supported by all of our families, who rented a charming waterfront manor outside the host town of Oban that comfortably accommodated everyone, even though at times the hot water boiler got a little overmatched and it took us a few days to figure out the convection stove.
The team’s arrival in Scotland was smooth, with Tom and Amanda and their two kids, along with several members of Amanda’s family sending us photos of their advance scout of the Isle of Skye that had us all excited to get started with our own explorations. Evan’s wife, Emily, had scored a giant-sized van that somehow fit three bike boxes and seven humans, though at the cost of having nausea-inducing seats that faced backwards, and we made the four-hour drive to Oban from the Edinburgh airport with just one roadside stop for lunch. The views of the Loch Lomond area were incredible, but several of our crew missed out as Emily’s smooth driving skills lulled them to sleep.
Before arriving at the manor, we did an initial shop and scout at the local supermarkets – Tesco and Marks and Spencer. Evan and Kit had brought most of their food over from the States, but I found M&S to be a fertile hunting ground for exciting food opportunities, with a strategy based around eating as much “real food” as possible, and aided by M&S’s meal-kit provisions, such piri piri chicken and pre-cooked bacon (I don’t typically eat meat but races are an exception). These lasted well into day four of the race, though Evan made a pretty convincing argument they shouldn’t have because the stench of overripened meat trailed 50 yards behind me by that time. I also loved all the delicious cookies at M&S the Brits illogically call biscuits. Tesco was less of a hit, where the only Pringles available were “prawn cocktail” flavor and they featured a beer called “Lost AF”. We took advantage of the favorable dollar-pound exchange rate and loaded up on the calories we knew we would need out on course.
The wind-up to the race proceeded as expected, with the added minor inconvenience of having our AirBNB located 15 kilometers away from race HQ, which created a headache when we found out that there were three different meetings we had to attend on the day before the race started, and when I forgot to bring our bothy bag for inspection during the check-in process. But other than that, and some last-minute cold-weather concerns from Kit, which had Ashley scrambling to case every outdoors store in town for warm layers, we had a fairly non-stressful pre-race process.
At one of those three mandatory meetings, race directors James, Tom, and Paul performed a dramatic revealing of the course map. Other than seeing four kayaking stages, three long bike legs, and three serious trekking legs, we didn’t really know what we were in for, but judging from the audible gasp from the packed room, the locals seemed impressed. With none of the members of the team very familiar with Scottish geography or landmarks, we trusted the RDs to bring us to cool places and, once we received our race maps, concentrated on getting our route plotted and our food and gear prepped.
The most difficult part of the pre-race prep was solving the logistical puzzle of having a team gear bag, individual gear bag, two paddle bags, and bike box, and making our best guess on which clothes, food, and equipment we would need at each stage of the race, as not every bag would be at every transition area. After sorting once, twice, and then settling with our third decisions, we turned our collective attention to our route choice, where we faced another difficult set of decisions. ITERA has a unique scoring system, where once you fall off the full course, missed checkpoints don’t cost your team points, but rather count as time penalties, creating a situation where you have to rely on difficult-to-calculate time estimates in choosing the optimal route. Unfortunately, and to our dismay, this year’s course was designed with a lack of good short-course options later in the race, requiring “bubble” teams like ours, which could likely clear the course during good weather and with no snafus, but with little margin for error, to decide whether to go short-course very early on in the race – as early as Stage 2, a long trek through the mountains of the Isle of Mull, where skipping CPs 4 and 5 could save 6 or more hours. However, that decision would then cascade through the rest of the race, requiring us to make judgment calls about the time it will take you to get to every point on the course. It’s a befuddling, vexing system, and one I was even less of a fan of after the race, when we looked at the tracking and saw we had covered more of the course than all the other short-course teams ranked above us. We felt like the local teams had a distinct advantage in being able to calculate time estimates on their home turf.
Regardless, after sorting everything out, we headed back to the race headquarters to turn in our gear, then went out for a great pasta and pizza dinner on the main pier in Oban, along with our wonderful crew of family members, then headed home to sleep, with a reasonable wake-up call of 7 a.m. to ensure we got to the race start rendezvous with plenty of time to spare.
The house was quiet when I woke up, and I jumped in the shower hoping to catch some hot water, but the hot water heater must have been broken because I didn’t get any. So I was wide awake with no coffee needed by the time everyone else started rolling out of their beds and into the kitchen to prep their breakfasts. We were all dressed in our Strong Machine uniforms and looked and felt good. We hitched a ride in the van courtesy of our chauffeurs Emily and Kate. We got dropped off in downtown Oban and walked out to the pier where we were set to board the ferry out to the Isle of Mull at 10 a.m. Since we arrived at 8:30 a.m., we had time to grab a coffee and chat with the other two U.S. teams in the race, our friends from Rootstock and NYARA. It was fun to have such a large contingent of compatriots, as we’ve often been the only Americans in foreign races and it can feel a bit lonely, but we also knew that both of these teams would be our competition in the race, and we were curious as to whether they had made any decisions regarding course strategy. In particular, we were intrigued as to whether Rootstock would try to go full course (they did try, but ultimately DNFed).
The most difficult part of the pre-race prep was solving the logistical puzzle of having a team gear bag, individual gear bag, two paddle bags, and bike box, and making our best guess on which clothes, food, and equipment we would need at each stage of the race, as not every bag would be at every transition area. After sorting once, twice, and then settling with our third decisions, we turned our collective attention to our route choice, where we faced another difficult set of decisions. ITERA has a unique scoring system, where once you fall off the full course, missed checkpoints don’t cost your team points, but rather count as time penalties, creating a situation where you have to rely on difficult-to-calculate time estimates in choosing the optimal route. Unfortunately, and to our dismay, this year’s course was designed with a lack of good short-course options later in the race, requiring “bubble” teams like ours, which could likely clear the course during good weather and with no snafus, but with little margin for error, to decide whether to go short-course very early on in the race – as early as Stage 2, a long trek through the mountains of the Isle of Mull, where skipping CPs 4 and 5 could save 6 or more hours. However, that decision would then cascade through the rest of the race, requiring us to make judgment calls about the time it will take you to get to every point on the course. It’s a befuddling, vexing system, and one I was even less of a fan of after the race, when we looked at the tracking and saw we had covered more of the course than all the other short-course teams ranked above us. We felt like the local teams had a distinct advantage in being able to calculate time estimates on their home turf.
Regardless, after sorting everything out, we headed back to the race headquarters to turn in our gear, then went out for a great pasta and pizza dinner on the main pier in Oban, along with our wonderful crew of family members, then headed home to sleep, with a reasonable wake-up call of 7 a.m. to ensure we got to the race start rendezvous with plenty of time to spare.
The house was quiet when I woke up, and I jumped in the shower hoping to catch some hot water, but the hot water heater must have been broken because I didn’t get any. So I was wide awake with no coffee needed by the time everyone else started rolling out of their beds and into the kitchen to prep their breakfasts. We were all dressed in our Strong Machine uniforms and looked and felt good. We hitched a ride in the van courtesy of our chauffeurs Emily and Kate. We got dropped off in downtown Oban and walked out to the pier where we were set to board the ferry out to the Isle of Mull at 10 a.m. Since we arrived at 8:30 a.m., we had time to grab a coffee and chat with the other two U.S. teams in the race, our friends from Rootstock and NYARA. It was fun to have such a large contingent of compatriots, as we’ve often been the only Americans in foreign races and it can feel a bit lonely, but we also knew that both of these teams would be our competition in the race, and we were curious as to whether they had made any decisions regarding course strategy. In particular, we were intrigued as to whether Rootstock would try to go full course (they did try, but ultimately DNFed).
A little before 10 a.m., we boarded the ferry and settled down next to Sweco, the elite Swedish team, and enjoyed more food and drinks and the picturesque views of castles on islands and sea and sky while Tom and Kit fiddled with the maps. After disembarking, we had a bit of a wait until our coach buses arrived, then we headed across Mull to our second ferry, a shorter trip to the Isle of Iona, a remote and fairly barren island home to a medieval convent – and the race start. On the bus ride, rain streaked the windows and a sudden dripping on my head triggered an instinctive fear we were in for another famous ITERA soaking, until I realized someone’s water bladder was leaking inside their backpack, which was stored above my head. That problem fixed, the rain agreed to hold off for the most part, and we got off the bus and through the ferry and ended up in the Iona community center, sipping tea and waiting for final instructions before the race was scheduled to start at 1 p.m.
About 10 minutes to race start, the team captains were summoned and we were given the news from an excited James Thurlow that the opening kayak out to Staffa would go ahead as planned. As an avid kayaker, I was thrilled for the rare opportunity to do open-ocean kayaking in an expedition race, and even more so to visit the Staffa cave, which is advertised all around Oban as a tourist destination. But most of all, I was excited that the wind was calm enough to allow us to do the paddle, unlike ITERA Ireland, when each kayak section was shortened due to headwinds and I developed tendonitis in my forearm so severe my tendons literally squeaked for a week after the race when I bent my elbow.
At 1 p.m., we lined up on the ancient street in front of the cloister, had a team hug, shook hands with the other teams around us, and then streamed under the start banner for our five-kilometer running tour of Iona. It took us in a loop around the town, then down a path that led to a spectacular beach, where a fleet of sit-on-tops awaited us. We had decided to pair up myself with Kit and Tom with Evan steering, and we were close to Rootstock for the first 20 minutes of the paddle until they – and four or five other teams – slowly began gapping us. Kit and I continued at an easier pace but were still moving ahead of the other boat, much to their chagrin. They called us back and upon their request, we took a look at their packing situation and saw the problem – the large paddle bag on the stern (we had to carry all our paddle equipment with us) was dragging in the water causing them to list slightly, resulting in steering issues. We corrected that and finally arrived on the slippery rocks of Staffa amidst a pack of crazed racers bursting with early-race energy. Tom steered us to the cave and Rob from Sleepmonsters captured us on video taking a brief moment to appreciate the breathtaking size and quiet inside the cave. Then we turned around and made our way to the high point of the island to collect the other Staffa checkpoint.
At this point, we could see practically every team in the race, with the leaders having taken off from the island as we arrived. We got back to the tight, rocky landing place we had stashed our boats and found only one of them waiting for us. Kit spotted the second floating out to sea, and I quickly launched and thanks to another team pushing it our way, was able to grab the absconding vessel and bring it back to Evan and Tom.
We held our own better on the way back to Mull, though still gave up some ground as we steered a little too far north due to mistaking one island in the far distance for our intended target. This turned out to have an upside, though, as we got very close to a large pod of bottlenose dolphins putting on a show of jumping. Evan and Tom got an extra treat – and a bit of a scare – when a pilot whale breached the water right nearby them.
Eventually we figured out where we needed to go, and Kit made a brave call of portaging directly over the island instead of paddling around, which saved us around 15 minutes. We found the additional checkpoint near an ancient cemetery, which allegedly contained the final resting place of some actual Scottish royalty, and then we finished off the paddle into a calmer bay with a steady cadence and a chat about our plan for the transition and next, long foot stage.
About 10 minutes to race start, the team captains were summoned and we were given the news from an excited James Thurlow that the opening kayak out to Staffa would go ahead as planned. As an avid kayaker, I was thrilled for the rare opportunity to do open-ocean kayaking in an expedition race, and even more so to visit the Staffa cave, which is advertised all around Oban as a tourist destination. But most of all, I was excited that the wind was calm enough to allow us to do the paddle, unlike ITERA Ireland, when each kayak section was shortened due to headwinds and I developed tendonitis in my forearm so severe my tendons literally squeaked for a week after the race when I bent my elbow.
At 1 p.m., we lined up on the ancient street in front of the cloister, had a team hug, shook hands with the other teams around us, and then streamed under the start banner for our five-kilometer running tour of Iona. It took us in a loop around the town, then down a path that led to a spectacular beach, where a fleet of sit-on-tops awaited us. We had decided to pair up myself with Kit and Tom with Evan steering, and we were close to Rootstock for the first 20 minutes of the paddle until they – and four or five other teams – slowly began gapping us. Kit and I continued at an easier pace but were still moving ahead of the other boat, much to their chagrin. They called us back and upon their request, we took a look at their packing situation and saw the problem – the large paddle bag on the stern (we had to carry all our paddle equipment with us) was dragging in the water causing them to list slightly, resulting in steering issues. We corrected that and finally arrived on the slippery rocks of Staffa amidst a pack of crazed racers bursting with early-race energy. Tom steered us to the cave and Rob from Sleepmonsters captured us on video taking a brief moment to appreciate the breathtaking size and quiet inside the cave. Then we turned around and made our way to the high point of the island to collect the other Staffa checkpoint.
At this point, we could see practically every team in the race, with the leaders having taken off from the island as we arrived. We got back to the tight, rocky landing place we had stashed our boats and found only one of them waiting for us. Kit spotted the second floating out to sea, and I quickly launched and thanks to another team pushing it our way, was able to grab the absconding vessel and bring it back to Evan and Tom.
We held our own better on the way back to Mull, though still gave up some ground as we steered a little too far north due to mistaking one island in the far distance for our intended target. This turned out to have an upside, though, as we got very close to a large pod of bottlenose dolphins putting on a show of jumping. Evan and Tom got an extra treat – and a bit of a scare – when a pilot whale breached the water right nearby them.
Eventually we figured out where we needed to go, and Kit made a brave call of portaging directly over the island instead of paddling around, which saved us around 15 minutes. We found the additional checkpoint near an ancient cemetery, which allegedly contained the final resting place of some actual Scottish royalty, and then we finished off the paddle into a calmer bay with a steady cadence and a chat about our plan for the transition and next, long foot stage.
