This past weekends Odyssey One Day Xtreme certainly lived up to it's name. With temperatures at the start registering at a staggering -9 F, it was clear that this race would be no walk in the park. With visions of icicles hanging from brims of hats from last years Checkpoint Zero Adventure Race, I was questioning if I had brought enough clothes, and if I was truly insane. Being there with a crowd of like minded individuals at least assured me that whatever I was, I wasn't alone.

Within 20 minutes of the start, any bladder that had an exposed hose had frozen solid, rendering any liquids trapped behind it undrinkable. One wouldn't think that dehydration would be such a big issue in the cold, but it can be just as bad as those hot days. Thankfully, one of the design features of our Inov-8 packs is to have a back loading bladder, and using that rear access hatch I was able to coil up my frozen bladder hose. Over the course of the race the heat from my back melted the ice and as long as I kept it tucked in there, I didn't have any more freezing issues. Other folks used equaly creative methods, with varying amounts of success. I say numerous water containers underneath jackets, down pants, and who knows where else, trying to keep their contents in a liquid state.

The cold weather was a benefit at times, especially when it came to the 42 million stream crossings we encountered. Not wanting to get wet at all, we stopped at each stream to assess the width, depth, and danger. When we were lucky, there was ice covering the entire creek and we could walk right across. In other instances, we had to jump between ice covered rock, no small feat. I think each of us got our toes wet at least once, but none of us ever fell completely in. One fall like that would have surely been the end of the race.

As we charged through the course, barely keeping warm we ticked off all the CP's and made it back to the main TA. We had a final orienteering course ahead of us, and we weren't particularly thrilled about heading back into the cold, but what can you do? We ended up having a little difficulty on a couple CP's, but we managed to clear the course and make it back before anyone else.

Given the bittersweet finish of the end of last year, to start off with a win felt good. I once again have to thank our sponsors Inov-8 for the great packs and shoes and nuun for the hydration. Hey nuun, if you are looking for a new product, can you figure out a way to make your hydration tablets prevent a bladder from freezing solid in -9 degree weather and still taste good? Being from Georgia we won't need many, but that one or two weeks a year when it gets cold down here it would really help.

-Peter