If the recent heat wave has you longing for cooler weather, you'll love the
Team HRAdventure race report on the Odyssey race from February 11, 2006. Just looking at the pictures will move your thermostat a few degrees cooler!
We went into this race with the mindset that everything before the first night section was a warm-up -- essentially dismissing the first 12 hours of racing as preamble and something to work through but not get too hung up on. In the weeks leading up to the race, we repeated over and over how "the real race starts at dark." We have experience with winter racing and when darkness falls so do the temperatures and the spirits of most teams; this approach was right on the money for this race and -- while we never could have predicted a blizzard during the event -- we were well-prepared for the cold dark hours from 6 PM to 6 AM. It was a challenge, certainly, but we managed our expectations well and ended up with a good finish despite some big mistakes!