A couple weekends ago was the Mount Washington Tuckerman Inferno. I was on Team Broads which is made up of great friends and one new one. Our goal this year was to come in 2nd place. The past 2 races we came in 3rd. Taking first every year is Wild Things in the all women’s class. They are a super fast team with high level athletes. Our team was as well ;). What made this year even more interesting is Jeff put together a team called the 5 Stooges. His team had Kim’s husband Jayson, Nicole’s boyfriend Bryan and Diane and Simpson. Jeff and I went head to head in the kayak, Kim and Jayson in the run and Nicole and Bryan in the bike. My brother Mark soloed the event so we had him to fight off also. It was pretty hilarious!
The Inferno is a 8 mile run, 6 mile kayak, 18 mile bike, 3 mile hike, and ski down Tuckermans Ravine. The best part is the race starts at 7am. Not! That was early for our teams when we ate lot’s of pizza, drank beers and if I recall some people were drinking tequila the night before. We do this race for the laughs not the glory!
Team Broads was made up of Kim (run), Nicole (bike), Cynthia (hike), Lauren (ski) and I paddled. The race starts at 7am starting with the run. We thought Jayson would get to the transition before Kim but he didn’t and Kim came in first. Jason was like 20 seconds behind her so the race was on! Jeff was right behind me the entire paddle and Mark my brother who is a monster caught up to us. I had no idea those guys were behind me. We passed like 9 boaters. The Saco River was pretty low. Jeff, Mark and I were all paddling carbon wild water boats so it made low water interesting. I got beat by both of them Mark had me by like 2 minutes (damn) Jeff had like 20 seconds on me. Mark came in 2nd in the kayak, Jeff 4th and I came in 7th overall and 1st in women.
I tagged Nicole and off she went on the bike with Bryan right behind her. They had a pretty rough ride with the wind that day but they managed to survive and made it to the next transition. Cynthia started the hike and it was snow right from the start. I think she wore spikes for traction. She didn’t have to hike up to below the bowl this year. The conditions in the bowl were nasty with crazy winds and ice. Cynthia tagged Lauren at the top of the Sherbourne trail for the ski down. There was still so much snow that the finish line was pretty much in the parking lot.
Team Broads came in 2nd place in the women’s team class and 12th overall. We were all super psyched! Jeff’s team the 5 Stooges came in 16th so we beat them! My brother came in 10th in the solo class.
After the race we destroyed food and beer from the Moat in North Conway, NH. I destroyed a big ass cheeseburger with spicy fries and a couple of stouts. That made the day right there!
It’s such a fun race. It’s pretty awesome when you can do an event like this with your closest friends and family. I’m looking forward to next year.
Till next time,
Elaine Campbell
