The Perfect Race - Black Beard

After Seven Years of Adventure Racing I have never completed a perfect race.  It’s almost an impossible feat.  That is why we Adventure Race.  The concept of Adventure Racing is making adjustments as new challenges are thrown at you during a race.  The team that wins is the team that goes as fast as possible and makes the fewest mistakes. You cross train by trail running, mountain biking, canoeing, swimming, orienteering, map reading, race strategies, and climbing.  I now have 75 races behind me and one perfect race. 

We have been racing as the Trakkers Adventure Racing team for the last two years and have gained a lot of good experience during that time.  We are fortunate enough to be ranked #1 in the USARA ranking in 2010.  With good results comes national attention and we have gained new sponsors because of our results.  As of last week our team name changed to Remington\Mountain Khakis – Trakkers.  We added two new premier sponsor to the Adventure Racing team.  The Black Beard Adventure Race in Nags Head, North Carolina was to be our first race under our new name.

Remington\Mountain Khakis - Trakkers Adventure Racing team

I was racing in the co-ed division with Veronica Ivey and Greg Voelkel.  Veronica’s is in her 20’s, Greg’s in his 30’s and I’m in my 40’s, so we were representing a 20 year age gap.  The race course was considered a sprint adventure race.  This means the winning team should finish the race in less than eight hours.  The race consisted of an 8 mile beach run to a transition area.  You grabbed your kayaking gear (paddles, pfd, throw ropes, pack and supplies) and then ran 1.5 miles to another beach on the sound to grab a kayak and navigate your way across the bay through an island to a checkpoint 3 miles away as the tide was on its way out.  This is where teams make their first mistake.  Navigating on an island through creeks is almost impossible.  After we crossed the choppy sound and battling the current we hit the island and Greg guided us through the island and we hit the point in first place.  The only other person in front of us was Timm Phillips another one of our teammates who was racing as a soloist for this race.  We made the turn and paddled back to see all of the 150 competitors still paddling out to the checkpoint.  Now we had the lead and we knew where everyone was on the course.  The tide was on its way out so the water was only a few inches deep in some areas.  We had to jump out of the kayaks and push them through the mud.  We were sinking down over 12 inches into the mud as we pushed.  We finally made it back into open water and back to the kayak launch.  We pulled our kayak out of the water and portaged them into the staging area and grabbed, our gear and ran the 1.5 miles back to our bike transition.

Biking along the beach roads

We changed into our biking shoes and tired to wipe off as much mud as possible before we took off on our bikes.  We had an 11 mile flat beach road ride to a park where we needed to hit two more checkpoints on our bike before we started our orienteering course.  The three of us averaged 17.5 miles an hour on our mountain bikes for the ride.  We hit the park and rode our mountain bikes another 5 miles to get the two checkpoints in the park.  At the last checkpoint we were given five more checkpoints to find in the park.  We changed into our running shoes and grabbed our packs and water and hit the trails to find the five different checkpoints.  This is where teams typically slow down because you need to read a map and follow a compass to find your different checkpoints.  Greg laid out a strategy and Veronica and I followed along to hit the points running.   We had two points without any problems and needed to hit the other three points before heading back to the finish line.  We passed the second place team as they we’re receiving their orienteering maps.  We were already two points ahead and if we could hit these points without any problems we could head back to the finish line.  Greg’s navigation was flawless and we hit all three points head on which is almost impossible.  We were now on our way to the finish line.

We transitioned to our bikes and had an 11 mile ride back to the host hotel and then a 250 meter beach dash to the last checkpoint.  We hit the beach road and averaged 21 miles an hour for the full 11 miles back on our bikes.  We dropped our bikes and dashed down the beach to the last checkpoint.  We hit the checkpoint and turned in our passport that verified that we had hit all the 10 mandatory checkpoints and the five orienteering checkpoints.  It was the perfect race.  We didn’t have any injuries, we didn’t get lost, we didn’t break any equipment, and we fueled our bodies for the full race and ran every opportunity we had.  The second place team was 1 hour and 20 minutes behind us and the first soloist was 1 hour and 30 minutes behind us.

The new Adventure Racing team of Remington\Mountain Khakis – Trakkers has won its first race and through our eyes; it was PERFECT… 

Night O training with new gear

Last night Mike, Dennis, and I headed out to Hemlock after dark to do the fixed orienteering course. We were looking to bone up on our night O skills but also try out some new gear that our sponsors had sent us. Mountain Khakis sent us some newly rename  Granite Creek Covertible Pant (Formally Snake River Convertible Pants) and DeFeet sent us some socks. When racing I always wear convertible pants with tri shorts beneath. I find they not only offer the best protection when bushwhacking through heavy undergrowth, but also provide the flexibility of being able to remove the legs in warm weather and not having to increase the load in your pack by too much. In the past I have used both North Face and REI branded convertibles and was keen to see how the Mountain Khakis held up.

DeFeet had also sent us some of their Trail 19 socks. I am a big believer of the new style wool blend socks and was looking forward to testing another brand apart from my standard Smart Wools.

We met at around 10pm and set out to individually clear different sections of the course before meeting back at a central checkpoint. The evening was perfect. It was a warm and clear night, and although there were a few bugs, if I kept moving, they didn’t bother me too much. The wild deer eyes that lit up in the night were sort of creepy at first but were overshadowed by the large number of cobwebs that I kept plowing through. I somehow managed to miss my first checkpoint but fortunately ran into my second point, which was almost on the same bearing. From there I cleared two more points before making my way to the meeting point. I met up with Mike who was on his way to another point and realized we were not quite where we thought we were. After getting to a known good point and reshooting a new bearing to the last point we located the meeting checkpoint. By that time we had been out about two hours and figured Dennis has probably gone back to the cars.

Heading back we met Dennis on the trail. He was sporting his latest fashion accessory, a large snake. That guy is crazy. He found it on the trail and thought we would like to meet it. Check out the picture. 

Back at the cars we reviewed the new gear. The pants were excellent. The evening had been very hot and we had been sweating heavily. My other pants had always tended to cling and become heavy in those conditions but the Granite Convertible had stayed light, did not cling, and did not try to drag themselves off my butt. With lots of pockets for utility items and great performance, I will certainly run my next race in these pants. The DeFeet socks were great too. They were extremely soft, wicked well, and kept my feet dry. Although we probably only trekked a few miles, they felt like they would be great at preventing blisters. It was a fun evening and it is always good to get out in the dark and test navigation skills with good friends.